WEBVTT 00:00:37.040 --> 00:00:39.520 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:40.720 I am Corey J. 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:43.600 Mahler. And I'm still Wo. 00:00:44.880 --> 00:00:45.120 On 00:00:45.120 --> 00:00:49.680 today's Stone Choir, we're going to be discussing end times or eschatology. 00:00:49.680 --> 00:00:52.640 Before we get into the meat of it, Corey has shipped the 00:00:52.640 --> 00:00:56.000 very last of all the pre-orders, all the pending orders. 00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:01.040 If for some reason your charge was rejected, it's because the machine 00:01:01.040 --> 00:01:04.640 is set up very strictly to help us from being exploited and 00:01:04.640 --> 00:01:08.560 banned. So please contact Corey if you have any problems with your 00:01:08.560 --> 00:01:13.840 orders. If you'd like to place an order at shop.stonehyphen choir.com. 00:01:13.840 --> 00:01:14.640 We have plenty more. 00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:16.160 We'll have a couple of year supply. 00:01:16.160 --> 00:01:19.440 So anyone who's interested in supporting the show and getting a a 00:01:19.440 --> 00:01:21.840 really cool challenge coin, they are all there. 00:01:21.840 --> 00:01:22.640 They're numbered. 00:01:22.640 --> 00:01:26.560 They're basically being issued sequentially unless you make a particular request. 00:01:26.560 --> 00:01:29.520 You can guess which numbers are probably already gone with several hundred 00:01:29.520 --> 00:01:32.560 pre-orders out, but you might get lucky if you have a particular 00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:34.000 number in mind. 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:36.160 And thank you to everyone who's supported us with that. 00:01:36.400 --> 00:01:38.480 It means a lot to us that you're excited about it. 00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:39.600 We're excited about it. 00:01:39.600 --> 00:01:43.360 I keep it in my left hand pocket all the time now. 00:01:43.360 --> 00:01:47.520 Today as we're talking about the end times, the reason that we're 00:01:47.520 --> 00:01:51.280 doing it is it's kind of a continuation of the last couple 00:01:51.360 --> 00:01:54.560 episodes where we're talking about the supernatural and about God's action in 00:01:54.560 --> 00:01:54.960 the world. 00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:01.600 And we wanted to specifically focus this week on the prophecies, the 00:02:01.600 --> 00:02:04.880 promises that God has made about the end times. 00:02:04.880 --> 00:02:07.280 Because they're in there, they're in the Bible. 00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:13.440 And they are something that has always fascinated men because they're unclear. 00:02:13.440 --> 00:02:17.120 I've talked many times in the past about the fact that for 00:02:17.120 --> 00:02:20.880 someone to be given a prophecy is a gift from God. 00:02:20.720 --> 00:02:23.920 to be able to interpret prophecy is a gift from God, a 00:02:23.920 --> 00:02:24.640 separate gift. 00:02:24.640 --> 00:02:28.160 Incidentally, to be given a vision is a gift from God. 00:02:28.160 --> 00:02:33.040 To be given the gift of interpreting visions is a separate gift. 00:02:33.040 --> 00:02:35.280 And so as we look today at a few of the visions 00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:40.560 in scripture that were and are prophecies of the end times, it's 00:02:40.560 --> 00:02:44.000 clear from the men who received them, particularly Daniel and John, they 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:45.280 didn't understand them. 00:02:45.600 --> 00:02:49.840 when Daniel and John received their visions, they were terrified. 00:02:49.840 --> 00:02:50.720 They were confused. 00:02:50.720 --> 00:02:51.360 They were bothered. 00:02:51.360 --> 00:02:52.880 They're like, I don't know what it is. 00:02:52.880 --> 00:02:56.400 And so God in both cases had to or the angel had 00:02:56.400 --> 00:03:01.600 to lift them up, encourage them, give them heart, and tell them, 00:03:01.600 --> 00:03:03.120 look, just write this down. 00:03:03.120 --> 00:03:04.240 It's for later. 00:03:04.480 --> 00:03:06.240 you don't need to understand all of it. 00:03:06.240 --> 00:03:09.840 And in both cases, some portions of it were actually interpreted for 00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:11.920 them within their visions. 00:03:11.920 --> 00:03:14.800 And the reason I highlight that here is that 00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:20.000 we shouldn't be uncomfortable with the fact that reading this stuff is 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:22.000 confusing and uncomfortable. 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:24.640 If the very man who received the vision is like, I don't 00:03:24.560 --> 00:03:27.520 know what's going on, it's scary, it's okay for us to have 00:03:27.520 --> 00:03:28.720 the same reaction. 00:03:28.720 --> 00:03:32.080 That doesn't mean that we're bad Christians, that we're they're faithless or 00:03:32.080 --> 00:03:33.360 that we're ignorant. 00:03:33.360 --> 00:03:37.840 We're having the natural reaction to a supernatural revelation. 00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:42.320 And the reason that those promises are given that these visions of 00:03:42.320 --> 00:03:45.440 the future are given is for our edification. 00:03:45.440 --> 00:03:48.240 They're in scripture for a reason. 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:51.360 And one of the key points that we want to make here 00:03:51.360 --> 00:03:54.720 today is that Christ is coming twice. 00:03:55.040 --> 00:03:59.680 The Old Testament is filled with prophecies of Christ's first coming, all 00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:02.880 of which were fulfilled with his coming bodily. 00:04:02.880 --> 00:04:06.960 When Christ, the second person of the Trinity, was incarnate as a 00:04:06.960 --> 00:04:11.280 man, and he lived, he prophesied, he did miracles, he died, he 00:04:11.280 --> 00:04:13.520 was resurrected, and he ascended into heaven. 00:04:13.520 --> 00:04:17.600 That fulfilled all the prophecies about his first coming. 00:04:17.600 --> 00:04:18.000 And so 00:04:18.880 --> 00:04:22.480 what we have in the pages of the New Testament is a 00:04:22.480 --> 00:04:26.160 bunch of believers who were given prophecies that they couldn't understand. 00:04:26.160 --> 00:04:30.800 They were given things about being healed by stripes and a virgin 00:04:30.800 --> 00:04:35.040 giving birth and all this stuff that you could sort of speculate 00:04:35.040 --> 00:04:38.480 about what it might actually mean as an allegory, you know, does 00:04:38.480 --> 00:04:42.160 the thing about stripes mean any sort of equidistant pattern? 00:04:42.160 --> 00:04:45.360 And then when it's actually fulfilled, you're like, okay, no, that's I 00:04:45.360 --> 00:04:47.840 can see very clearly what happened here. 00:04:47.840 --> 00:04:52.320 So the prophecy in the old testament was unclear until it was 00:04:52.320 --> 00:04:54.640 fulfilled, and that became very clear. 00:04:54.640 --> 00:04:57.200 And so by the time we get into the pages of the 00:04:57.200 --> 00:05:03.520 New Testament after the Gospels, after the ascension and Pentecost, with the 00:05:03.520 --> 00:05:08.480 gift of the Holy Spirit, they all understood clearly what those prophecies 00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:11.440 meant and how they were fulfilled because they had been fulfilled. 00:05:11.440 --> 00:05:14.320 And so much of the teaching of the apostles in Acts and 00:05:14.320 --> 00:05:17.280 beyond is saying, look, all these things in the Old Testament that 00:05:17.280 --> 00:05:20.960 were pointing to the Christ in the future, here's how Jesus fulfilled 00:05:20.960 --> 00:05:24.080 those prophecies in very particular ways. 00:05:24.080 --> 00:05:27.040 And much of the New Testament is about saying, look, that which 00:05:27.040 --> 00:05:32.160 was concealed in a prophetic vision, in a prophetic language that wasn't 00:05:32.160 --> 00:05:36.960 easily understood, now is made clear by the coming of Christ. 00:05:37.040 --> 00:05:39.920 There's also a second coming of the very same Christ. 00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:42.480 And the prophecies in the New Testament, and then some in the 00:05:42.480 --> 00:05:46.720 Old Testament about the second coming of Christ are the same way. 00:05:46.720 --> 00:05:49.440 And the reason for doing this episode, and the reason for highlighting 00:05:49.600 --> 00:05:53.200 that there are two comings of Christ is the the prophecies for 00:05:53.200 --> 00:05:57.440 the first coming were fulfilled and they were believed and they had 00:05:57.440 --> 00:06:00.560 to be believed before they were understood so that when they were 00:06:00.560 --> 00:06:03.520 fulfilled, those who witnessed them and say, yep, there was. 00:06:03.520 --> 00:06:05.760 I didn't understand before, but I believed it. 00:06:05.760 --> 00:06:06.880 Now I understand it. 00:06:06.880 --> 00:06:09.360 I see it and I believe it and it all makes sense. 00:06:09.360 --> 00:06:12.400 I know that God has kept his promises. 00:06:12.400 --> 00:06:14.560 The same thing is true of us. 00:06:14.560 --> 00:06:18.960 There are prophecies in the future that have yet to be fulfilled 00:06:19.200 --> 00:06:21.680 that men will see with their own eyes. 00:06:21.680 --> 00:06:25.280 And things which are inescrutable today, as we're sitting here without a 00:06:25.280 --> 00:06:29.200 prophet to explain them, without someone to interpret those visions. 00:06:29.440 --> 00:06:34.240 Absent some direct revelation, the best we can do is speculate. 00:06:34.240 --> 00:06:39.200 However, when those events occur as they are promised by God to 00:06:39.200 --> 00:06:40.400 occur, that's important. 00:06:40.640 --> 00:06:44.960 The prophecy of the future is not just like we use prophecy, 00:06:44.960 --> 00:06:47.760 like it's a special term for a thing, but fundamentally it just 00:06:47.760 --> 00:06:51.200 means God has made a promise that has yet to be fulfilled. 00:06:51.200 --> 00:06:54.320 And a mark of a true prophet is that if someone says 00:06:54.320 --> 00:06:57.040 I'm here and I'm a prophet from God and I have new 00:06:57.040 --> 00:07:00.080 revelations for you, they can never be wrong or they're a false 00:07:00.080 --> 00:07:02.240 prophet. Can't get a single thing wrong. 00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:06.480 Because to speak in God's voice is to say that you are 00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:08.880 giving something that is infallible. 00:07:08.880 --> 00:07:13.440 So every false prophet who's ever come along has spread lies because 00:07:13.440 --> 00:07:14.560 they're not infallible. 00:07:14.560 --> 00:07:15.360 They're evil. 00:07:15.360 --> 00:07:18.080 They're antichrist, in fact. 00:07:18.080 --> 00:07:21.760 When these things are actually fulfilled in time, whether it's in our 00:07:21.760 --> 00:07:25.600 lifetimes or in this century or this millennium or 10,000 years from 00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:31.600 now, on whatever days the final prophecies occur in real life as 00:07:31.600 --> 00:07:32.800 they're prophesied to, 00:07:33.840 --> 00:07:37.200 believers who remember the promises of God will be able to look 00:07:37.200 --> 00:07:38.800 at those things and say, Yep, there it is. 00:07:38.800 --> 00:07:41.120 I didn't know what that meant before, but I can see it 00:07:41.120 --> 00:07:42.480 with my own eyes. 00:07:42.480 --> 00:07:46.080 And so the reason for us talking about it today is that 00:07:46.240 --> 00:07:48.560 it's not that this sort of thing is the meat of the 00:07:48.560 --> 00:07:49.680 Christian faith. 00:07:49.680 --> 00:07:53.520 And unfortunately, people seem to fall off of one of two sides 00:07:53.520 --> 00:07:54.720 of this horse. 00:07:54.720 --> 00:07:58.560 Either they go nuts by saying, okay, well, there's a bunch of 00:07:58.560 --> 00:08:01.680 prophecies and it's really weird and really interesting and I'm going to 00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:05.600 concoct this elaborate scheme so I'd say that I understand it clearly. 00:08:05.600 --> 00:08:07.040 We don't understand anything. 00:08:07.040 --> 00:08:07.680 It's a vision. 00:08:07.680 --> 00:08:10.640 It's no less confusing to us than it was to Daniel and 00:08:10.640 --> 00:08:14.880 to John and to the others who were given these visions. 00:08:14.880 --> 00:08:17.520 But at the same time, they're promises of God, which means that 00:08:17.520 --> 00:08:21.280 they're true even when they're inexplicable to us. 00:08:21.280 --> 00:08:25.200 Either most people today will look at these things and say, well, 00:08:25.200 --> 00:08:28.720 I yeah, I'm gonna narrow this down and say it's Apache helicopters 00:08:28.800 --> 00:08:31.600 and on CNN that's the scorpions or whatever. 00:08:31.600 --> 00:08:33.920 I don't remember how they correlate those things. 00:08:33.920 --> 00:08:36.800 There's some wackos you can find that try to do that. 00:08:36.800 --> 00:08:40.960 And And although I call them wackos and it's entirely apt to 00:08:40.960 --> 00:08:45.280 say that because they're making things up, the problem is that there's 00:08:45.280 --> 00:08:48.640 a part of the spirit of doing that that we shouldn't condemn. 00:08:48.640 --> 00:08:51.200 And that's the other side of the horse that most people fall 00:08:51.200 --> 00:08:54.960 off of is that because there are some people who see these 00:08:54.960 --> 00:08:58.400 prophecies that are inexplicable and they say, Okay, this is a promise 00:08:58.400 --> 00:08:59.120 from God. 00:08:59.120 --> 00:09:01.520 Let me try to find it in the newspaper, let me try 00:09:01.520 --> 00:09:04.240 to find it in my life and make this thing in the 00:09:04.240 --> 00:09:05.760 Bible about me. 00:09:05.760 --> 00:09:07.360 It's not a great place to be. 00:09:07.360 --> 00:09:10.960 It's not completely wrong because these are prophecies that are given to 00:09:10.960 --> 00:09:11.600 the church. 00:09:11.600 --> 00:09:12.960 They're given to mankind. 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:14.560 They will be fulfilled someday. 00:09:14.560 --> 00:09:17.520 And we're always to look to see if they're being fulfilled in 00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:18.560 our day. 00:09:18.560 --> 00:09:20.960 That's one of the very clear admissions from God. 00:09:20.960 --> 00:09:23.200 The other side of the horse that most people fall off of 00:09:23.200 --> 00:09:26.240 is say, well, I can't understand any of this and a lot 00:09:26.240 --> 00:09:28.880 of people have made fools of themselves in the past, so I'm 00:09:28.880 --> 00:09:31.120 just gonna not believe any of it. 00:09:31.120 --> 00:09:35.600 And one of the particular modern ways that that has occurred is 00:09:35.600 --> 00:09:37.600 the people become Judaizing heretics. 00:09:37.600 --> 00:09:41.760 And I say, well, ow actually all those prophecies were already fulfilled 00:09:41.760 --> 00:09:42.560 in the Bible. 00:09:42.560 --> 00:09:45.440 Everything that we read about end times in the New Testament that 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:49.440 was fulfilled by AD 70, which is false, and we'll demonstrate today 00:09:49.440 --> 00:09:52.640 that that is provably false from the pages of scripture. 00:09:52.640 --> 00:09:56.640 But just as important, that's Judaizing. 00:09:56.640 --> 00:10:00.880 It's taking the New Testament, it's taking our scripture and saying, well, 00:10:00.880 --> 00:10:02.000 actually, that's about the Jews. 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:03.520 That's not about us at all. 00:10:03.520 --> 00:10:04.800 What are you left with? 00:10:04.800 --> 00:10:07.600 You're left with pages of scripture that have no promises for us 00:10:07.680 --> 00:10:11.120 beyond I guess the resurrection of the dead and forgiveness of sins, 00:10:11.120 --> 00:10:15.280 you know like the the metaphysical stuff, the the conceptual feel-good stuff, 00:10:15.280 --> 00:10:18.640 the important stuff, but you're not left with any concrete promises that 00:10:18.640 --> 00:10:20.640 God's gonna do this, that, and the other thing. 00:10:20.640 --> 00:10:22.080 That's false. 00:10:22.080 --> 00:10:26.240 Those promises were given for a purpose and we are included in 00:10:26.240 --> 00:10:27.200 that purpose. 00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:32.720 And so while we don't want eschatology and looking at signs to 00:10:32.720 --> 00:10:36.720 be something that people spend all the time thinking about as you're 00:10:36.720 --> 00:10:41.280 reading through scripture and you stumble across these these prophecies over and 00:10:41.280 --> 00:10:46.000 over again in numerous books, you know, you can avoid revelation entirely. 00:10:46.160 --> 00:10:50.560 And you're still constantly going to be coming across end times prophecies. 00:10:50.560 --> 00:10:52.640 That's because God thinks it's important. 00:10:52.640 --> 00:10:54.480 He's letting us know it's important. 00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:58.640 And so when you come across those, don't skip past them. 00:10:58.640 --> 00:11:00.160 Don't say, well, this isn't about me. 00:11:00.160 --> 00:11:02.320 That was already taken care of, so I don't need to worry 00:11:02.320 --> 00:11:03.520 about any of it. 00:11:03.520 --> 00:11:08.320 We should believe and we should ask God to help us understand. 00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:10.000 And it's going to be in that order. 00:11:10.160 --> 00:11:12.640 This is one of the places where I think the Lutheran approach 00:11:12.640 --> 00:11:14.560 to a lot of these things works better than some of the 00:11:14.560 --> 00:11:16.560 others because it's a mystery. 00:11:16.560 --> 00:11:18.160 I we can't figure it out. 00:11:18.160 --> 00:11:21.360 There's no one to explain it to us, and that's okay. 00:11:21.360 --> 00:11:25.360 We're allowed to and we're commanded to believe it even even without 00:11:25.360 --> 00:11:26.320 understanding it. 00:11:26.320 --> 00:11:29.680 And if belief means nothing more than I'm gonna remember that thing 00:11:29.760 --> 00:11:33.440 and then later on, if I see something actually happen in the 00:11:33.440 --> 00:11:37.680 material world that very clearly correlates, I should say, yeah, I think 00:11:37.680 --> 00:11:40.560 this is that promise of God being fulfilled. 00:11:40.560 --> 00:11:43.120 So that's the fundamental point of this episode. 00:11:43.120 --> 00:11:46.480 Don't skip past and ignore the parts of the of scripture that 00:11:46.480 --> 00:11:49.920 are confusing to us because they were confusing in the Old Testament, 00:11:49.920 --> 00:11:53.680 the prophecies of the first coming, they didn't understand. 00:11:53.680 --> 00:11:58.560 As you look at how, particularly after Pentecost, the apostles pointed back 00:11:58.560 --> 00:12:01.600 to all the prophecies of the Old Testament and showed over and 00:12:01.600 --> 00:12:03.920 over here's how Christ fulfilled them. 00:12:03.920 --> 00:12:09.600 The only way that that argument worked was because the believers remembered 00:12:09.600 --> 00:12:13.840 and respected that all of those promises, all those prophecies that didn't 00:12:13.760 --> 00:12:16.320 make sense before, now could make sense. 00:12:16.320 --> 00:12:19.280 If you don't believe that they matter, then you're not going to 00:12:19.280 --> 00:12:20.720 be able to receive Christ. 00:12:20.880 --> 00:12:23.360 They would have not received the first coming of Christ, and many 00:12:23.360 --> 00:12:26.560 of them didn't, and we would not be able to receive the 00:12:26.560 --> 00:12:28.720 second coming of Christ when He comes. 00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:32.000 Again, it doesn't matter if it's this decade, if it's in our 00:12:32.000 --> 00:12:34.400 lifetimes, if it's in the next thousand years. 00:12:34.400 --> 00:12:36.640 The point is not precisely when. 00:12:36.640 --> 00:12:39.520 The point is that every Christian has a duty to know these 00:12:39.520 --> 00:12:41.280 things and to just keep watch. 00:12:41.280 --> 00:12:42.480 That's all God says to do. 00:12:42.480 --> 00:12:43.280 Just keep watch. 00:12:43.280 --> 00:12:47.760 And you can't do that if you don't believe that these promises 00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:51.040 are true, that they're from God and that they're intended for us 00:12:51.200 --> 00:12:52.480 as well. 00:12:53.120 --> 00:12:53.360 A 00:12:53.360 --> 00:13:00.160 fundamentally important point when dealing with prophecy is that even though prophecy 00:13:00.160 --> 00:13:04.240 applies to creation generally, in most cases, not in all cases, but 00:13:04.240 --> 00:13:08.320 in most cases, prophecy is for the church. 00:13:08.320 --> 00:13:10.800 It is for believers. 00:13:10.800 --> 00:13:16.880 Of course, part of that is not quite tautological, but believers are 00:13:16.880 --> 00:13:19.760 those who believe in the prophecies, and the prophecies are for those 00:13:19.760 --> 00:13:20.880 who believe. 00:13:20.880 --> 00:13:23.040 But revelation is a good example of this. 00:13:23.040 --> 00:13:26.320 Revelation is written to and for the church. 00:13:26.320 --> 00:13:29.280 For those outside of the church, the book is going to have 00:13:29.280 --> 00:13:30.880 very little meaning. 00:13:30.880 --> 00:13:34.160 In fact, it's going to seem quite crazy in some places some 00:13:34.160 --> 00:13:37.920 of the descriptions in that book Of course it's an apocalypse, and 00:13:37.920 --> 00:13:43.040 it is apocalyptic, in both senses in this case. 00:13:43.040 --> 00:13:46.160 But the book is written fundamentally to Christians. 00:13:46.160 --> 00:13:49.920 The same thing is true of the various prophecies throughout Scripture, particularly 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:52.640 with regard to the end times. 00:13:52.640 --> 00:13:56.320 These things are written to make us aware of what is coming 00:13:56.400 --> 00:14:00.160 in so far as we can understand them, and also to provide 00:14:00.160 --> 00:14:04.640 comfort, because these are promises of God, and we have to take 00:14:04.640 --> 00:14:06.720 them with the other promises of God as well. 00:14:06.720 --> 00:14:10.800 He has promised to keep his church until the end, to preserve 00:14:10.800 --> 00:14:16.400 believers. That doesn't mean that the church will be preserved as big 00:14:16.400 --> 00:14:19.600 as it is today, or as big as it was at its 00:14:19.600 --> 00:14:23.440 height, for instance, because certainly we have seen a fall of the 00:14:23.440 --> 00:14:26.960 church from the height of Christendom to where we are today, but 00:14:26.960 --> 00:14:29.680 it does mean that God will preserve the church to the end. 00:14:29.680 --> 00:14:32.400 He in fact says that he will cut short the days of 00:14:32.400 --> 00:14:35.360 tribulation in order to preserve the elect. 00:14:35.360 --> 00:14:38.320 That's how bad things are going to get. 00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:40.480 Which raises another point. 00:14:41.120 --> 00:14:44.880 Those who would tell you that things are going to just keep 00:14:44.880 --> 00:14:46.880 getting better, that 00:14:47.840 --> 00:14:52.080 until the end we will continue to see sort of an uphill, 00:14:52.080 --> 00:14:56.480 an upward trend, things will get better, and then Christ will return. 00:14:56.480 --> 00:14:58.720 Those men are liars. 00:14:58.720 --> 00:15:01.440 That should not be sugar coated, it should not be put another 00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:05.680 way. They are liars, because that is not what Scripture says. 00:15:05.680 --> 00:15:10.720 Scripture very clearly says that things will continue to get worse. 00:15:10.720 --> 00:15:14.240 Now that does not mean that things will only get worse. 00:15:14.240 --> 00:15:17.440 It means that things will get worse near the end. 00:15:17.440 --> 00:15:20.800 Things today are certainly getting worse. 00:15:20.800 --> 00:15:24.080 So could this be the beginning of the end? 00:15:24.080 --> 00:15:28.240 Yes. Could it be not the beginning of the end? 00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:29.440 Also, yes. 00:15:29.440 --> 00:15:33.680 The reason for that is related to one of the ways in 00:15:33.680 --> 00:15:39.840 which prophecy is fulfilled, but in a specific way in this case. 00:15:39.840 --> 00:15:42.960 Things are going to get worse at the end. 00:15:42.960 --> 00:15:46.480 Just because things are getting worse today does not mean this is 00:15:46.480 --> 00:15:49.680 the end because of course things could get worse now, and in 00:15:49.680 --> 00:15:53.760 ten years, twenty years, forty years, get better, and then get worse 00:15:53.760 --> 00:15:56.400 again at some future point. 00:15:56.400 --> 00:16:00.240 The point to take away is that things at the end will 00:16:00.240 --> 00:16:00.880 get worse. 00:16:00.880 --> 00:16:03.920 They are not going to get better and then Christ returns. 00:16:03.920 --> 00:16:05.360 They are going to get worse. 00:16:05.360 --> 00:16:09.920 There is a period of tribulation, and then Christ returns. 00:16:09.920 --> 00:16:14.800 How that is related to the fulfillment of prophecy throughout Scripture, many 00:16:14.800 --> 00:16:19.760 prophecies, is that the fulfillment is often cyclical, in a sense. 00:16:19.760 --> 00:16:24.000 There will be a minor fulfillment, and then perhaps another minor fulfillment, 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:26.960 and you'll see a number of these throughout scripture, and then there's 00:16:26.880 --> 00:16:29.440 the ultimate fulfillment. 00:16:29.440 --> 00:16:31.760 This is related of course to typology. 00:16:31.760 --> 00:16:35.520 We could look at the various types of Christ in the Old 00:16:35.520 --> 00:16:40.080 Testament, and then of course Christ himself, the anti type, the full 00:16:40.080 --> 00:16:44.800 fulfillment of all of the prophecies, because David was a type of 00:16:44.800 --> 00:16:51.440 Christ. He delivered his people, he fulfilled some of the requirements, he 00:16:51.600 --> 00:16:56.960 performed some of the duties of the ultimate Christ, of Jesus Christ, 00:16:56.960 --> 00:16:58.640 but not all of them. 00:16:58.640 --> 00:17:02.160 He was not so much an imperfect fulfillment, although of course he 00:17:02.160 --> 00:17:06.880 was an imperfect man, as he was a typological fulfillment. 00:17:06.880 --> 00:17:09.680 And we see that with many scriptures, and we see that with 00:17:09.680 --> 00:17:12.080 many prophecies particularly. 00:17:12.080 --> 00:17:16.080 So when someone points out that well, this is the fulfillment of 00:17:16.080 --> 00:17:19.840 that prophecy, that's almost always incorrect. 00:17:19.840 --> 00:17:23.440 Because if you are limiting it, if you mean to limit it 00:17:23.440 --> 00:17:28.640 by your words, to one fulfillment, that's probably not a correct interpretation 00:17:29.360 --> 00:17:32.880 of the prophecy, because there are probably multiple fulfillments. 00:17:32.880 --> 00:17:34.800 Yes, there's an ultimate one. 00:17:34.800 --> 00:17:36.720 There's one that is more meaningful. 00:17:36.720 --> 00:17:38.880 It stands above all the others. 00:17:38.880 --> 00:17:42.240 But it is not the sole fulfillment. 00:17:42.240 --> 00:17:46.080 We see this in particular with regard to the end times, because 00:17:46.080 --> 00:17:49.200 there are those who will try to argue for full preterism. 00:17:49.200 --> 00:17:52.960 They'll try to argue that the prophecies have already been fulfilled in 00:17:52.960 --> 00:17:55.600 the past and so they no longer apply to us. 00:17:55.600 --> 00:17:56.560 That's irrelevant. 00:17:56.560 --> 00:17:59.760 It's in scripture, it's true, but it already happened. 00:17:59.760 --> 00:18:03.040 So they view it sort of as the historical books of the 00:18:03.040 --> 00:18:06.880 Pentateuch. Those are events that already happened. 00:18:06.880 --> 00:18:11.600 They're true, they're historical, we're not looking forward to them, except for 00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:14.960 of course some of the prophecies and promises contained in those books, 00:18:14.960 --> 00:18:16.960 but the events themselves already happened. 00:18:16.960 --> 00:18:19.600 Some will try to argue that with regard to the end times 00:18:20.160 --> 00:18:22.480 prophecies in various books in scripture. 00:18:22.480 --> 00:18:24.560 And that's simply not true. 00:18:24.560 --> 00:18:29.760 Just because there was some typological fulfillment, say under Nero, for instance, 00:18:29.760 --> 00:18:32.640 I don't think that either of us would argue that you didn't 00:18:32.560 --> 00:18:37.280 have some typological fulfillment of end times prophecies under certain of the 00:18:37.280 --> 00:18:39.200 Roman Emperors. 00:18:39.200 --> 00:18:42.880 It does not mean that those were the ultimate fulfillment of those 00:18:42.880 --> 00:18:48.560 prophecies. Many of the prophecies remain unfulfilled because we are not right 00:18:48.560 --> 00:18:50.560 now at the end of the end times. 00:18:50.560 --> 00:18:52.160 We can say that for certain. 00:18:52.160 --> 00:18:54.480 We can't say for certain we aren't at the beginning of the 00:18:54.480 --> 00:18:58.320 end times, but we can say that there are unfulfilled signs that 00:18:58.320 --> 00:19:02.080 we That we have not reached that final end stage, and so 00:19:02.080 --> 00:19:05.680 we can most certainly say that of historical fulfillments of some of 00:19:05.680 --> 00:19:07.120 those prophecies. 00:19:07.120 --> 00:19:11.120 They were partial, they were typological, but they were not the ultimate 00:19:11.120 --> 00:19:16.560 fulfillment. And so when you look at prophecies, it's important to recognize 00:19:16.560 --> 00:19:18.560 there may be multiple fulfillments. 00:19:18.560 --> 00:19:23.200 You're not necessarily looking for one single fulfillment, whether in history or 00:19:23.200 --> 00:19:24.240 in the future. 00:19:24.240 --> 00:19:28.640 And as Wo mentioned, many of these prophecies are going to be 00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:33.920 outside of the capacity of anyone listening to this to fully understand. 00:19:33.920 --> 00:19:38.080 Because it's very unlikely that God has given anyone listening right now 00:19:39.840 --> 00:19:44.640 a full enough, a strong enough, a deep enough gift of interpretation 00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:51.120 to interpret fully and completely, say, Revelation or Daniel or Ezekiel. 00:19:51.200 --> 00:19:54.720 There will be things that we can understand, and things that will 00:19:54.720 --> 00:19:58.080 remain a mystery, and that's fine. 00:19:58.080 --> 00:19:59.840 God is infinite, we're finite. 00:19:59.840 --> 00:20:02.800 We should be comfortable with the idea that there is going to 00:20:02.800 --> 00:20:03.680 be mystery. 00:20:03.680 --> 00:20:07.600 There are going to be things we cannot fully understand, that shouldn't 00:20:07.600 --> 00:20:12.400 worry us, that shouldn't concern us in a negative sense, because God 00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:15.280 promises that all things will work together for the good of the 00:20:15.280 --> 00:20:20.160 elect. Just because we do not understand does not mean that God 00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:21.120 does not understand. 00:20:21.120 --> 00:20:23.680 Obviously, God understands all things. 00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:25.360 He is the one who's in control. 00:20:25.360 --> 00:20:28.160 He is the one who has written these words to us. 00:20:28.160 --> 00:20:32.080 We read them, understand them as best we can, given the gifts 00:20:32.080 --> 00:20:34.640 that He has given us, and then the rest of it we 00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:36.320 just accept. 00:20:36.320 --> 00:20:41.200 I do not have to understand every single verse of Scripture, in 00:20:41.200 --> 00:20:45.280 order to believe in the promises of God, in order to believe 00:20:45.280 --> 00:20:48.480 that God will work all things for the good, in order to 00:20:48.480 --> 00:20:50.400 believe that Scripture is true. 00:20:50.400 --> 00:20:52.320 I understand much of Scripture. 00:20:52.320 --> 00:20:53.840 I don't understand all of it. 00:20:53.840 --> 00:20:58.400 There are verses that remain a mystery, but I read them, I 00:20:58.400 --> 00:21:01.600 understand them in so far as I can understand the words I 00:21:01.600 --> 00:21:04.800 am reading, and I accept them as true. 00:21:04.800 --> 00:21:08.160 At some point God will explain them to me, or if God 00:21:08.160 --> 00:21:10.880 never explains them to me, then that doesn't matter. 00:21:10.880 --> 00:21:13.360 Then it's something reserved for Him. 00:21:13.360 --> 00:21:17.840 In either case, as a Christian, I am comfortable with that outcome. 00:21:17.840 --> 00:21:21.760 Just because something is in Scripture does not mean we have to 00:21:21.760 --> 00:21:24.160 obsess over understanding it. 00:21:24.160 --> 00:21:27.520 There are things that have been given us to understand and things 00:21:27.520 --> 00:21:30.000 that have not been given us to understand. 00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.240 So we may not understand every single verse in Revelation, or every 00:21:34.240 --> 00:21:38.960 single verse in Daniel, some of the prophecies are difficult to interpret. 00:21:38.960 --> 00:21:42.960 That's fine, and we have to be comfortable with that. 00:21:42.960 --> 00:21:49.280 Quite frankly, one of the dangers in dealing with eschatology, in dealing 00:21:49.280 --> 00:21:53.360 with these books and prophecies of the end times, is that some 00:21:53.360 --> 00:21:55.440 get obsessed with it. 00:21:55.440 --> 00:21:58.080 This is not the core of the Christian faith. 00:21:58.080 --> 00:22:01.200 This is not something over which to obsess. 00:22:01.200 --> 00:22:04.560 There are more important books in Scripture. 00:22:04.560 --> 00:22:09.520 If you are reading only Revelation, you are making a grave mistake. 00:22:09.520 --> 00:22:13.680 You should be reading other parts of Scripture more and more often 00:22:13.840 --> 00:22:17.280 than you are reading, say Daniel or Revelation. 00:22:17.280 --> 00:22:21.120 That's not to say the books are unimportant, because of course they 00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:24.240 flow from the mouth of God, they flow from the mind of 00:22:24.240 --> 00:22:27.760 God. All of it is true, all of it is important. 00:22:27.760 --> 00:22:31.440 But even Scripture speaks of certain parts of Scripture being more important 00:22:31.440 --> 00:22:32.400 than others. 00:22:32.400 --> 00:22:34.480 And obviously that's the case. 00:22:34.480 --> 00:22:38.400 The parts that clearly teach us about Christ and the gospel are 00:22:38.400 --> 00:22:41.920 more important than mere recounting of history. 00:22:41.920 --> 00:22:44.800 One is a matter of your eternal soul. 00:22:44.800 --> 00:22:49.520 The other is true, and God has included it for edification, but 00:22:49.520 --> 00:22:51.840 it is not as important as the gospel. 00:22:51.840 --> 00:22:55.280 The same sort of thing is true with regard to end times 00:22:55.360 --> 00:22:57.280 prophecies and related matters. 00:22:57.280 --> 00:22:59.920 There are more important things in Scripture. 00:22:59.920 --> 00:23:04.640 We are doing the episode because it's important to understand 00:23:05.920 --> 00:23:10.000 how these play into the Christian life, the place these things have 00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:13.680 in the Christian life, and also to refute some of the heresies 00:23:13.680 --> 00:23:17.520 that have arisen in the church with regard to abusing these parts 00:23:17.520 --> 00:23:18.560 of Scripture. 00:23:18.560 --> 00:23:22.400 We're not minimizing their importance, but we're also not going to overstate 00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:27.040 them. Because becoming obsessed with them is a problem historically in the 00:23:27.040 --> 00:23:29.840 church and even much more so today. 00:23:29.840 --> 00:23:34.160 Because as well already said, you see plenty of Judaizing and other 00:23:34.160 --> 00:23:39.520 problems in the church that rely on eisegesis of these passages, of 00:23:39.520 --> 00:23:41.520 these parts of scripture. 00:23:41.520 --> 00:23:45.360 And just as a general rule, if someone is building his theology, 00:23:45.360 --> 00:23:49.360 is building his argument out of parts of scripture that are very 00:23:49.360 --> 00:23:54.560 difficult to exegete, out of parts of scripture, that are mysterious, that 00:23:54.560 --> 00:23:57.200 are perhaps even impossible to fully understand Understand 00:23:58.080 --> 00:24:01.200 that man is at least doing something that is unwise, and in 00:24:01.200 --> 00:24:04.640 many cases he is deliberately attempting to mislead you. 00:24:04.640 --> 00:24:07.280 And so as a Christian you must be on your guard with 00:24:07.360 --> 00:24:09.280 regard to these matters. 00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:10.160 So 00:24:10.240 --> 00:24:13.440 just a couple last framing verses before we get into the meat 00:24:13.440 --> 00:24:14.240 of these things. 00:24:14.240 --> 00:24:17.040 And the reason that we're spending so much time on framing is 00:24:17.040 --> 00:24:20.080 that it's really important not to run off the rails with this 00:24:20.080 --> 00:24:22.880 stuff, but it's also really important not to reject it. 00:24:22.880 --> 00:24:26.400 We know that we are all treading a fine line here by 00:24:26.400 --> 00:24:30.640 delving into things that, as Cory said, have historically been the subject 00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:34.080 of tremendous heresies, of nonsense, of cults. 00:24:34.080 --> 00:24:39.040 It's very common for cults to arise around false interpretations driven by 00:24:39.040 --> 00:24:41.040 antichrists of end times things. 00:24:41.040 --> 00:24:45.600 So to begin, one specific passage, this is from Acts 1. 00:24:45.600 --> 00:24:48.800 This is basically the Luke's continuation of the end of the Gospel 00:24:48.800 --> 00:24:51.280 of Luke is written. 00:24:51.520 --> 00:24:55.120 So when they had come together they asked him, Jesus, Lord, will 00:24:55.280 --> 00:24:57.600 you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? 00:24:57.600 --> 00:25:00.080 He said to them, It is not for you to know times 00:25:00.080 --> 00:25:03.680 or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 00:25:03.680 --> 00:25:06.560 But you will receive power when the Holy Ghost has come upon 00:25:06.560 --> 00:25:09.440 you, and you will be my witnesses in in Jerusalem and in 00:25:09.440 --> 00:25:15.280 Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. 00:25:15.280 --> 00:25:17.680 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, 00:25:17.680 --> 00:25:20.160 he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their 00:25:20.160 --> 00:25:23.600 sight, and while their gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two 00:25:23.840 --> 00:25:27.520 end stood with them in white robes and said, Men of Galilee, 00:25:27.520 --> 00:25:29.360 why do you stand looking into heaven? 00:25:29.360 --> 00:25:32.800 This Jesus who has taken up from you into heaven will come 00:25:32.800 --> 00:25:36.320 in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. 00:25:36.320 --> 00:25:40.000 So I want you to keep in mind the words of those 00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:43.360 two angels that appeared to the disciples as they're looking up at 00:25:43.360 --> 00:25:44.880 Jesus ascending into heaven. 00:25:44.880 --> 00:25:47.600 They just asked him, Lord, are you here to complete your kingdom? 00:25:47.600 --> 00:25:51.120 Which is, you know, part of the the millenarian teresy that we'll 00:25:51.120 --> 00:25:52.960 get into here in here in a minute. 00:25:52.960 --> 00:25:55.440 And he says, Go preach the gospel. 00:25:55.440 --> 00:25:57.360 And then he vanishes before their eyes. 00:25:57.760 --> 00:26:00.800 And the angels come and say, Why are you guys standing around 00:26:00.880 --> 00:26:02.800 gawking up in the sky? 00:26:02.800 --> 00:26:04.480 Go do what he said to do. 00:26:04.480 --> 00:26:07.360 And so this is our message to everyone listening today. 00:26:07.360 --> 00:26:10.000 This is not about gawking at the sky. 00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:13.520 This is not about staying glued to TikTok or wherever you're getting 00:26:13.520 --> 00:26:14.880 your news. 00:26:14.880 --> 00:26:20.960 Wherever you're finding out what the latest breaking international, global, whatever is. 00:26:20.960 --> 00:26:23.200 You should not be looking at that and saying, okay, I got 00:26:23.280 --> 00:26:24.320 to find that in the Bible. 00:26:24.320 --> 00:26:25.520 We're not encouraging that. 00:26:25.520 --> 00:26:26.640 We don't do that. 00:26:26.640 --> 00:26:30.160 It's not good for anyone. 00:26:30.160 --> 00:26:34.160 The focus that Jesus gives the apostles in particular is they were 00:26:34.160 --> 00:26:37.600 being sent out for the Great Commission, and something that the church 00:26:37.600 --> 00:26:43.360 has since fulfilled and some would argue completed, I think probably truly 00:26:44.320 --> 00:26:47.440 the command to take the gospel to the end of the earth 00:26:47.760 --> 00:26:51.600 is it's in fact an eschatological command. 00:26:51.600 --> 00:26:55.440 End of the earth there, the actual Greek word is eschatos. 00:26:55.440 --> 00:26:59.840 It means the last, furthest, uttermost, extreme, or r most remote in 00:26:59.840 --> 00:27:01.760 either space, time or degree. 00:27:01.760 --> 00:27:05.840 So it is truly the end of all things in terms of 00:27:05.840 --> 00:27:07.520 space, time, whatever. 00:27:07.520 --> 00:27:11.840 And so when we're talking about eschatology, there's a there's a connection 00:27:12.480 --> 00:27:17.440 between the spread of the gospel everywhere and the fulfillment of all 00:27:17.440 --> 00:27:20.880 of God's promises in the world. 00:27:23.360 --> 00:27:26.880 Two passages that I want to emphasize something that Corey was saying 00:27:26.880 --> 00:27:32.080 a minute ago about the gospel and contrasting this sort of somewhat 00:27:32.080 --> 00:27:37.200 peripheral theology in contrast to the beating heart of the Christian faith. 00:27:37.600 --> 00:27:39.760 I want to make a key point that we've made before, but 00:27:39.760 --> 00:27:41.120 it's a crucial one. 00:27:41.120 --> 00:27:45.200 There are two different definitions of gospel, and both are true. 00:27:45.200 --> 00:27:50.560 There is the narrower Protestant definition of gospel in contrast to law, 00:27:50.560 --> 00:27:54.560 where gospel is How we are saved, how God saves us. 00:27:54.560 --> 00:27:58.720 You know, John 3:16 is the heart of the gospel. 00:27:58.720 --> 00:28:00.480 That's absolutely true. 00:28:00.480 --> 00:28:03.040 Not one man can save himself. 00:28:03.040 --> 00:28:05.840 We can't do anything to make God look at us and say, 00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:07.520 wow, that guy's really great. 00:28:07.520 --> 00:28:09.200 I'm gonna elevate him. 00:28:09.200 --> 00:28:12.080 The only thing that God sees when he looks at us are 00:28:12.080 --> 00:28:14.560 filthy rags from our wickedness. 00:28:14.560 --> 00:28:17.760 While we were yet enemies of God, he loved us so much, 00:28:17.760 --> 00:28:21.200 in spite of that disgusting state that He sent His only Son 00:28:21.200 --> 00:28:22.960 to die for us on the cross. 00:28:22.960 --> 00:28:27.520 And by adoption as sons of God we become co-heirs of eternal 00:28:27.520 --> 00:28:29.520 life and of forgiveness with Christ. 00:28:30.560 --> 00:28:33.680 And so our robes are washed white in the blood of the 00:28:33.680 --> 00:28:36.560 Lamb. All those are things that God promises us. 00:28:36.560 --> 00:28:38.000 And that is the gospel. 00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:41.840 While we were enemies, we were made sons of God through his 00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:44.000 grace. And that is the gospel promised. 00:28:44.640 --> 00:28:51.920 And that is the essential, overarching theme of Christianity: that we didn't 00:28:51.840 --> 00:28:52.400 deserve it. 00:28:52.400 --> 00:28:53.280 God did it anyway. 00:28:53.280 --> 00:28:55.040 And He gave it to us freely. 00:28:55.040 --> 00:28:57.360 And the joy of the Christian life is to share that free 00:28:57.760 --> 00:28:58.960 gift with others. 00:28:58.960 --> 00:29:02.720 So, in one sense, that is the gospel, and it's absolutely true. 00:29:02.720 --> 00:29:06.240 There is, however, also another sense of the gospel that's used in 00:29:06.240 --> 00:29:09.200 Scripture. Gospel means good news. 00:29:09.200 --> 00:29:09.920 And the good news 00:29:10.800 --> 00:29:13.760 is every word from the mouth of God. 00:29:13.760 --> 00:29:18.320 Second Timothy three says all scripture is God breathed and is useful 00:29:18.320 --> 00:29:22.800 for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant 00:29:22.800 --> 00:29:26.960 of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:30.800 So when God describes scripture, he says that it's useful for all 00:29:30.800 --> 00:29:34.640 sorts of things, specifically to equip men to do good works. 00:29:34.640 --> 00:29:38.000 Now that's post-soteriological, use that term a lot. 00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:39.680 It means after salvation. 00:29:39.680 --> 00:29:44.080 After we have been saved, then the Christian life begins. 00:29:44.080 --> 00:29:48.320 And so in that sense of all scripture being breathed out by 00:29:48.320 --> 00:29:50.880 God, definitionally it must be good, right? 00:29:50.880 --> 00:29:54.640 If the gospel is the good news and every word of scripture 00:29:54.640 --> 00:29:58.320 is breathed out by God, then every word of scripture must be 00:29:58.320 --> 00:30:00.320 good, and therefore, it's good news to hear it. 00:30:00.320 --> 00:30:02.800 Even the parts that are bad to hear, even the parts about 00:30:02.800 --> 00:30:06.320 the end of the world, are in a very true sense the 00:30:06.320 --> 00:30:10.560 gospel. And so here's two verses to hammer the point home that 00:30:10.560 --> 00:30:11.360 I'm making here. 00:30:11.360 --> 00:30:15.280 Again, not opposing what Corey said or what anyone in the church 00:30:15.280 --> 00:30:18.240 is taught, but just to say there are two distinct ways the 00:30:18.240 --> 00:30:21.600 gospel is used, and they're both scriptural. 00:30:21.600 --> 00:30:25.280 Here's what first Thessalonians chapter one says. 00:30:25.280 --> 00:30:28.880 This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may 00:30:28.880 --> 00:30:32.080 be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are 00:30:32.080 --> 00:30:37.120 also suffering, since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction 00:30:37.120 --> 00:30:40.160 those who afflict you, and to grant relief to the you who 00:30:40.640 --> 00:30:42.880 are afflicted as well as to us. 00:30:42.880 --> 00:30:46.400 When the Lord Jesus Christ is revealed from heaven, with his mighty 00:30:46.400 --> 00:30:51.520 angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know 00:30:51.520 --> 00:30:55.440 God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our 00:30:55.440 --> 00:31:00.240 Lord Jesus Christ, they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away 00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:02.720 from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his 00:31:02.880 --> 00:31:05.600 might. When he comes on that day to be glorified in his 00:31:05.840 --> 00:31:09.360 with his saints, and to be marvelled at among all who have 00:31:09.360 --> 00:31:12.800 believed, because our testimony to you was believed. 00:31:12.800 --> 00:31:16.080 So your God is very clearly saying obey the gospel of Jesus 00:31:16.080 --> 00:31:19.680 Christ, and anyone who doesn't is going to be afflicted by God 00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:22.320 and by his angels with flaming swords. 00:31:22.320 --> 00:31:24.080 That's a whole lot of law. 00:31:24.080 --> 00:31:26.720 And God calls it the gospel, and he says those who do 00:31:26.720 --> 00:31:31.520 not obey the gospel, which is a law statement, is going to 00:31:31.520 --> 00:31:32.400 be damned. 00:31:32.640 --> 00:31:37.280 Now, Lutherans will be programmed and primed to scream that this is 00:31:37.280 --> 00:31:38.960 confusing law and gospel. 00:31:38.960 --> 00:31:40.000 It's not. 00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:42.480 Because we're talking about the whole council of God. 00:31:42.480 --> 00:31:45.200 And the reason for highlighting this is that the whole council of 00:31:45.200 --> 00:31:48.080 God includes these prophecies about end times. 00:31:48.080 --> 00:31:52.240 And so although these prophecies, although these promises of the future are 00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:56.400 less important than the promise of salvation, because they are from God, 00:31:56.400 --> 00:31:59.520 they're no less important for us to believe. 00:31:59.680 --> 00:32:02.480 As Corey said, you can get some stuff wrong and not be 00:32:02.480 --> 00:32:06.960 damned. You can get this stuff wrong and not be damned. 00:32:06.960 --> 00:32:10.080 However, when you read scripture and say this is a bunch of 00:32:10.080 --> 00:32:13.760 crap, I don't believe it, then you are risking damnation. 00:32:13.760 --> 00:32:15.200 And so that's the distinction. 00:32:15.200 --> 00:32:17.040 It's not getting a fact wrong. 00:32:17.040 --> 00:32:18.880 It's not about having a wrong opinion. 00:32:18.880 --> 00:32:21.760 It's about do you believe the promises of God or do you 00:32:21.760 --> 00:32:22.800 disbelieve them? 00:32:22.880 --> 00:32:26.400 And the approach that we encourage everyone, we exhort you to take 00:32:26.560 --> 00:32:30.400 to all of Scripture is to believe it, to receive it faithfully, 00:32:30.400 --> 00:32:33.040 and to the best of your ability, to try to understand it, 00:32:33.040 --> 00:32:35.360 and to try to find teachers who will teach it to you 00:32:35.360 --> 00:32:40.000 faithfully. Because the gospel is also to be obeyed. 00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:43.120 This is repeated in Revelation chapter 14. 00:32:43.120 --> 00:32:47.280 John records: Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead with an 00:32:47.280 --> 00:32:51.360 eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth, to 00:32:51.360 --> 00:32:53.920 every nation and tribe and language and people. 00:32:53.920 --> 00:32:56.960 And he said with a loud voice, Fear God and give him 00:32:57.040 --> 00:33:00.400 glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him 00:33:00.560 --> 00:33:04.720 who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water. 00:33:04.720 --> 00:33:09.360 So again, in heaven, God is calling an eternal gospel. 00:33:09.360 --> 00:33:12.720 Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment 00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:13.360 has come. 00:33:13.360 --> 00:33:16.240 That's not how Protestants typically talk about the gospel. 00:33:16.240 --> 00:33:18.560 And yet God says that's the gospel. 00:33:18.560 --> 00:33:20.880 And so I'm making the specific point here. 00:33:20.880 --> 00:33:23.280 It's good news because it's from the mouth of God. 00:33:23.280 --> 00:33:26.800 Even though it's talking about judgment, even though it's talking about flaming 00:33:26.800 --> 00:33:32.160 angels and annihilation and wrath from God, it's good news because it's 00:33:32.080 --> 00:33:33.280 from our Lord. 00:33:33.280 --> 00:33:36.960 And if you hate that God, you're in trouble. 00:33:36.960 --> 00:33:40.240 And that's when it becomes a matter of salvation. 00:33:40.240 --> 00:33:43.840 So as we tackle these subjects, it's out of respect for what 00:33:43.840 --> 00:33:47.360 God has said, and it's not to try to elevate one thing 00:33:47.360 --> 00:33:48.560 over another. 00:33:48.560 --> 00:33:51.520 It's just to make sure that we're not leaving anything out. 00:33:51.520 --> 00:33:53.920 In some ways, this is kind of a continuation of one of 00:33:53.920 --> 00:33:57.040 the earliest episodes we did on neglected doctrines. 00:33:57.040 --> 00:34:02.320 Except in this case, eschatology is not neglected, frankly, it's probably over-emphasized, 00:34:02.320 --> 00:34:03.920 but improperly. 00:34:03.920 --> 00:34:08.240 You have some church bodies that make their entire gimmick about end 00:34:08.240 --> 00:34:13.440 times and weird stuff that doesn't actually stick with scripture. 00:34:13.440 --> 00:34:16.400 And then you have the others mostly are just poo-pooing it. 00:34:16.400 --> 00:34:17.440 Like I don't believe any of that. 00:34:17.440 --> 00:34:19.760 I don't apply to us. 00:34:19.760 --> 00:34:22.800 And so as we get into the meat of the prophecies, just 00:34:22.800 --> 00:34:25.600 remember that it's there for a purpose. 00:34:25.600 --> 00:34:27.120 It's part of the gospel. 00:34:27.120 --> 00:34:29.520 It's part of the good news because God has given it to 00:34:29.520 --> 00:34:32.320 us. And so just receiving it that way makes it a whole 00:34:32.320 --> 00:34:35.840 lot easier when you respond as Daniel and as John, like I'm 00:34:35.840 --> 00:34:37.600 afraid and I'm confused, okay. 00:34:37.600 --> 00:34:39.840 That means you're actually paying attention. 00:34:39.840 --> 00:34:42.480 But you know, when we did the fear of the Lord episode, 00:34:42.480 --> 00:34:46.560 part of the emphasis there is that to fear God is obedience 00:34:47.120 --> 00:34:47.680 to God. 00:34:47.680 --> 00:34:51.280 In fact, that's literally what the eternal gospel is called in Revelation 00:34:51.360 --> 00:34:53.920 14. Fear God and give him glory. 00:34:53.920 --> 00:34:55.680 And the fear comes first. 00:34:55.680 --> 00:34:58.400 Obey God, fear God, give him glory. 00:34:58.400 --> 00:35:01.680 This is how God tells us to respond to him. 00:35:01.680 --> 00:35:04.160 And that response can only come in faith. 00:35:04.160 --> 00:35:06.000 Back to what Corey was saying. 00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:09.040 Only in faith is any of this possible. 00:35:09.040 --> 00:35:12.000 So there's no I'm gonna save myself by doing this really good. 00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:15.280 No. You if if you believe a word of scripture, you can't 00:35:15.280 --> 00:35:16.480 believe that. 00:35:16.480 --> 00:35:20.160 We are face down trembling, we are nothing before God. 00:35:20.160 --> 00:35:23.440 And he elevates us by giving us the good news and by 00:35:23.440 --> 00:35:25.520 making us co-heirs with Christ. 00:35:25.520 --> 00:35:27.280 And then it's okay. 00:35:27.280 --> 00:35:30.800 But by ourselves, we are worse than nothing. 00:35:30.800 --> 00:35:34.640 So never let anyone confuse you and never let anyone say that 00:35:34.640 --> 00:35:37.760 we're ever saying anything different, because that's the essence of the Christian 00:35:37.760 --> 00:35:41.920 faith. Continuing in first Thessalonians five. 00:35:41.920 --> 00:35:45.520 Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need 00:35:45.520 --> 00:35:48.720 to have anything written to you, for you yourselves are fully aware 00:35:48.720 --> 00:35:50.880 that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in 00:35:50.880 --> 00:35:54.400 the night, while people are saying there is peace and security, then 00:35:54.400 --> 00:35:58.000 sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon the 00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:00.720 pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 00:36:00.720 --> 00:36:03.760 But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise 00:36:03.760 --> 00:36:07.360 you like a thief, for you are all children of light, children 00:36:07.360 --> 00:36:08.240 of the day. 00:36:08.240 --> 00:36:10.640 We are not of the night or of darkness. 00:36:10.640 --> 00:36:13.920 So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us 00:36:13.920 --> 00:36:16.160 be awake and sober. 00:36:16.160 --> 00:36:19.920 And this is the clarion call of all of the prophecy of 00:36:19.920 --> 00:36:23.120 the end times, the things that we can't understand, to keep watch, 00:36:23.120 --> 00:36:27.280 to be sober, to take it seriously, not to dwell on it. 00:36:27.280 --> 00:36:31.520 And so we're sequestering this in an episode because we've talked about 00:36:31.520 --> 00:36:33.200 eschatology a couple times. 00:36:33.200 --> 00:36:38.240 We did an episode specifically on the dispensational heresy, but it's not 00:36:38.240 --> 00:36:40.960 most of the Christian life, and it shouldn't be for you either. 00:36:40.960 --> 00:36:44.320 But when it when you do come across it in Scripture, take 00:36:44.320 --> 00:36:45.920 it seriously. 00:36:47.120 --> 00:36:50.320 One of the hallmarks of those who hold to 00:36:51.520 --> 00:36:57.520 heretical or at least extremely unorthodox views of the end times and 00:36:57.520 --> 00:37:03.520 of eschatology in general would be very complicated graphs and charts. 00:37:03.520 --> 00:37:06.800 We've all seen memes to that effect. 00:37:07.280 --> 00:37:10.800 You have those who those who start drawing on a whiteboard with 00:37:10.800 --> 00:37:16.480 lots of arrows, lots of divisions, all sorts of markers, and quite 00:37:16.480 --> 00:37:20.240 frankly that's a dead giveaway that the person has no idea what 00:37:20.400 --> 00:37:24.720 scripture actually teaches about the about the timeline of history because scripture 00:37:24.720 --> 00:37:30.720 teaches the fullness of time, including eternity past and eternity future in 00:37:30.720 --> 00:37:33.280 this case if you want to include those in time. 00:37:33.280 --> 00:37:36.640 And so it helps to have a general rough outline of how 00:37:36.640 --> 00:37:41.280 this works just in your mind as you're going through these prophecies, 00:37:41.280 --> 00:37:43.120 as you're reading scripture. 00:37:43.120 --> 00:37:46.480 And you can actually hold the entire thing in your mind because 00:37:47.200 --> 00:37:50.400 the true is true timeline is very simple. 00:37:50.400 --> 00:37:52.640 This is not complicated. 00:37:52.640 --> 00:37:56.640 We don't need a whiteboard, which is good because this podcast is 00:37:56.640 --> 00:37:58.480 audio only. 00:37:58.480 --> 00:38:02.880 We don't need any sort of graph or chart, because I can 00:38:02.880 --> 00:38:05.440 run through it in just a minute here. 00:38:05.440 --> 00:38:12.000 The full timeline, and this is of all things, is as follows 00:38:12.320 --> 00:38:16.880 You have eternity past, which is God dwelling, not so much alone 00:38:17.040 --> 00:38:21.120 because God is Trinity, but God dwelling in the absence of anything 00:38:21.120 --> 00:38:22.720 that is not God. 00:38:22.960 --> 00:38:26.240 Then you have creation, then there is the fall. 00:38:26.240 --> 00:38:30.400 Then there is the Old Testament era, which of course includes worsening 00:38:30.400 --> 00:38:34.640 sin. Then you have Christ as the dividing point in history. 00:38:34.640 --> 00:38:39.520 After that you have the church age, which again includes worsening sin, 00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:43.760 despite what some would claim as earlier discussed. 00:38:43.760 --> 00:38:47.040 Near the end of the church age, there is a period of 00:38:47.040 --> 00:38:50.880 tribulation. Then there is the second coming, which is the end of 00:38:50.880 --> 00:38:51.920 all things. 00:38:51.920 --> 00:38:56.000 There is re creation, and then there is eternity future. 00:38:56.000 --> 00:38:56.960 That's it. 00:38:56.960 --> 00:38:58.960 That is the full timeline. 00:38:58.960 --> 00:39:03.680 No need for any other divisions or arrows, flags, any of that. 00:39:03.680 --> 00:39:04.640 That is the full teaching 00:39:05.520 --> 00:39:11.600 of Scripture with regard to history, including again eternity past and eternity 00:39:11.600 --> 00:39:16.880 future. And so when you see those who try to divide up 00:39:17.200 --> 00:39:21.760 scripture, divide up history into, say, dispensations, which we covered in our 00:39:21.760 --> 00:39:26.240 episode on dispensationalism, you know that's a false teaching. 00:39:26.240 --> 00:39:31.280 Another one that is often seen in not just historically in some 00:39:31.280 --> 00:39:32.160 cases, but 00:39:33.040 --> 00:39:38.160 in modern times it is a particularly pernicious version of this, various 00:39:38.160 --> 00:39:40.480 forms of millenarianism. 00:39:40.480 --> 00:39:43.920 Many of these are based on the false belief that the number 00:39:43.920 --> 00:39:49.600 one thousand, that the millennium in Revelation is literal. 00:39:49.600 --> 00:39:50.880 It is not. 00:39:50.880 --> 00:39:55.360 It is important to understand the meaning assigned to numbers in Scripture 00:39:56.080 --> 00:40:00.000 to understand why you see that number 1,000. 00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:01.360 There are other numbers as well. 00:40:01.360 --> 00:40:05.600 There's of course the number 144,000 in Revelation, and you have the 00:40:05.600 --> 00:40:09.680 number 7 and the number 40, and these numbers appear in prophecies. 00:40:10.640 --> 00:40:14.800 They're not going to mean anything to you unless you understand how 00:40:14.800 --> 00:40:18.080 numbers are used in Scripture, because they are used not just as 00:40:18.080 --> 00:40:20.480 numbers, but also as symbols. 00:40:20.480 --> 00:40:25.760 Sometimes the numbers are literal, sometimes the numbers are symbolic, sometimes they 00:40:25.760 --> 00:40:27.040 are both. 00:40:27.040 --> 00:40:31.840 One good example of a number being used in both a literal 00:40:31.840 --> 00:40:36.560 and a symbolic way is the division of Moses' life into three 00:40:36.560 --> 00:40:39.200 periods of forty years? 00:40:39.200 --> 00:40:44.080 Those periods are literal, he literally lived one hundred and twenty years. 00:40:44.080 --> 00:40:49.600 In divisions of forty years Egypt, exile, and then leading the people 00:40:49.600 --> 00:40:51.440 in the Exodus. 00:40:51.440 --> 00:40:56.160 However, the number forty is also a symbolic number, and I will 00:40:56.160 --> 00:40:58.640 get to that, but I'll start with the number one because that 00:40:58.640 --> 00:41:01.200 seems like the logical place to start. 00:41:01.600 --> 00:41:06.320 The number one in Scripture is used to represent uniqueness, unity, or 00:41:06.320 --> 00:41:10.560 primacy, and so of course the Lord our God the Lord is 00:41:10.560 --> 00:41:14.880 one. The number two is not in fact plural as we would 00:41:14.880 --> 00:41:19.920 think in English, because Greek has a dual grammatical number. 00:41:19.920 --> 00:41:24.080 This has fallen away in modern usage in Greek, but it was 00:41:24.080 --> 00:41:26.960 very much a thing in the Old Testament and even up into 00:41:26.960 --> 00:41:32.480 the Koina times of the New Testament, it describes something that is 00:41:32.480 --> 00:41:33.600 naturally dual. 00:41:33.600 --> 00:41:37.680 So for instance, your hands, or can be used for division or 00:41:37.680 --> 00:41:43.280 contrast. Three is actually the first true plural, and it can represent 00:41:43.280 --> 00:41:46.720 a short but complete cycle of action. 00:41:46.720 --> 00:41:49.440 It also is obviously one of the numbers of God being the 00:41:49.440 --> 00:41:51.360 number of the Trinity. 00:41:51.360 --> 00:41:55.120 Now four is an important number with regard to some of these 00:41:55.120 --> 00:42:01.760 prophecies, because four often represents God's work in creation, usually in a 00:42:01.760 --> 00:42:05.520 multiple, but it is a number that relates to God working out 00:42:05.520 --> 00:42:08.800 something in time in creation. 00:42:08.800 --> 00:42:11.600 Six is of course the number of mankind we were made on 00:42:11.600 --> 00:42:12.960 the sixth day. 00:42:13.440 --> 00:42:16.560 six six, of course, is a different number, but we'll leave that 00:42:16.560 --> 00:42:17.840 aside for now. 00:42:17.840 --> 00:42:20.960 Seven is another number of God. 00:42:20.960 --> 00:42:22.960 God likes the number seven. 00:42:22.960 --> 00:42:25.360 Scripture doesn't necessarily tell us why. 00:42:25.360 --> 00:42:27.280 We don't need to understand why. 00:42:27.280 --> 00:42:28.560 He likes the number. 00:42:28.560 --> 00:42:32.160 It is one of the numbers that represents perfection or God's ordering 00:42:32.240 --> 00:42:33.200 of things. 00:42:33.200 --> 00:42:36.320 And so for instance, creation took seven days. 00:42:36.320 --> 00:42:38.560 There are seven days of the week. 00:42:38.560 --> 00:42:43.600 The cycle of the moon is broken into sections of seven days. 00:42:43.600 --> 00:42:48.560 This number relates to God's plan and ordering of things in creation. 00:42:48.560 --> 00:42:53.920 ten is a number of fullness or constancy or a number of 00:42:53.920 --> 00:42:56.800 perfection. It's one of the numbers dealing with perfection. 00:42:56.800 --> 00:42:58.480 There are a few of those in Scripture. 00:42:58.800 --> 00:43:02.000 So for instance you can see this in tithing. 00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:07.360 We give ten percent representative as thanks for the whole. 00:43:07.360 --> 00:43:10.320 The number twelve represents God's people. 00:43:10.320 --> 00:43:13.360 In the Old Testament, this is seen as the Twelve Tribes. 00:43:13.360 --> 00:43:16.320 In the New Testament, you see this with the Twelve Apostles. 00:43:16.320 --> 00:43:19.440 The number 24, of course, then is twelve repeated. 00:43:19.440 --> 00:43:23.200 That would be the fullness of God's both Old Testament and New 00:43:23.280 --> 00:43:24.720 Testament people. 00:43:24.960 --> 00:43:28.880 Notably those in the Old Testament are not just the Hebrews, of 00:43:28.880 --> 00:43:32.080 course, because there were other believers in the Old Testament. 00:43:32.080 --> 00:43:36.880 The number forty, which I mentioned earlier with regard to Moses. 00:43:36.880 --> 00:43:40.320 This is often a critical period in 00:43:41.280 --> 00:43:44.400 God's organization of things in time. 00:43:44.400 --> 00:43:46.320 So part of his plan. 00:43:46.320 --> 00:43:50.000 A good example of this would be Christ's temptation in the desert. 00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:51.600 Of course, we see this. 00:43:51.600 --> 00:43:57.520 this prefigured, typologically represented in the forty years of wandering in the 00:43:57.520 --> 00:44:00.720 desert that the Hebrews did. 00:44:00.720 --> 00:44:04.320 Of course there's a difference here because Christ was the obedient son, 00:44:04.320 --> 00:44:06.320 Israel was the disobedient son. 00:44:06.320 --> 00:44:09.280 That's why they were wandering in the desert for forty years. 00:44:09.280 --> 00:44:12.480 The number seventy, of course, is just a multiple of seven and 00:44:12.480 --> 00:44:16.720 ten, and so you have those two numbers representing God's work and 00:44:16.720 --> 00:44:21.200 completeness, and then you have various other numbers that are multiples of 00:44:21.200 --> 00:44:23.440 the numbers already mentioned. 00:44:23.440 --> 00:44:26.800 But the number one thousand is an important number. 00:44:26.800 --> 00:44:29.600 What is the number one thousand? 00:44:29.600 --> 00:44:34.400 It has two main uses in scripture. 00:44:34.400 --> 00:44:38.480 The first is that it represents military action of some kind, and 00:44:38.480 --> 00:44:41.200 so many times in the old testament there will be a division 00:44:41.920 --> 00:44:45.760 into thousands, or there will be a thousand taken from each tribe 00:44:45.760 --> 00:44:50.480 for the number twelve thousand, which incidentally represents the church militant, but 00:44:50.480 --> 00:44:54.320 it is a military sense for the first use of this number 00:44:54.320 --> 00:44:55.040 in Scripture. 00:44:55.440 --> 00:44:59.120 The second use is to represent God's perfection. 00:44:59.120 --> 00:45:01.120 Because of course, what is a thousand? 00:45:01.120 --> 00:45:02.720 It's ten cubed. 00:45:02.720 --> 00:45:06.560 So ten being the number of fullness or perfection, and three being 00:45:06.560 --> 00:45:09.120 the number of the Trinity. 00:45:09.120 --> 00:45:14.000 Now we can speak of this thousand years mentioned in Revelation. 00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:16.160 What is the thousand years? 00:45:16.160 --> 00:45:19.040 The thousand years is the church age. 00:45:19.040 --> 00:45:25.040 It is the period of time between Christ's ascension, or Pentecost depending 00:45:25.040 --> 00:45:28.000 where you want to start the clock as it were, and the 00:45:28.000 --> 00:45:29.440 second coming. 00:45:29.440 --> 00:45:34.880 It is representing God's perfect span of time for the work of 00:45:34.880 --> 00:45:36.640 the church on earth. 00:45:36.640 --> 00:45:38.080 That's all it is. 00:45:38.080 --> 00:45:41.840 It does not represent a literal one thousand years. 00:45:41.840 --> 00:45:45.520 It is not Christ coming down and reigning in Jerusalem as it 00:45:45.680 --> 00:45:49.760 As a king for a thousand years, it is the church age. 00:45:49.760 --> 00:45:54.720 And we know that because we can see very clearly from Scripture 00:45:54.800 --> 00:45:59.280 how these numbers are used symbolically. 00:45:59.280 --> 00:46:05.200 There is an important caveat here historically, with regard to some of 00:46:05.200 --> 00:46:08.240 those in the history of the church who thought that this number 00:46:08.240 --> 00:46:12.480 may have been a literal number, because there is a distinction between 00:46:12.480 --> 00:46:16.560 those who thought that historically and those who believe it today. 00:46:16.560 --> 00:46:21.520 So round the year one thousand, if you believed that perhaps Christ 00:46:21.520 --> 00:46:23.920 is going to come back right now and reign on the earth 00:46:23.920 --> 00:46:27.600 or Earth or whatever it happened to be specifically that you believed, 00:46:27.600 --> 00:46:29.840 perhaps there was some warrant to that. 00:46:29.840 --> 00:46:34.160 Because you see the number one thousand, it's been literally one thousand 00:46:34.320 --> 00:46:37.680 years since Christ ascended, if you're in the year ten thirty three 00:46:37.760 --> 00:46:40.960 anyway, because Give or take a little bit. 00:46:40.960 --> 00:46:45.600 But after that period, because obviously Christ did not come back, the 00:46:45.600 --> 00:46:48.320 second coming did not occur in ten thirty three, or we would 00:46:48.320 --> 00:46:51.040 not be having this discussion right now. 00:46:51.040 --> 00:46:55.760 After that period, there is no longer any warrant to hold that 00:46:55.760 --> 00:46:57.120 sort of belief. 00:46:57.120 --> 00:47:00.480 Even if just held as sort of an innocent, well, maybe it'll 00:47:00.480 --> 00:47:05.120 happen, because we are now more than two thousand years after Christ's 00:47:05.120 --> 00:47:08.240 earthly ministry, not after the conclusion of it, of course, because we 00:47:08.240 --> 00:47:10.560 have a few more years to go for that. 00:47:10.560 --> 00:47:14.800 But given the amount of time that has passed, we can see 00:47:14.800 --> 00:47:18.720 and very safely conclude the number The number is not both symbolic 00:47:18.720 --> 00:47:23.040 and literal, it is only symbolic in this case, which of course 00:47:23.040 --> 00:47:26.080 fits perfectly with prophecy. 00:47:26.080 --> 00:47:29.600 You must remember that the Bible is a collection of books, it 00:47:29.600 --> 00:47:32.080 is not one book, it is a collection of books, which is 00:47:32.080 --> 00:47:34.480 an important point for a number of reasons. 00:47:34.480 --> 00:47:39.520 One because all of the interrelationships and references help to prove the 00:47:39.520 --> 00:47:44.800 authorship of Scripture by God, but also because you must recognize different 00:47:44.800 --> 00:47:47.920 books are different genres. 00:47:47.920 --> 00:47:51.120 And we all know this from our English classes or just from 00:47:51.120 --> 00:47:56.320 reading. You do not read a book of poetry the same way 00:47:56.320 --> 00:47:59.280 as you would read a history book. 00:47:59.280 --> 00:48:00.720 They're not the same. 00:48:00.720 --> 00:48:04.720 And so for instance, the first five books of scripture are history. 00:48:04.720 --> 00:48:09.120 You read them as being almost exclusively literal, because that's what they 00:48:09.200 --> 00:48:11.840 are. They are history. 00:48:11.840 --> 00:48:15.680 When you get to the Psalms or you get to some of 00:48:15.680 --> 00:48:19.680 the other wisdom literature, you read that differently from how you would 00:48:19.680 --> 00:48:21.200 read the historical books. 00:48:21.200 --> 00:48:24.720 Because Because you are going to have more figurative use of language. 00:48:24.720 --> 00:48:27.600 You're going to have figurative use of numbers. 00:48:27.600 --> 00:48:31.280 And with regard to the Psalms, there's an important point here for 00:48:31.600 --> 00:48:35.360 those who want, I guess, a talking point, or at least a 00:48:35.360 --> 00:48:38.560 point of argument with regard to the number one thousand. 00:48:38.560 --> 00:48:41.680 There are those will argue that, well, it says one thousand and 00:48:41.680 --> 00:48:44.400 so it must be literal because it's what God said, and I'm 00:48:44.400 --> 00:48:46.800 going to believe the literal sense of it. 00:48:47.040 --> 00:48:50.960 Well, you can't do that with Revelation because then Christ is a 00:48:50.960 --> 00:48:52.560 sheep with seven horns. 00:48:52.560 --> 00:48:57.920 But setting that aside, in Psalm 50, God speaks of owning the 00:48:57.920 --> 00:49:00.320 cattle on a thousand hills. 00:49:00.560 --> 00:49:03.440 Does God own the cattle on a thousand hills? 00:49:03.440 --> 00:49:04.880 Of course. 00:49:04.880 --> 00:49:06.720 Is it only a thousand hills? 00:49:06.720 --> 00:49:09.760 Of course not, because he owns all things. 00:49:09.760 --> 00:49:14.000 The number there is us as representative of the totality. 00:49:14.000 --> 00:49:18.160 It is representing creation, it's saying God owns all things, and so 00:49:18.160 --> 00:49:22.400 he won't ask us for something, he doesn't need something from us, 00:49:22.400 --> 00:49:27.200 because he owns all things, he owns everything, because the universe and 00:49:27.200 --> 00:49:29.040 the fullness of it is his. 00:49:29.040 --> 00:49:31.920 That's why the number one thousand is used there. 00:49:31.920 --> 00:49:35.280 And the Psalms are more literal than Revelation. 00:49:35.280 --> 00:49:39.040 So the genre determines how you exegete the book. 00:49:39.040 --> 00:49:42.960 Yes you take the words of Scripture literally, but you do not 00:49:42.960 --> 00:49:44.960 take them literalistically. 00:49:44.960 --> 00:49:47.840 When you go overboard, you're just falling off the other side of 00:49:47.840 --> 00:49:49.200 the horse. 00:49:49.200 --> 00:49:54.240 If you allegorize everything and just erase any literal meaning, you fall 00:49:54.240 --> 00:49:55.760 off one side of the horse. 00:49:55.760 --> 00:49:59.200 But if you take things so literally that you actually miss what 00:49:59.200 --> 00:50:02.480 God is saying, that you miss what he is trying to tell 00:50:02.480 --> 00:50:05.200 you, you are just falling off the other side of the horse, 00:50:05.200 --> 00:50:09.680 and as we continue to say in episode after episode, you do 00:50:09.680 --> 00:50:12.480 not want to fall off either side of the horse. 00:50:12.480 --> 00:50:16.160 Just because one may be worse does not mean the other is 00:50:16.160 --> 00:50:19.440 good. You want to stay on the horse. 00:50:19.440 --> 00:50:24.240 And so the number one thousand, generally speaking in scripture, particularly when 00:50:24.240 --> 00:50:27.760 dealing with prophecy, is a symbolic number. 00:50:27.760 --> 00:50:31.120 In the Old Testament with military muster, it is often also a 00:50:31.440 --> 00:50:34.640 literal number, but those are historical books. 00:50:34.640 --> 00:50:37.760 Revelation is a prophetic book. 00:50:37.760 --> 00:50:41.200 You have to pay attention to the genre when you are dealing 00:50:41.200 --> 00:50:42.400 with scripture. 00:50:42.400 --> 00:50:47.680 God has written to us in different ways in different books. 00:50:47.680 --> 00:50:52.400 We would never treat even a human author the way that some 00:50:52.400 --> 00:50:54.640 try to treat God. 00:50:54.640 --> 00:51:00.240 There are authors, just normal human authors, who have written poetry and 00:51:00.240 --> 00:51:03.520 history books, or have written fiction and non-fiction. 00:51:03.520 --> 00:51:07.920 We do not read the different genres the same way, even from 00:51:07.920 --> 00:51:08.960 just a human author. 00:51:08.960 --> 00:51:11.440 So So why would we do it to God? 00:51:11.440 --> 00:51:15.040 God certainly has a reason that he is written to us in 00:51:15.040 --> 00:51:18.080 these different ways, and we should take notice of that. 00:51:18.080 --> 00:51:22.000 That is part of what it means to actually read scripture and 00:51:22.000 --> 00:51:25.440 attempt to understand it, attempt to actually take in what God is 00:51:25.440 --> 00:51:27.120 saying to us. 00:51:27.120 --> 00:51:30.960 And so these numbers and their symbolic usage is important to keep 00:51:30.960 --> 00:51:35.520 in mind when reading through particularly prophetic passages. 00:51:35.520 --> 00:51:40.320 The same thing, of course, is true of the number 144,000. 00:51:40.320 --> 00:51:43.360 I won't go in depth on that number right now because it's 00:51:43.360 --> 00:51:44.640 not the point of the episode. 00:51:44.640 --> 00:51:47.680 Perhaps in the future we may do one on Revelation. 00:51:47.680 --> 00:51:51.440 But the number one hundred and forty four thousand is representative of 00:51:51.760 --> 00:51:53.600 the fullness of the church. 00:51:53.600 --> 00:51:58.080 You can say it's the church militant or the church triumphant, it 00:51:58.080 --> 00:52:01.280 sort of depends on your perspective where you're looking at it in 00:52:01.280 --> 00:52:02.320 time as it were. 00:52:02.960 --> 00:52:05.440 But it is the fullness of all believers. 00:52:05.440 --> 00:52:07.120 Because of course what is it? 00:52:07.120 --> 00:52:11.520 Twelve times twelve times a thousand, which is the old testament believers, 00:52:11.520 --> 00:52:14.800 the new testament believers, and the perfection thereof. 00:52:14.800 --> 00:52:17.280 That's why it's 144,000. 00:52:17.280 --> 00:52:19.360 And one of the ways that we can tell it is not 00:52:19.360 --> 00:52:23.200 a literal listing of the tribes of Israel is that it is 00:52:23.280 --> 00:52:26.080 in fact not a literal listing of the tribes of Israel. 00:52:26.080 --> 00:52:29.040 You can compare the Old Testament lists to this list. 00:52:29.280 --> 00:52:30.960 It's not the same list. 00:52:30.960 --> 00:52:32.960 You have different names included. 00:52:32.960 --> 00:52:35.680 And so it is not a literal list of the tribes. 00:52:35.680 --> 00:52:38.240 It is representative of the church. 00:52:38.240 --> 00:52:42.560 It is representative of believers, and you can see that in the 00:52:42.560 --> 00:52:47.280 part of the passage that immediately follows with the grand crowd that 00:52:47.280 --> 00:52:49.200 cannot be numbered. 00:52:49.200 --> 00:52:53.920 These are both views of the church, views of all believers throughout 00:52:53.920 --> 00:52:54.800 all time. 00:52:54.800 --> 00:52:57.680 It is not a literal one hundred and forty four thousand you 00:52:57.680 --> 00:53:00.240 don't have to be good enough that you're included in this tiny 00:53:00.240 --> 00:53:01.760 number of the saved. 00:53:01.760 --> 00:53:05.920 It is representative of the fullness of those who are elect in 00:53:05.920 --> 00:53:06.800 Christ. 00:53:07.760 --> 00:53:08.000 And 00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:12.160 as Corey was going through all that numerology, I just want to 00:53:12.160 --> 00:53:14.560 emphasize God did that. 00:53:14.560 --> 00:53:16.160 That's not man-made. 00:53:16.160 --> 00:53:22.240 That's not man inserting our fascination with the relationships of numbers into 00:53:22.240 --> 00:53:25.440 something in order to make it our own. 00:53:25.440 --> 00:53:26.880 These are God's patterns. 00:53:26.880 --> 00:53:28.960 This is how God does stuff. 00:53:28.960 --> 00:53:32.080 So that's how we approach it. 00:53:32.080 --> 00:53:36.480 And And on the point of the specific millennium, I think it's 00:53:36.480 --> 00:53:40.560 important when we're looking back over church history to recognize that 00:53:41.440 --> 00:53:44.640 as we'll get into in a minute as we're looking at what 00:53:44.640 --> 00:53:49.680 was said by Daniel and by John as they received their revelations, 00:53:49.680 --> 00:53:51.360 they were confused. 00:53:51.360 --> 00:53:55.280 They saw a vision, they didn't understand it, and they were left 00:53:55.280 --> 00:53:57.280 with their heads scratching. 00:53:57.280 --> 00:54:00.320 And that is how God left us. 00:54:00.560 --> 00:54:04.080 That is how God left the church in somewhat of a state 00:54:04.080 --> 00:54:05.840 of confusion about these things. 00:54:05.840 --> 00:54:07.200 That was very deliberate. 00:54:07.200 --> 00:54:10.480 He knew exactly what he was doing when he sort of rolled 00:54:10.480 --> 00:54:13.040 this hand grenade into the church and said. 00:54:13.520 --> 00:54:15.840 you go. 00:54:15.840 --> 00:54:17.920 When I describe it that way, I don't mean to make it 00:54:17.920 --> 00:54:20.880 sound malicious, but obviously, this is fraught. 00:54:20.880 --> 00:54:23.040 This is stuff that it's their sharp edges here. 00:54:23.040 --> 00:54:25.360 It's very easy to invent heresies. 00:54:25.360 --> 00:54:28.480 But at the same time, that's pretty much true of all of 00:54:28.480 --> 00:54:31.920 scripture. You can look at any corner of Christian theology. 00:54:31.920 --> 00:54:38.800 People have come along and invented false, wicked ways of misinterpreting it. 00:54:38.800 --> 00:54:43.120 The reason the thousand years I think is particularly interesting as we 00:54:43.120 --> 00:54:46.880 look at church history is that the view of the various church 00:54:46.880 --> 00:54:50.320 fathers before and after that time did evolve. 00:54:50.320 --> 00:54:54.720 And I think that's a good illustration that tradition is no indication 00:54:54.720 --> 00:54:56.320 of theology. 00:54:56.640 --> 00:55:01.440 One of the early church fathers who began to reject the millenarian 00:55:01.440 --> 00:55:04.640 view that the thousand years was literal was origin. 00:55:04.960 --> 00:55:08.560 He began more of a movement towards a view of these things 00:55:08.560 --> 00:55:13.040 as being allegorical, or in the case of this as numerological. 00:55:13.040 --> 00:55:19.680 And Augustine pretty much formalized the aw-millennial view, the the allegorical view 00:55:19.680 --> 00:55:22.240 of those things that Corey just mentioned. 00:55:22.240 --> 00:55:25.440 There was church theology for well over a thousand years. 00:55:25.440 --> 00:55:30.640 There was virtually no descent from the all millennial view once Augustine 00:55:30.640 --> 00:55:34.320 sort of formalized it and laid it out well. 00:55:34.320 --> 00:55:39.200 I think it's important to look at what those men believe before 00:55:39.280 --> 00:55:42.960 the thousand years, you know, AD one thousand, the literal thousand year 00:55:42.960 --> 00:55:44.080 period ended, because 00:55:45.120 --> 00:55:48.160 For example, I was born in 1977. 00:55:48.320 --> 00:55:51.600 Corey was born sometime after that, but all the Zoomers who are 00:55:51.600 --> 00:55:55.040 listening, almost all of you were born in a different millennium than 00:55:55.040 --> 00:55:56.160 either of us were. 00:55:56.160 --> 00:55:57.920 That's a real generational gap. 00:55:57.920 --> 00:56:01.520 That's a leap to be born in two different millennia is it's 00:56:01.520 --> 00:56:02.960 kind of wild to think about. 00:56:02.960 --> 00:56:06.320 It certainly makes me an old man today. 00:56:06.320 --> 00:56:09.920 And yet what made this come to mind was I realized that 00:56:10.000 --> 00:56:13.760 had I been born 1,000 years earlier, had I been born in 00:56:13.920 --> 00:56:17.840 977, I would have been 23 or three years old at the 00:56:17.840 --> 00:56:20.560 time the the millennium turned over. 00:56:20.560 --> 00:56:25.200 I I would have certainly, I think, believed what Augustine had had 00:56:25.200 --> 00:56:28.720 established as a good hermeneutic, that this is allegorical. 00:56:28.720 --> 00:56:30.880 This is not a literal thousand-year. 00:56:30.880 --> 00:56:37.280 And yet, although the allegory, the symbology predominates that doesn't mean that 00:56:37.280 --> 00:56:39.600 the actual thousand years wouldn't also be true. 00:56:39.600 --> 00:56:45.520 Because of Corey mentioned, Moses lived three literal forty year periods. 00:56:45.520 --> 00:56:48.080 Each of them was a different sort of period of trial in 00:56:48.080 --> 00:56:48.880 a different way. 00:56:48.880 --> 00:56:49.600 It was literal. 00:56:50.240 --> 00:56:51.120 forty forty. 00:56:51.120 --> 00:56:52.800 That was Moses' life. 00:56:52.800 --> 00:56:53.120 So 00:56:54.400 --> 00:56:58.880 the fact that the symbology, the the symbolism and the literal could 00:56:58.880 --> 00:57:01.840 potentially be the same, shouldn't surprise anyone. 00:57:01.840 --> 00:57:04.800 So if I had been, you know, 23 years old at the 00:57:04.800 --> 00:57:08.400 turn of the millennium, the first millennium, I would have been watching. 00:57:08.400 --> 00:57:10.480 I would have been watching to see like, you know, what's is 00:57:10.480 --> 00:57:11.520 anything gonna happen? 00:57:11.840 --> 00:57:13.280 is Jesus going to come back? 00:57:13.280 --> 00:57:15.920 And then as Corey said, you know, I think probably a more 00:57:15.920 --> 00:57:20.000 natural way of viewing the end of the millennium would be to 00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:24.480 bookend it with Jesus ascension and Pentecost, you know, wherever you want 00:57:24.480 --> 00:57:27.440 to mark the beginning of the church age within like that fifty 00:57:27.520 --> 00:57:31.600 day period around you know AD ten thirty three, I definitely would 00:57:31.600 --> 00:57:35.200 have taken seriously the possibility that Jesus might be coming back. 00:57:35.200 --> 00:57:38.480 And yet, at the same time, as we're going to get into 00:57:38.800 --> 00:57:43.200 in a minute, when you actually look at all the specific prophecies 00:57:43.200 --> 00:57:47.440 around the end times, I would have had to admit them, as 00:57:47.440 --> 00:57:51.600 men have had to admit at every period of time, that although 00:57:51.840 --> 00:57:53.840 the speculation is pious. 00:57:53.840 --> 00:57:55.040 Well, maybe it's coming up. 00:57:55.040 --> 00:57:57.760 That's not an entirely pious thing to wonder. 00:57:57.760 --> 00:57:59.520 God wants us to wonder that. 00:57:59.520 --> 00:58:01.680 That's why He didn't nail it down. 00:58:01.680 --> 00:58:04.560 He wants us to keep watch and to pay attention. 00:58:04.560 --> 00:58:10.640 And yet, just as in AD 1033, and just as I can 00:58:10.640 --> 00:58:15.360 today in current year, I can state with absolute certainty without committing 00:58:15.360 --> 00:58:19.840 any doctrinal error, Jesus is not going to come back on this 00:58:20.000 --> 00:58:21.840 specific day. 00:58:21.840 --> 00:58:25.920 Why? Because the fulfillment of the prophecies of the end times has 00:58:25.920 --> 00:58:27.040 not yet come. 00:58:27.040 --> 00:58:30.720 There are signs which we don't understand yet, but we'll know it 00:58:30.720 --> 00:58:31.360 when we see it. 00:58:31.360 --> 00:58:35.440 There are certain things that God promised will happen that very clearly 00:58:35.440 --> 00:58:37.120 have not yet happened. 00:58:37.120 --> 00:58:41.920 And so that's an essential part of treating the eschatological promises of 00:58:41.920 --> 00:58:45.120 God seriously is that they actually mean something. 00:58:45.120 --> 00:58:47.680 And so if they haven't happened yet, then the things that come 00:58:47.680 --> 00:58:50.240 after the promises cannot happen. 00:58:50.240 --> 00:58:53.360 And so it does not violate the promise that no one knows 00:58:53.360 --> 00:58:56.080 the day or the hour to say it's not going to be 00:58:56.080 --> 00:59:00.000 this particular day, because there's a set of stuff that God promised 00:59:00.000 --> 00:59:02.080 would happen that hasn't happened yet. 00:59:02.080 --> 00:59:05.440 That has nothing to do with having any prophetic vision or anything. 00:59:05.440 --> 00:59:08.800 It's literally just believing what God says and saying, Yeah, that hasn't 00:59:08.720 --> 00:59:11.920 happened. So while a thousand years ago I would have had my 00:59:11.920 --> 00:59:15.120 eyes opened, I would have also known that yeah, it can't be 00:59:15.120 --> 00:59:17.360 now. Like I would have wondered, but when I looked at the 00:59:17.360 --> 00:59:19.040 signs, I wouldn't see it. 00:59:19.040 --> 00:59:22.560 And that's not interpreting signs as some sort of prophet or anything 00:59:22.560 --> 00:59:26.720 weird. It's just saying I'm not sure exactly what these prophecies mean, 00:59:26.720 --> 00:59:32.080 but I know that nothing remotely like this stuff has happened. 00:59:32.080 --> 00:59:35.440 Before we get into the meat of some of those specific promises, 00:59:35.440 --> 00:59:39.200 I want to point to one of the sections in the Old 00:59:39.200 --> 00:59:45.200 Testament that is very clearly future looking, both within the Old Testament 00:59:45.200 --> 00:59:47.600 period and then also within the New Testament period. 00:59:47.600 --> 00:59:50.320 And we know this because Jesus said so. 00:59:50.320 --> 00:59:55.120 Daniel 7, chapters seven through twelve are all his visions. 00:59:55.280 --> 00:59:57.120 There are a number of visions that he's given. 00:59:57.120 --> 00:59:58.720 But we're not gonna read the visions. 00:59:58.720 --> 01:00:03.040 I will put a bunch of different portions of prophecy in the 01:00:03.040 --> 01:00:05.680 show notes just for you to look at over time. 01:00:05.680 --> 01:00:08.240 It's going to be too much to read all in one sitting, 01:00:08.240 --> 01:00:10.560 but it'll be nice to have one place where you can just 01:00:10.560 --> 01:00:13.440 go and find them. 01:00:13.440 --> 01:00:16.480 I'm going to read a bit from Daniel chapter seven and a 01:00:16.480 --> 01:00:20.800 bit from Daniel chapter eight just to illustrate how he received the 01:00:20.800 --> 01:00:23.760 visions that he received as he received them. 01:00:23.760 --> 01:00:25.920 So he's getting this from God. 01:00:25.920 --> 01:00:27.280 How does he respond? 01:00:27.280 --> 01:00:29.840 And then what is given to him in the process? 01:00:29.840 --> 01:00:32.400 So in Daniel chapter seven. 01:00:32.400 --> 01:00:35.840 As for me Daniel, my spirit and my body trembled, and the 01:00:35.840 --> 01:00:38.960 visions of my head troubled me, and I drew near to one 01:00:38.960 --> 01:00:41.840 of them that stood by, and I sought to learn of him 01:00:41.840 --> 01:00:44.560 the truth of all these things, and he told me the truth, 01:00:44.560 --> 01:00:47.440 and made known to me the interpretation of these things. 01:00:47.440 --> 01:00:49.920 And later on at the end of the chapter, as for me, 01:00:49.920 --> 01:00:54.080 Daniel, my thoughts greatly troubled me, and my countenance was changed, but 01:00:54.080 --> 01:00:55.200 I kept the matter in my heart. 01:00:56.080 --> 01:01:00.320 So here's the prophet Daniel, receiving visions directly from God. 01:01:00.320 --> 01:01:01.920 He's standing right next to an angel. 01:01:01.920 --> 01:01:04.880 He has to explain some of it to him, and he does, 01:01:04.880 --> 01:01:06.400 and he's still troubled. 01:01:06.400 --> 01:01:09.280 So I'm skipping what's actually said in Daniel 15. 01:01:09.280 --> 01:01:11.680 I would suggest you go read it at some point. 01:01:11.680 --> 01:01:13.600 The important part is that he was troubled. 01:01:13.600 --> 01:01:14.480 He was confused. 01:01:14.480 --> 01:01:16.480 He didn't know what was going on. 01:01:16.480 --> 01:01:19.920 So that is the Christian response. 01:01:19.920 --> 01:01:22.240 It's okay not to understand. 01:01:22.240 --> 01:01:23.840 That doesn't mean you've done something wrong. 01:01:23.840 --> 01:01:25.360 It doesn't mean you haven't been faithful. 01:01:25.520 --> 01:01:28.240 Doesn't mean you haven't you don't have the Holy Spirit. 01:01:28.240 --> 01:01:32.000 God has not revealed how to interpret these things. 01:01:32.400 --> 01:01:36.800 And in the next chapter in Daniel 8, there's a specific portion 01:01:36.800 --> 01:01:39.520 of the prophecy that is interpreted for them. 01:01:39.520 --> 01:01:41.920 I want to highlight a couple details here because I think it's 01:01:41.920 --> 01:01:46.080 interesting. And I heard the voice of a man between the Ubel, 01:01:46.080 --> 01:01:49.600 and he called and said, Gabriel, cause that man to understand the 01:01:49.600 --> 01:01:52.640 vision, and he came and stood near where I stood, and when 01:01:52.640 --> 01:01:55.920 he came I was struck with awe and fell upon my face. 01:01:55.920 --> 01:01:59.600 But he said to me, Understand, son of man, for yet the 01:01:59.600 --> 01:02:02.880 vision is for an appointed time, and while he spoke with me 01:02:02.880 --> 01:02:05.520 I fell upon my face to the earth, and he touched me 01:02:05.520 --> 01:02:08.960 and set me on my feet, and he said, Behold, I make 01:02:08.960 --> 01:02:11.360 you know all things that shall come to pass in the end 01:02:11.360 --> 01:02:14.960 of the wrath, for the vision yet for an appointed time. 01:02:14.960 --> 01:02:18.560 And I Daniel fell asleep and was sick, then I arose and 01:02:18.560 --> 01:02:21.360 did the king's business, and I wondered at the vision that there 01:02:21.360 --> 01:02:22.960 was none that understood. 01:02:22.960 --> 01:02:25.360 So So again, the same kind of response. 01:02:25.360 --> 01:02:27.760 These things were given to him and he fell on his face 01:02:27.760 --> 01:02:28.720 and felt sick. 01:02:28.720 --> 01:02:31.520 And the angel Gabriel had to stand him up and and give 01:02:31.520 --> 01:02:32.560 him courage. 01:02:32.560 --> 01:02:36.160 And what God says to him in in those visions is just 01:02:36.240 --> 01:02:37.040 write this stuff down. 01:02:37.040 --> 01:02:38.080 Don't worry about it. 01:02:38.080 --> 01:02:39.600 Take courage, son of man. 01:02:39.600 --> 01:02:42.160 Write it down, and it's for later. 01:02:42.160 --> 01:02:42.480 And 01:02:43.760 --> 01:02:47.840 what was given to him then, and this was during the Babylonian 01:02:47.840 --> 01:02:52.080 captivity, this was at the beginning of it, was a prophecy of 01:02:52.560 --> 01:02:56.000 there were four beasts and they symbolize and this is revealed in 01:02:56.000 --> 01:02:57.280 the prophecy itself. 01:02:57.280 --> 01:03:02.240 It is interpreted within the prophecy what it means, specifically that they 01:03:02.240 --> 01:03:07.280 would be the successive empires of Babylon, of Medo Persia, of Greece, 01:03:07.280 --> 01:03:08.240 and then of Rome. 01:03:08.240 --> 01:03:09.680 And the first three are named. 01:03:09.680 --> 01:03:13.280 Rome is not named because it doesn't exist yet. 01:03:13.280 --> 01:03:18.000 But the correlation between the specific beasts that are represented in Daniel 01:03:18.000 --> 01:03:24.640 are correlated to the successive kingdoms, these four world-spanning, incredibly powerful kingdoms 01:03:24.720 --> 01:03:30.160 that came in quick succession between Daniel's day and Jesus' day. 01:03:30.160 --> 01:03:33.600 So one of the interesting things about the prophecies given to Daniel 01:03:33.600 --> 01:03:36.480 is that they span many centuries. 01:03:36.480 --> 01:03:39.520 There's a certain portion of the prophecy that Jesus points to in 01:03:39.520 --> 01:03:42.960 his own preaching that has yet to be fulfilled. 01:03:42.960 --> 01:03:47.440 And so it's important, as Corey was saying earlier, to remember, God 01:03:47.440 --> 01:03:48.400 created time. 01:03:48.400 --> 01:03:50.160 He is not bound by it. 01:03:50.160 --> 01:03:53.520 And so a lot of times when we are looking at these 01:03:53.520 --> 01:03:58.400 sort of prophecies as God reveals them, he's not bound by time, 01:03:58.400 --> 01:04:00.400 particularly when he's giving a vision. 01:04:00.400 --> 01:04:03.040 You know, we all have dreams and we remember some of them 01:04:03.200 --> 01:04:06.240 sometimes. Dreams are inherently kind of weird. 01:04:06.240 --> 01:04:09.920 They may jump around spatially, they may jump around temporally, you may 01:04:09.920 --> 01:04:14.000 remember a completely different time in your life, you may see a 01:04:14.000 --> 01:04:16.000 vision of someplace you've never been. 01:04:16.000 --> 01:04:19.040 Maybe you're talking to people you've never met, maybe you're talking to 01:04:19.040 --> 01:04:21.840 someone who died a long ago, and you're not having any sort 01:04:21.840 --> 01:04:23.280 of you know occult experience. 01:04:23.280 --> 01:04:24.560 It's just it's a dream. 01:04:24.560 --> 01:04:27.840 It's outside of the bounds of space and time. 01:04:27.840 --> 01:04:30.160 That's how dreams work. 01:04:30.160 --> 01:04:34.240 When God gives these visions of prophecies, of promises of the end 01:04:34.400 --> 01:04:35.520 time, he's not bound. 01:04:36.160 --> 01:04:40.080 And so the prophecy given to Daniel, portions of it he saw 01:04:40.240 --> 01:04:44.160 because he was in Babylon, but much of it occurred over subsequent 01:04:44.160 --> 01:04:47.040 centuries, going into the next millennium. 01:04:47.040 --> 01:04:48.640 That's the way it works. 01:04:48.640 --> 01:04:51.840 And there are other prophecies that are given elsewhere, particularly in Revelation, 01:04:51.840 --> 01:04:56.080 some of which are very clearly in the first century AD. 01:04:56.080 --> 01:04:58.880 It's very clear that there are certain things that were revealed to 01:04:58.880 --> 01:05:04.080 John in his apocalypse, are typologically of things that happened up to 01:05:04.080 --> 01:05:05.840 the destruction of the temple. 01:05:05.840 --> 01:05:09.440 And we're going to go through Matthew 24 and 25 here in 01:05:09.440 --> 01:05:10.880 a minute. 01:05:10.880 --> 01:05:14.160 The important thing is that when Jesus is describing those things, and 01:05:14.160 --> 01:05:18.800 then as John is describing them in his vision, God is not 01:05:18.800 --> 01:05:22.960 bound by tying them to specific places on the timeline, which isn't 01:05:22.960 --> 01:05:24.640 to say that they aren't fulfilled. 01:05:24.640 --> 01:05:27.840 It's just that when Jesus gives a prophecy in Matthew 24 and 01:05:27.920 --> 01:05:31.840 25, as you read it, it's very clear that some portions were 01:05:31.840 --> 01:05:36.320 typologically fulfilled after his death and resurrection through the destruction of the 01:05:36.320 --> 01:05:40.240 temple. And it is equally clear that there are things in Matthew 01:05:40.240 --> 01:05:43.120 twenty-four that absolutely have not yet occurred. 01:05:43.120 --> 01:05:45.440 They could not possibly have occurred. 01:05:45.440 --> 01:05:48.720 And in fact, this is one of the heresies that's refuted in 01:05:48.800 --> 01:05:51.280 I believe Second Thessalonians. 01:05:51.280 --> 01:05:55.120 And right around AD 50, there was a heresy that was going 01:05:55.120 --> 01:05:59.680 around where people were claiming that Jesus had come back and that 01:05:59.680 --> 01:06:00.720 they had missed it. 01:06:00.720 --> 01:06:03.600 And that those who had died were not saved because they weren't 01:06:03.520 --> 01:06:08.400 resurrected. They misunderstood the visions and the prophecies, and they were worried 01:06:08.400 --> 01:06:11.040 that they had been left out of the resurrection of the dead. 01:06:11.040 --> 01:06:16.400 And so part of 2 Thessalonians is specifically refuting that that's nonsense. 01:06:16.400 --> 01:06:18.000 These things are not yet fulfilled. 01:06:18.560 --> 01:06:21.680 They're things that were prophesied that haven't happened yet. 01:06:21.680 --> 01:06:25.520 Now, in the case of some of the prophecies that Jesus gave, 01:06:25.520 --> 01:06:30.240 you know, before his before his death and resurrection in Second Thessalonians, 01:06:30.240 --> 01:06:33.280 that was before the destruction of the temple, but yet there are 01:06:33.280 --> 01:06:36.320 still things that are clearly in Matthew that have yet to be 01:06:36.320 --> 01:06:39.360 fulfilled. They cannot possibly have been fulfilled. 01:06:39.360 --> 01:06:42.960 And so one of the parts of this that's a very short, 01:06:42.880 --> 01:06:47.600 simple part that Christians must reject is the idea of preterism, which 01:06:47.600 --> 01:06:49.040 basically means after. 01:06:49.040 --> 01:06:51.680 That's already over. 01:06:51.680 --> 01:06:57.200 The only way to believe that Matthew's prophecies, the prophecies of Jesus 01:06:57.520 --> 01:07:01.680 in Matthew 24 and 25 have been fulfilled, is to claim that 01:07:01.680 --> 01:07:04.800 the second coming has already occurred, that the trumpet has blown, the 01:07:04.800 --> 01:07:08.000 resurrection of the dead has occurred, in which case we're all liars. 01:07:08.000 --> 01:07:08.880 The creeds are lies. 01:07:09.520 --> 01:07:12.320 Everything we say about the Christian faith is a lie. 01:07:12.320 --> 01:07:14.880 What is true is what Corey was saying earlier, and what we've 01:07:14.800 --> 01:07:20.560 said in many episodes, the fulfillment of prophecy is frequently typological. 01:07:20.560 --> 01:07:24.560 You know, there are a couple small examples correlated from the Old 01:07:24.560 --> 01:07:29.280 Testament to the New Testament that I think illustrate the critical hermeneutic 01:07:29.280 --> 01:07:32.640 that we should have when we're looking at any prophecy. 01:07:32.640 --> 01:07:37.760 In the Old Testament, you have Moses raising the bronze serpent up 01:07:37.760 --> 01:07:42.400 on a pole, and every Israelite who looked upon that bronze serpent 01:07:42.400 --> 01:07:45.120 was saved from the poison of the adders. 01:07:45.120 --> 01:07:49.840 And the New Testament directly correlates that symbol of the raised-up serpent 01:07:49.840 --> 01:07:53.360 on the pole to Christ being raised on the cross. 01:07:53.360 --> 01:07:58.000 Similarly, Jonah spent three days in the belly of a fish. 01:07:58.000 --> 01:08:01.520 The New Testament directly correlates that to Jesus spending three days in 01:08:01.520 --> 01:08:03.440 the tomb. 01:08:03.440 --> 01:08:07.760 Now, the interpretive lens that would say, well, that already happened, so 01:08:07.760 --> 01:08:12.880 it can't happen again, would necessarily cause you to say, well, Jonah 01:08:12.880 --> 01:08:15.600 was in the belly of the fish for three days. 01:08:15.600 --> 01:08:18.640 Therefore I can't believe that Jesus was in the tomb for three 01:08:18.640 --> 01:08:21.680 days. That can't happen because it already happened. 01:08:21.680 --> 01:08:25.280 I don't believe that Jesus was raised on the cross because the 01:08:25.280 --> 01:08:26.960 bronze serpent was raised on a pole. 01:08:27.280 --> 01:08:29.600 That already happened, it can't happen again. 01:08:29.600 --> 01:08:31.040 Obviously that's insane. 01:08:31.040 --> 01:08:32.720 Obviously that's blasphemous. 01:08:32.720 --> 01:08:35.120 But that's the kind of argument that's being made when you say, 01:08:35.120 --> 01:08:38.080 well, that happened at the destruction of the temple, therefore it can't 01:08:38.080 --> 01:08:38.960 happen again. 01:08:38.960 --> 01:08:42.240 That's not how typology works. 01:08:42.240 --> 01:08:45.520 Sometimes God repeats things very clearly. 01:08:45.920 --> 01:08:48.800 One of the major premises of this episode is that there's a 01:08:48.800 --> 01:08:50.560 first coming and a second coming. 01:08:50.560 --> 01:08:53.680 The second coming is a repetition of the first, it's typological. 01:08:54.400 --> 01:08:57.440 It's made very explicit in numerous places. 01:08:57.440 --> 01:09:00.080 Jesus is gonna come back the same way he went up. 01:09:00.080 --> 01:09:02.160 That's what the angels said to the apostles. 01:09:02.160 --> 01:09:05.360 It's what is said in other places in scripture. 01:09:05.360 --> 01:09:07.760 Jesus is come back the same way he left. 01:09:07.920 --> 01:09:09.360 That's a repetition. 01:09:09.360 --> 01:09:10.560 It's not an inversion. 01:09:10.560 --> 01:09:12.320 It's there was this and there's that. 01:09:12.320 --> 01:09:13.760 It's gonna happen the same way. 01:09:13.760 --> 01:09:17.680 The second coming is going to be like the first departure, but 01:09:17.680 --> 01:09:19.440 it's tied to the first arrival. 01:09:19.440 --> 01:09:21.120 Jesus will come again. 01:09:21.120 --> 01:09:22.320 It's repetition. 01:09:22.320 --> 01:09:25.600 To say it already happened is functionally say, well, I can't believe 01:09:25.600 --> 01:09:28.080 that Jesus will come back because he already did that once. 01:09:28.080 --> 01:09:30.080 Like that's just it's ludicrous. 01:09:30.080 --> 01:09:32.000 That's not how Christianity works. 01:09:32.000 --> 01:09:33.760 God likes to repeat Himself. 01:09:33.760 --> 01:09:36.960 And so we have to be comfortable with some things being repeated. 01:09:36.960 --> 01:09:40.640 And in prophecy that's very explicitly what happens. 01:09:40.640 --> 01:09:43.120 As we get into Matthew twenty four and twenty-five here in a 01:09:43.120 --> 01:09:46.160 minute, you'll see that there are certain things that clearly happened, and 01:09:46.160 --> 01:09:50.800 yet there are also things that it makes perfect sense that they 01:09:50.800 --> 01:09:54.480 would also happen in the end times, the actual final end of 01:09:54.480 --> 01:09:55.600 all days. 01:09:55.600 --> 01:09:59.120 And when we look in the early church history and see what 01:09:59.120 --> 01:10:03.040 happened in the destruction of the temple, it's okay to say, yeah, 01:10:03.040 --> 01:10:05.600 look, that destruction, that wrath was poured out. 01:10:05.600 --> 01:10:07.920 The wrath is coming again in the last days. 01:10:08.080 --> 01:10:11.920 As Cory said earlier, it's very clear that the last days are 01:10:11.920 --> 01:10:15.200 going to be an outpouring of wrath as has never been seen 01:10:15.200 --> 01:10:16.320 before in history. 01:10:16.320 --> 01:10:18.800 God makes that explicitly. 01:10:18.800 --> 01:10:22.960 So for us to believe that is believing the gospel. 01:10:23.520 --> 01:10:25.600 And I think that you know, part of the reason for us 01:10:25.600 --> 01:10:29.760 doing this episode and emphasizing this explicitly is that it's not bad 01:10:29.760 --> 01:10:31.360 news for God to come back. 01:10:31.360 --> 01:10:32.800 Not if you're Christian. 01:10:32.800 --> 01:10:34.320 It can be scary. 01:10:34.320 --> 01:10:37.440 I mean, John was having a vision in heaven and he fell 01:10:37.440 --> 01:10:38.960 on his face as though dead. 01:10:38.960 --> 01:10:41.360 He was so terrified of what he saw. 01:10:41.360 --> 01:10:43.920 Interacting with God's stuff can be scary. 01:10:43.920 --> 01:10:45.520 We are to fear the Lord. 01:10:45.520 --> 01:10:46.720 He's frightful. 01:10:46.720 --> 01:10:48.400 That doesn't mean he's bad. 01:10:48.400 --> 01:10:51.600 It just means that when we actually recognize what kind of creatures 01:10:51.600 --> 01:10:54.080 we are, it's overwhelming. 01:10:54.080 --> 01:10:58.560 But the overwhelming part is oriented towards the majesty, the glory, the 01:10:58.560 --> 01:10:59.680 power of God. 01:10:59.680 --> 01:11:02.880 And the fact that that God, who is that powerful, that glorious 01:11:02.960 --> 01:11:06.240 and that majestic loves us so much that he did all this 01:11:06.320 --> 01:11:08.960 and he promises all this is our comfort. 01:11:08.960 --> 01:11:12.560 And so ultimately all this is rooted in comfort because he's given 01:11:12.560 --> 01:11:14.640 us these things so that when the bad things happen, 01:11:15.520 --> 01:11:17.520 we don't lose faith. 01:11:17.520 --> 01:11:20.720 If we don't believe that these things apply to us, if we 01:11:20.720 --> 01:11:24.960 don't believe them when we see them, when bad times come, we 01:11:24.960 --> 01:11:26.560 will lose heart. 01:11:26.560 --> 01:11:29.600 The only thing that will get us through is keeping God's promises 01:11:29.760 --> 01:11:30.720 in our heart. 01:11:30.720 --> 01:11:33.760 And whether it happens in our lifetimes or a thousand years or 01:11:33.760 --> 01:11:37.760 ten thousand years, the point is that every generation of Christians needs 01:11:37.760 --> 01:11:42.240 to pass on to the next, the recognition that when past generations 01:11:42.240 --> 01:11:45.040 thought that maybe that was the end of times, they weren't being 01:11:45.040 --> 01:11:50.240 foolish. They were being pious and faithful Christians who believed God's promises. 01:11:50.240 --> 01:11:53.680 And when they saw things bad and things getting worse, they said, 01:11:53.680 --> 01:11:54.720 Maybe this is it. 01:11:54.880 --> 01:11:57.280 If this is it, thy kingdom come. 01:11:57.280 --> 01:11:59.520 That is the ultimate Christian prayer. 01:11:59.520 --> 01:12:01.440 And we should never reject that. 01:12:01.440 --> 01:12:05.920 And believing these prophecies is a vital part of ensuring that should 01:12:05.920 --> 01:12:09.440 those days come in our lifetime or our children's lifetime, we believe 01:12:09.440 --> 01:12:14.080 it and we can receive it with what God has given us. 01:12:14.080 --> 01:12:15.520 It's going to be frightful. 01:12:15.840 --> 01:12:19.360 it's going to be terrible in the proper sense, but it's also 01:12:19.360 --> 01:12:23.040 what is necessary for us to have eternal life. 01:12:23.040 --> 01:12:28.160 All things coming to an end are how ultimate salvation is delivered. 01:12:28.160 --> 01:12:30.480 We look for the resurrection of the dead in the life of 01:12:30.480 --> 01:12:31.280 the world to come. 01:12:31.280 --> 01:12:33.840 That's the promise of the Christian life. 01:12:34.160 --> 01:12:37.360 As Will mentioned, we will put many of these passages in the 01:12:37.360 --> 01:12:42.000 show notes, but when it comes to reading passages about the end 01:12:42.000 --> 01:12:46.000 times, if you read through them and you find that they are 01:12:46.000 --> 01:12:52.640 simply incomprehensible to you, that all of this is confusing, you can't 01:12:52.640 --> 01:12:54.160 place it. 01:12:54.160 --> 01:12:55.840 Take away two things. 01:12:55.840 --> 01:12:59.600 There are two ultimate things that every Christian can and should take 01:12:59.600 --> 01:13:03.680 away from from all of the passages in scripture dealing with the 01:13:03.680 --> 01:13:04.720 end times. 01:13:04.720 --> 01:13:07.280 The first is that God has a plan. 01:13:07.280 --> 01:13:11.280 That should basically go without saying, but God has a plan and 01:13:11.280 --> 01:13:14.000 he has revealed some of it to us, even if in a 01:13:14.000 --> 01:13:17.840 way that is somewhat mysterious and difficult to understand. 01:13:17.840 --> 01:13:21.120 And the second is that God has a plan for you, because 01:13:21.120 --> 01:13:23.440 God has a plan for the elect. 01:13:23.440 --> 01:13:26.720 And so for those who have the gift of faith, the free 01:13:26.720 --> 01:13:31.600 gift of faith, those who are numbered among the elect, regardless of 01:13:31.600 --> 01:13:35.440 how bad things get, all of this is good news. 01:13:35.440 --> 01:13:38.480 No, it's not good news that our lives are going to get 01:13:38.480 --> 01:13:41.760 worse here in time if we live through the end times, but 01:13:41.760 --> 01:13:45.360 it is good news that God will use that to preserve us 01:13:45.360 --> 01:13:47.120 safe to eternal life. 01:13:47.120 --> 01:13:50.000 Those are the two points that Christians should take away regardless of 01:13:50.000 --> 01:13:53.920 what else you're able to take away from reading those passages of 01:13:53.920 --> 01:13:58.320 Scripture, at the absolute least, you can take away those two things 01:13:58.320 --> 01:14:01.760 and find comfort in them. 01:14:01.760 --> 01:14:06.240 And so again, don't necessarily dwell on those passages of Scripture too 01:14:06.240 --> 01:14:09.440 much, because there are other things that are more important. 01:14:09.440 --> 01:14:12.320 That's not to say the episode is not important or that we 01:14:12.320 --> 01:14:15.360 are dwelling on it against our own advice. 01:14:15.360 --> 01:14:18.880 We are addressing these issues because they are important and they can 01:14:18.880 --> 01:14:20.720 be used to mislead. 01:14:20.720 --> 01:14:24.080 And our goal is to refute some of those false teachings that 01:14:24.080 --> 01:14:29.360 have crept into the church and to provide both a correct explanation 01:14:29.360 --> 01:14:34.400 of these things and the comfort that is there in these passages. 01:14:34.400 --> 01:14:38.080 Because there is comfort in the prophecies of the end times. 01:14:38.080 --> 01:14:43.120 Again, even if things will continue to get worse, it is comforting 01:14:43.120 --> 01:14:46.800 to know that God is still in control, God has a plan, 01:14:46.800 --> 01:14:50.240 and it's not just an overall plan for creation, but it is 01:14:50.240 --> 01:14:54.880 a plan that accounts for each and every one of the elect, 01:14:54.880 --> 01:14:58.000 for each and every Christian. 01:14:58.000 --> 01:15:02.480 And so just because the times may be terrifying, which they certainly 01:15:02.480 --> 01:15:06.480 were to the men who saw these visions, it does not mean 01:15:06.480 --> 01:15:09.680 that we lose hope or that we despair, because as Christians there 01:15:09.680 --> 01:15:13.440 is always hope, because God is in control and everything is going 01:15:13.440 --> 01:15:16.560 according to his plan. 01:15:16.560 --> 01:15:20.320 And so as Wo mentioned we will now turn to Matthew twenty 01:15:20.320 --> 01:15:23.360 four and twenty five twenty five starting with, of course, Matthew twenty 01:15:23.360 --> 01:15:28.160 four. Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples 01:15:28.160 --> 01:15:30.960 came to point out to him the buildings of the temple, but 01:15:30.960 --> 01:15:34.240 he answered them, You see all these, do you not? 01:15:34.240 --> 01:15:37.600 Truly I say to you, there will not be left here one 01:15:37.600 --> 01:15:40.960 stone upon another that will not be thrown down. 01:15:40.960 --> 01:15:43.840 As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to 01:15:43.840 --> 01:15:47.920 him privately saying, Tell us, when will these things be, and what 01:15:47.920 --> 01:15:50.320 will be the sign of your coming and of the end of 01:15:50.320 --> 01:15:51.360 the age? 01:15:51.360 --> 01:15:55.600 And Jesus answered them, see that no one leads you astray, for 01:15:55.600 --> 01:15:58.800 many will come in my name saying, I am the Christ, and 01:15:58.800 --> 01:16:02.320 they will lead many astray, and you will hear of wars and 01:16:02.320 --> 01:16:06.400 rumours of wars, see that you are not alarmed, for this must 01:16:06.400 --> 01:16:10.000 take place, but the end is not yet. 01:16:10.000 --> 01:16:14.320 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there 01:16:14.320 --> 01:16:17.360 will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 01:16:17.360 --> 01:16:22.720 All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. 01:16:22.720 --> 01:16:26.720 We have mentioned it before, when dealing with this particular section of 01:16:26.720 --> 01:16:31.520 scripture, but it is worth repeating here, because it is worth repeating 01:16:31.520 --> 01:16:36.960 until everyone who claims to be Christian recognizes this fact. 01:16:36.960 --> 01:16:42.480 Christ says here very clearly, not one stone will be left upon 01:16:42.480 --> 01:16:45.920 another that will not be thrown down when speaking of the destruction 01:16:45.920 --> 01:16:47.520 of the temple. 01:16:47.520 --> 01:16:50.800 And this is the literal destruction of the temple at the hands 01:16:50.800 --> 01:16:52.160 of the Romans. 01:16:52.160 --> 01:16:55.440 And so when you see supposed Christians going and praying at the 01:16:55.440 --> 01:17:00.400 so-called wailing wall, they are worshipping a false God and they are 01:17:00.400 --> 01:17:02.400 calling Christ a liar. 01:17:02.400 --> 01:17:07.520 Because Christ says not one stone will be left upon another, that 01:17:07.520 --> 01:17:10.880 does not leave any room for a wall. 01:17:10.880 --> 01:17:14.880 So any time you see someone say the wailing wall, so called, 01:17:14.880 --> 01:17:19.520 is part of the temple, you can refute that with this passage 01:17:19.520 --> 01:17:24.400 from Scripture, with these words of Christ, because Christ said not one 01:17:24.400 --> 01:17:26.960 stone will be left upon another. 01:17:26.960 --> 01:17:30.480 And the Romans fulfilled that as part of God's plan, as part 01:17:30.480 --> 01:17:34.240 of God's judgment on the wicked apostate Jews. 01:17:34.240 --> 01:17:37.920 The destruction of the temple was part of his judgment on that 01:17:37.920 --> 01:17:43.040 wicked nation, and it was fulfilled according to his word, which again 01:17:43.200 --> 01:17:46.320 not one stone on another. 01:17:46.320 --> 01:17:49.600 No wall, no retaining wall, nothing. 01:17:49.600 --> 01:17:52.640 Everything was destroyed. 01:17:52.640 --> 01:17:56.480 One thing I found interesting when reading about the destruction of the 01:17:56.480 --> 01:18:02.640 temple was that when Vestibation sent Titus to go destroy to conquer 01:18:02.640 --> 01:18:07.360 Judea, to subjugate those people, the what I read was that the 01:18:07.360 --> 01:18:10.160 intention was not actually to destroy the temple, they wanted to preserve 01:18:10.240 --> 01:18:15.120 preserve it and the temple somehow caught on fire and was consumed 01:18:15.120 --> 01:18:17.040 by a conflagration. 01:18:17.040 --> 01:18:20.960 I found that interesting because uh the account didn't say well it 01:18:20.960 --> 01:18:26.400 was supernatural or not, but if you're familiar with subsequent to the 01:18:26.400 --> 01:18:30.640 destruction of the temple, later on there was actually an effort to 01:18:30.640 --> 01:18:33.600 rebuild it, not that much later. 01:18:33.600 --> 01:18:39.440 And when workmen were trying to reassemble the temple, fire actually came 01:18:39.440 --> 01:18:41.040 from the ground and consumed them. 01:18:41.040 --> 01:18:44.560 There are eyewitness reports of men who were working on constructing the 01:18:44.560 --> 01:18:46.960 temple being consumed by fire. 01:18:46.960 --> 01:18:51.200 And so I think that in light of those accounts, the burning 01:18:51.200 --> 01:18:55.200 and the destruction of the temple seemingly out of nowhere, it was 01:18:55.200 --> 01:18:56.800 God keeping that promise. 01:18:56.800 --> 01:18:59.280 Jesus promised the temple would be destroyed. 01:18:59.280 --> 01:19:01.920 And whether or not Titus or anybody else wanted to keep it 01:19:01.920 --> 01:19:06.480 intact, when the time that was appointed for its destruction came, it 01:19:06.480 --> 01:19:08.160 was leveled. 01:19:08.160 --> 01:19:13.360 Now, what's interesting is that for a period of time after Pentecost 01:19:13.440 --> 01:19:18.720 through destruction of the temple, there were still some Christians who went 01:19:18.720 --> 01:19:19.920 to the temple. 01:19:19.920 --> 01:19:24.000 It's not clear to what extent they participated in the sacrificial system 01:19:24.000 --> 01:19:28.160 anymore, but they took offerings and they prayed and they certainly gathered 01:19:28.160 --> 01:19:30.320 there to learn and to study. 01:19:30.400 --> 01:19:34.480 Whatever was going on in the church age between about AD thirty 01:19:34.480 --> 01:19:39.520 or thirty-three and AD seventy, with the complete destruction of the temple, 01:19:39.520 --> 01:19:44.080 God ensured that the prophecies that had been fulfilled in Christ, that 01:19:44.080 --> 01:19:49.840 the entire sacrificial system was fulfilled by his birth, death, and resurrection, 01:19:49.840 --> 01:19:54.400 his perfect sacrifice on the cross, was the anti type to every 01:19:54.400 --> 01:19:57.040 sacrifice that had ever been given. 01:19:57.040 --> 01:20:02.960 With the destruction of the temple, anything that could possibly have represented 01:20:02.960 --> 01:20:05.520 the former faith was erased. 01:20:05.520 --> 01:20:08.880 And the only thing that was possible from that point on was 01:20:08.880 --> 01:20:13.920 an explicitly and overtly Christian faith with none of the trappings of 01:20:14.080 --> 01:20:17.040 what at that point was really becoming Judaizing. 01:20:17.040 --> 01:20:20.480 And we did the series at the beginning of this year where 01:20:20.480 --> 01:20:23.280 we talked at length about the state of the church, about the 01:20:23.280 --> 01:20:26.080 various heresies, including the Judaizing heresy. 01:20:26.080 --> 01:20:28.000 And we talked about the fact that they was the the very 01:20:28.000 --> 01:20:29.360 first emergent heresy. 01:20:29.360 --> 01:20:35.360 Judaizing and Gnosticism were attempting to devour the church in her infancy. 01:20:35.360 --> 01:20:36.240 And so 01:20:37.440 --> 01:20:42.240 the fact that God destroyed the temple, as Christ had prophesied here, 01:20:42.240 --> 01:20:45.760 this is very clearly a direct prophecy of God that was fulfilled 01:20:45.760 --> 01:20:51.600 within 40 years years was the end of anything except for the 01:20:51.600 --> 01:20:52.880 Christian faith. 01:20:52.880 --> 01:20:56.320 Any pretense that someone who would call himself a Jew could be 01:20:56.320 --> 01:21:02.960 a Christian was put to death with the destruction of the temple. 01:21:02.960 --> 01:21:07.760 By foreclosing, on that period in history, the promise that God made 01:21:07.760 --> 01:21:11.120 from the cross that it is finished was completed. 01:21:11.120 --> 01:21:12.640 It is finished. 01:21:12.640 --> 01:21:14.960 The temple curtain was torn in two. 01:21:14.960 --> 01:21:16.080 There was an earthquake. 01:21:16.080 --> 01:21:18.720 There were signs there in that moment. 01:21:18.720 --> 01:21:24.080 But when Titus came and the temple was leveled, that left no 01:21:24.080 --> 01:21:25.200 doubt whatsoever. 01:21:25.200 --> 01:21:28.640 As Corey said, there's no such thing as a temple wall. 01:21:28.640 --> 01:21:31.840 Anyone who has gone to that wall and prayed there is apostatized 01:21:31.840 --> 01:21:32.640 by doing that. 01:21:32.640 --> 01:21:35.600 That's an absolutely apostate wicked act. 01:21:35.600 --> 01:21:38.640 You are denying Christ by calling him a liar. 01:21:38.640 --> 01:21:40.320 That's how serious that is. 01:21:40.320 --> 01:21:44.720 And yet we see every single politician, all sorts of so-called church 01:21:44.720 --> 01:21:45.760 groups go over there. 01:21:45.760 --> 01:21:47.920 Probably some of you listening have done it. 01:21:47.920 --> 01:21:49.600 I'm not saying you're going to hell. 01:21:49.600 --> 01:21:52.240 I'm saying that that was an act of apostasy for which you 01:21:52.240 --> 01:21:53.120 need to repent. 01:21:53.120 --> 01:21:55.840 Everyone who's done that needs to repent for it because it was 01:21:55.840 --> 01:21:58.560 wicked. It was calling Jesus Christ a liar. 01:21:58.560 --> 01:22:00.560 And that's why these prophecies matter. 01:22:00.560 --> 01:22:06.000 It's not that misinterpreting the prophecy this way or that way is 01:22:06.000 --> 01:22:07.840 more important than the gospel. 01:22:07.840 --> 01:22:11.440 But when, as Corey said, as Jesus said, not one stone will 01:22:11.440 --> 01:22:14.240 be left upon another, you say, Oh look, I find five, six, 01:22:14.240 --> 01:22:15.440 ten, twelve stones. 01:22:15.440 --> 01:22:16.080 Look at this. 01:22:16.080 --> 01:22:17.200 I'm gonna go pray. 01:22:17.360 --> 01:22:19.440 That's way more than a pinch of incense. 01:22:19.440 --> 01:22:23.520 That's calling God a liar and saying, Look, the Judeo faith has 01:22:23.520 --> 01:22:24.560 been preserved. 01:22:24.560 --> 01:22:27.200 Well, that was not done until recently. 01:22:27.200 --> 01:22:32.560 That's subject for another day we talked about in many places. 01:22:32.560 --> 01:22:36.240 The other important part of this first passage in Matthew 24 is 01:22:36.240 --> 01:22:39.520 that there are a number of things that Jesus describes here that 01:22:39.840 --> 01:22:41.520 are colloquial at this point. 01:22:41.520 --> 01:22:43.520 They're part of I think just the English language. 01:22:43.520 --> 01:22:46.880 Even people who don't know anything about Christianity has have heard the 01:22:46.880 --> 01:22:49.440 phrase wars and rumors of wars. 01:22:49.440 --> 01:22:50.640 And it's it goes on. 01:22:50.640 --> 01:22:53.200 It says you'll hear of wars and rumors of wars, so you're 01:22:53.120 --> 01:22:56.000 not let yet alarmed, for this must take place, but the end 01:22:56.000 --> 01:22:57.120 is not yet. 01:22:57.120 --> 01:23:00.400 For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there 01:23:00.400 --> 01:23:02.880 will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 01:23:02.880 --> 01:23:06.080 All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. 01:23:06.400 --> 01:23:09.120 When has that not been true in human history? 01:23:09.920 --> 01:23:14.800 That's probably been true continuously virtually every year since Jesus said it. 01:23:14.800 --> 01:23:16.800 Does that mean it's not a prophecy? 01:23:16.800 --> 01:23:20.480 No. That means it's a prophecy for all of us that whenever 01:23:20.480 --> 01:23:25.120 you hear these things to remember Jesus' prophetic words, to remember that 01:23:25.120 --> 01:23:28.080 these are the beginnings of the Perth pains of the end of 01:23:28.080 --> 01:23:30.160 time, of the end of all things. 01:23:30.160 --> 01:23:34.640 And so these bad things, this news of terrible things like earthquakes 01:23:35.040 --> 01:23:36.960 and famines and wars. 01:23:36.960 --> 01:23:38.400 It's a call to repentance. 01:23:38.400 --> 01:23:39.600 That's fundamentally what it is. 01:23:39.600 --> 01:23:41.840 And that's the purpose of the prophecy being given. 01:23:41.840 --> 01:23:45.040 When we hear the bad news, don't scoff and don't laugh and 01:23:45.040 --> 01:23:47.120 say, well, people have been saying that for 2,000 years. 01:23:47.120 --> 01:23:48.160 That'll never be true. 01:23:48.160 --> 01:23:51.120 Well Well, at that point, now you have a very serious spiritual 01:23:51.120 --> 01:23:55.920 problem because the reminder is put there so that we're just reminded 01:23:55.920 --> 01:23:58.560 to reorient towards God for a little while. 01:23:58.560 --> 01:24:00.960 Oh, I was worrying about other stuff. 01:24:00.960 --> 01:24:04.240 I'm hearing about famines and wars and rumors of wars. 01:24:04.240 --> 01:24:06.480 I need to remember the god is coming soon. 01:24:06.480 --> 01:24:08.080 I need to take that seriously. 01:24:08.080 --> 01:24:09.520 That's why it's there. 01:24:09.520 --> 01:24:12.480 The fact that you can't pinpoint it to a particular date on 01:24:12.480 --> 01:24:15.440 the map Is because God operates outside of history. 01:24:15.440 --> 01:24:17.760 And so we knew that it would always be true. 01:24:17.760 --> 01:24:19.840 He permitted it to be true. 01:24:19.840 --> 01:24:21.920 Probably in virtually every year. 01:24:21.920 --> 01:24:23.120 That means it's working. 01:24:23.120 --> 01:24:25.360 That doesn't mean it's not working. 01:24:26.160 --> 01:24:29.040 Continuing in Matthew twenty-four. 01:24:29.040 --> 01:24:31.680 Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to 01:24:31.680 --> 01:24:34.800 death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's 01:24:34.720 --> 01:24:38.160 sake. And then many will fall away, and betray one another, and 01:24:38.160 --> 01:24:42.080 hate one another, and many false prophets will arise and lead many 01:24:42.080 --> 01:24:46.240 astray, and because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will 01:24:46.240 --> 01:24:49.520 grow cold, but the one who endures to the end will be 01:24:49.520 --> 01:24:53.040 saved, and this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the 01:24:53.040 --> 01:24:57.200 whole world, as a testimony to all nations, and then the end 01:24:57.200 --> 01:24:59.280 will come. 01:24:59.280 --> 01:25:03.040 Similar to what Woe said about wars and rumours of wars, and 01:25:03.040 --> 01:25:08.320 having always been a part of human life on this fallen earth 01:25:08.400 --> 01:25:11.440 because of course we can see that in the first interaction with 01:25:11.440 --> 01:25:13.360 Cain and Abel. 01:25:13.360 --> 01:25:18.160 War has always been a part of human existence, unfortunately. 01:25:18.480 --> 01:25:22.800 These things also, in this paragraph here, have been part of the 01:25:22.800 --> 01:25:25.680 history of the church from the very beginning. 01:25:25.680 --> 01:25:30.560 We have seen betrayals and hatred from the world, hatred from those 01:25:30.560 --> 01:25:34.640 who are supposedly inside the church, and the love of many growing 01:25:34.640 --> 01:25:37.680 cold, we see that particularly happening today. 01:25:37.680 --> 01:25:41.920 Is that an indicator of the end times today it could be? 01:25:41.920 --> 01:25:46.080 Or it could just be part of that continuing cycle that we 01:25:46.080 --> 01:25:48.880 see throughout history. 01:25:48.880 --> 01:25:53.040 And again, this is a reason to always be prepared. 01:25:53.040 --> 01:25:58.880 Scripture speaks frequently that those who are awake, those who are watchful, 01:25:58.880 --> 01:26:02.640 are blessed because they are the faithful servants. 01:26:02.640 --> 01:26:06.080 Another important point in all of this, and I've said this before, 01:26:06.080 --> 01:26:12.640 but it bears repeating, whether or not the actual end times will 01:26:12.960 --> 01:26:16.960 come in three years or five years or fifty or five hundred 01:26:17.040 --> 01:26:22.320 or five thousand, however long it takes, ultimately, for each one of 01:26:22.320 --> 01:26:29.360 us, that doesn't matter that much because we are all finite, 01:26:29.360 --> 01:26:34.000 we are all mortal, each one of us is never more than 01:26:34.080 --> 01:26:39.920 some unknown period possibly very short away from death. 01:26:39.920 --> 01:26:42.640 My heart could stop while I'm recording. 01:26:42.640 --> 01:26:45.680 I could get into an accident later when I'm running errands after 01:26:45.680 --> 01:26:47.280 we're done recording. 01:26:47.280 --> 01:26:51.120 Any number of things could happen to me, and I could stand 01:26:51.120 --> 01:26:54.880 before the judgment seat of God long before I thought that was 01:26:54.880 --> 01:26:57.360 going to happen. 01:26:57.360 --> 01:27:01.360 Because most likely given my family history, I'll probably make it into 01:27:01.360 --> 01:27:05.360 my eighties eighties, but that's only if something does not happen to 01:27:05.360 --> 01:27:09.120 me in the intervening time, and that's in God's hands. 01:27:09.120 --> 01:27:11.840 And so we should always be prepared. 01:27:11.840 --> 01:27:15.680 You should never think, oh well, I'll repent of that and amend 01:27:15.680 --> 01:27:18.480 my ways and change in ten years. 01:27:18.480 --> 01:27:21.440 You know, God give me chastity, but not yet. 01:27:21.440 --> 01:27:24.640 That's a terrible prayer. 01:27:24.640 --> 01:27:25.840 You could die tomorrow. 01:27:25.840 --> 01:27:28.480 You could die in your sleep tonight. 01:27:28.480 --> 01:27:30.720 Christians must recognize that. 01:27:30.720 --> 01:27:33.840 We should always be prepared, and that's part of the point of 01:27:33.840 --> 01:27:36.320 what Christ is saying here. 01:27:36.320 --> 01:27:40.160 These are things that have always existed, and so you should always 01:27:40.160 --> 01:27:41.200 be ready. 01:27:41.200 --> 01:27:43.280 Will they intensify at the end? 01:27:43.280 --> 01:27:44.320 Yes they will. 01:27:44.320 --> 01:27:46.480 That's part of the prophecy. 01:27:46.480 --> 01:27:50.480 But it is also a constant reminder that as a Christian you 01:27:50.480 --> 01:27:53.680 should be watchful, you should be wakeful, you should be looking for 01:27:53.680 --> 01:27:58.960 the coming of Christ, not in the sense of scouring Scripture and 01:27:58.960 --> 01:28:02.880 news headlines, but in the sense of living as a Christian, in 01:28:02.880 --> 01:28:06.880 the sense of deepening that walk with Christ, continuing to read the 01:28:06.880 --> 01:28:11.600 Scriptures, continuing to amend your life as the Spirit enables you to 01:28:11.600 --> 01:28:14.320 do so, that is the Christian life. 01:28:14.320 --> 01:28:17.600 It's not waiting until the last moment and then hoping that on 01:28:17.600 --> 01:28:21.280 your deathbed you can repent right before you flatline. 01:28:21.280 --> 01:28:25.040 That's not Christian, and odds are, if you try to play that 01:28:25.040 --> 01:28:27.040 gamble, you'll lose. 01:28:27.040 --> 01:28:28.160 Do not do that. 01:28:28.160 --> 01:28:29.600 That is not the Christian life. 01:28:29.600 --> 01:28:34.320 The Christian life is being awake and waiting for the master to 01:28:34.320 --> 01:28:35.280 return. 01:28:36.240 --> 01:28:36.320 And 01:28:36.480 --> 01:28:38.480 it's notable that here in 01:28:39.440 --> 01:28:45.040 verse 14, God puts a condition on the end of the world. 01:28:45.040 --> 01:28:48.240 He says the gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the 01:28:48.240 --> 01:28:52.080 whole world as a testimony to all nations, that is all races, 01:28:52.080 --> 01:28:54.320 and then the end will come. 01:28:54.320 --> 01:28:57.200 So that is a condition upon his own return. 01:28:57.200 --> 01:29:01.680 He will not return, is said elsewhere in scripture, until the gospel 01:29:01.680 --> 01:29:03.920 has been taken to all races. 01:29:03.920 --> 01:29:07.920 And to what extent that has been completed has been a topic 01:29:07.920 --> 01:29:10.400 of discussion in the church for many centuries. 01:29:10.400 --> 01:29:14.400 Many have argued and I agree that this work is now complete. 01:29:14.400 --> 01:29:18.080 I think it's entirely fair to say that all nations have been 01:29:18.240 --> 01:29:19.840 reached with the gospel. 01:29:19.840 --> 01:29:21.520 That doesn't mean we stop evangelizing. 01:29:21.520 --> 01:29:24.240 That's got nothing to do with throwing up our hands. 01:29:24.240 --> 01:29:28.720 But the question of the precondition is certainly a valid one, whether 01:29:28.720 --> 01:29:29.840 or not it's been complete. 01:29:29.840 --> 01:29:31.200 You can agree, disagree. 01:29:31.280 --> 01:29:32.400 It doesn't even matter. 01:29:32.400 --> 01:29:36.320 The point is that there is something that must happen before Christ's 01:29:36.320 --> 01:29:39.440 return. So again, this goes back to what I said earlier, to 01:29:39.440 --> 01:29:43.120 say Jesus can't possibly come today because of X. 01:29:43.120 --> 01:29:45.760 Well, God Himself has put conditions on that. 01:29:45.760 --> 01:29:50.160 And so if this condition has been fulfilled, then that is one 01:29:50.160 --> 01:29:55.120 stop that is no longer preventing today being the end of days. 01:29:55.120 --> 01:30:00.000 This is an incidentally another point in the nail on the coffin 01:30:00.000 --> 01:30:02.000 of preterism, because 01:30:02.960 --> 01:30:07.520 to say the the temple's destruction in AD 70 completed all of 01:30:07.520 --> 01:30:11.360 this prophecy is to say the whole world had received the gospel 01:30:11.360 --> 01:30:12.640 before that happened. 01:30:12.640 --> 01:30:15.120 And then the end will come and the end for some reason 01:30:15.280 --> 01:30:16.560 had everything to do with the Jews. 01:30:16.560 --> 01:30:17.600 It's not even about us. 01:30:17.760 --> 01:30:18.800 It's just all about the Jews. 01:30:18.800 --> 01:30:22.560 It's turns out that all the New Testament prophecy was about them 01:30:22.640 --> 01:30:26.080 too. It's a Judaizing heresy to try to rip us out of 01:30:26.080 --> 01:30:28.320 the pages of a book that God has given to us and 01:30:28.320 --> 01:30:30.800 say, actually, that's about the Christ killers. 01:30:30.800 --> 01:30:32.800 No, that's it's simply not. 01:30:32.800 --> 01:30:36.000 The destruction of the temple was God's wrath being poured out upon 01:30:36.000 --> 01:30:39.360 a people who rejected him and brought a curse upon themselves. 01:30:39.360 --> 01:30:43.120 And that curse has been poured out and delivered to this day. 01:30:43.680 --> 01:30:45.360 Continuing in Matthew. 01:30:45.840 --> 01:30:49.200 So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the 01:30:49.200 --> 01:30:53.360 Prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place, let the reader understand. 01:30:53.360 --> 01:30:56.880 Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let 01:30:56.880 --> 01:30:58.960 the one who is on the house top not go down to 01:30:58.960 --> 01:31:01.600 take what is in his house, and let the one who is 01:31:01.600 --> 01:31:04.880 in the field not turn back to take his cloak, and alas 01:31:04.880 --> 01:31:07.600 for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants 01:31:07.600 --> 01:31:11.040 in those days, pray that your flight may not be in winter 01:31:11.040 --> 01:31:15.040 or on a Sabbath, for then there will be great tribulation, such 01:31:15.040 --> 01:31:18.240 as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, 01:31:18.240 --> 01:31:19.920 no and never will be. 01:31:19.920 --> 01:31:23.440 And if those days had not been cut short, no human being 01:31:23.440 --> 01:31:26.800 would be saved, but for the sake of the elect, those days 01:31:26.800 --> 01:31:28.080 will be cut short. 01:31:28.080 --> 01:31:31.840 Then if anyone says to you, Look, here is the Christ, or 01:31:31.840 --> 01:31:35.840 there he is, do not believe it, for false Christs and false 01:31:35.840 --> 01:31:39.520 prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to 01:31:39.520 --> 01:31:42.720 lead astray, if possible, even the elect. 01:31:42.720 --> 01:31:46.320 See I have told you beforehand, so if they say to you, 01:31:46.320 --> 01:31:49.120 Look, he is in the wilderness, do not go out. 01:31:49.120 --> 01:31:52.160 If they say, Look, he is in the inner rooms, do not 01:31:52.160 --> 01:31:55.280 believe it, for as the lightning comes from the east and shines 01:31:55.280 --> 01:31:58.160 as far as the west, so will be the coming of the 01:31:58.160 --> 01:31:59.040 Son of Man. 01:31:59.040 --> 01:32:04.000 Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. 01:32:04.000 --> 01:32:08.800 We of course see a typological fulfillment of this with the destruction 01:32:08.800 --> 01:32:12.560 of the temple, because those to whom Christ is here speaking, at 01:32:12.560 --> 01:32:15.680 least the bulk of the crowd at the time. 01:32:15.680 --> 01:32:19.200 Some of them would have seen the destruction of the temple, perhaps, 01:32:19.200 --> 01:32:22.080 some of the very young members of the crowd. 01:32:22.080 --> 01:32:24.800 But certainly the children of some of the members of the crowd, 01:32:24.800 --> 01:32:28.720 but the ultimate fulfillment of this is, of course, the end days, 01:32:28.720 --> 01:32:31.040 and that is why they are cut short for the sake of 01:32:31.040 --> 01:32:32.000 the elect. 01:32:32.000 --> 01:32:36.160 The destruction of the temple, and the destruction of basically the entire 01:32:36.160 --> 01:32:40.960 region by the Romans, was not of such an intensity and degree 01:32:41.120 --> 01:32:43.840 that it would cause the elect to fall away. 01:32:43.840 --> 01:32:47.760 The end times will be of such an intensity, and so God 01:32:47.760 --> 01:32:50.800 will cut them short for the sake of the elect. 01:32:50.800 --> 01:32:54.080 That is a promise from God with regard to how bad things 01:32:54.080 --> 01:32:55.200 will get. 01:32:55.200 --> 01:32:58.240 That is an undeniable sign. 01:32:58.240 --> 01:33:02.800 Just as undeniable as the second coming itself will be. 01:33:02.800 --> 01:33:05.280 Because the second coming will not be something where you can say, 01:33:05.520 --> 01:33:06.800 Well, maybe that was Christ. 01:33:06.800 --> 01:33:11.040 There will be no confusion when Christ returns. 01:33:11.040 --> 01:33:15.920 The entire world will see him come, and it will be undeniable 01:33:16.160 --> 01:33:17.760 that Christ has returned. 01:33:17.760 --> 01:33:20.560 There will be no debate about it, it will not be someone 01:33:20.560 --> 01:33:22.160 trying to convince you of it. 01:33:22.160 --> 01:33:25.680 Every one will know when he returns. 01:33:25.680 --> 01:33:28.880 And that is why we can very easily dismiss those who say, 01:33:28.880 --> 01:33:32.000 Look, here is the Christ No. 01:33:32.000 --> 01:33:34.400 Because we will all know when he returned. 01:33:34.400 --> 01:33:37.280 So if someone is trying to convince you that Christ is returned, 01:33:37.280 --> 01:33:41.360 or this person is the Christ returned, hopefully no one listening to 01:33:41.360 --> 01:33:43.200 this show would fall for that. 01:33:43.200 --> 01:33:46.560 But certainly you know from the words of Christ here that you 01:33:46.560 --> 01:33:48.320 can simply dismiss that. 01:33:48.320 --> 01:33:51.840 It is not going to be something that is subtle or hidden, 01:33:52.000 --> 01:33:56.400 that's not a rapture, it's not a secret taking away of people 01:33:56.400 --> 01:33:58.000 from the earth. 01:33:58.000 --> 01:34:00.880 It is going to be as the lightning comes from the east 01:34:00.880 --> 01:34:02.880 and shines as far as the west. 01:34:02.880 --> 01:34:08.720 It is going to be obvious to all of mankind simultaneously. 01:34:08.720 --> 01:34:15.040 And on a tangential note, if you want to think hopefully productively 01:34:15.360 --> 01:34:20.880 about typology and how it relates to God's relationship to time, think 01:34:21.040 --> 01:34:24.480 about the temple and Christ. 01:34:24.480 --> 01:34:29.600 Because Christ is the true temple, of course. 01:34:29.600 --> 01:34:36.320 But Christ comes between the destruction of one one temple that was 01:34:36.320 --> 01:34:40.400 rebuilt at the time, largely by Herod, and then 01:34:41.920 --> 01:34:45.360 the other destruction that came after him by the Romans. 01:34:45.360 --> 01:34:49.360 So you can see typologically there's a link there, but which direction 01:34:49.360 --> 01:34:52.080 does that flow with regard to time? 01:34:52.080 --> 01:34:56.080 So you can think about that, meditate on that to some degree, 01:34:56.080 --> 01:35:02.160 and perhaps productively realize how God works in time with regard to 01:35:02.160 --> 01:35:05.600 prophecy. It's not always the way that we view it as human 01:35:05.600 --> 01:35:09.200 beings, because we of course are stuck in time as it were. 01:35:09.200 --> 01:35:12.480 We move through time because we have physical bodies. 01:35:12.480 --> 01:35:15.280 We are part of the created universe. 01:35:15.280 --> 01:35:20.240 One of the attributes or aspects of which is time. 01:35:20.240 --> 01:35:23.520 And so there's a distinction there with how God relates to these 01:35:23.520 --> 01:35:24.480 things. 01:35:26.640 --> 01:35:26.880 And 01:35:26.880 --> 01:35:30.000 this is one of the passages that I referred to earlier where 01:35:30.000 --> 01:35:31.120 Daniel was 01:35:32.000 --> 01:35:36.800 in part prophesying things that would not yet be fulfilled until well 01:35:36.800 --> 01:35:39.040 after the return of Christ. 01:35:39.040 --> 01:35:43.840 And Jesus himself points back to Daniel and what's funny if you 01:35:43.840 --> 01:35:47.680 go towards the end of Daniel 12, he says, I heard but 01:35:47.680 --> 01:35:48.800 I did not understand. 01:35:48.800 --> 01:35:51.600 Then I said, O my lord, what shall be the outcome of 01:35:51.600 --> 01:35:52.080 these things? 01:35:52.080 --> 01:35:55.440 He said, Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up 01:35:55.440 --> 01:35:58.560 and sealed until the time of the end. 01:35:58.560 --> 01:36:01.360 So once again, the prophet of God was confused. 01:36:01.360 --> 01:36:04.160 He didn't know what he'd written down, and God said this is 01:36:04.160 --> 01:36:06.640 sealed away until it's proper time. 01:36:06.640 --> 01:36:10.160 And that is frequently the case when God talks about his things. 01:36:10.160 --> 01:36:13.200 Things are sealed away until their time has come. 01:36:13.200 --> 01:36:15.680 This was the case with Jesus' whole ministry. 01:36:15.680 --> 01:36:19.440 At the beginning, when people were beginning to say you are the 01:36:19.440 --> 01:36:23.440 Christ, he strictly admonished them not to tell anyone because his time 01:36:23.440 --> 01:36:24.880 had not yet come. 01:36:24.880 --> 01:36:29.840 Because when that was publicly proclaimed, it immediately precipitated his murder on 01:36:29.840 --> 01:36:31.120 the cross by the Jews. 01:36:31.120 --> 01:36:35.280 And so that couldn't happen yet until he'd fulfilled all the prophecies, 01:36:35.280 --> 01:36:40.080 which is why, despite not being ashamed of being God, he necessarily 01:36:40.080 --> 01:36:43.360 had to keep it a secret for as many people as possible 01:36:43.520 --> 01:36:46.880 until all of the other things were fulfilled, and then when the 01:36:46.880 --> 01:36:51.040 time came, he said it is so. 01:36:51.200 --> 01:36:55.120 This passage from you know verse fifteen through twenty-eight is another great 01:36:55.120 --> 01:36:59.600 example, as Corey was saying, and I'll reiterate When God speaks of 01:36:59.600 --> 01:37:02.480 these things, it's across time. 01:37:02.480 --> 01:37:06.000 You can slot part of this maybe into being about the destruction 01:37:06.000 --> 01:37:06.720 of the temple. 01:37:06.720 --> 01:37:09.840 I don't think that's any stretch, but it can't possibly all be 01:37:09.840 --> 01:37:12.480 about having been fulfilled by AD seventy, because 01:37:13.360 --> 01:37:15.680 has the son of man returned? 01:37:15.680 --> 01:37:17.360 No, that's blasphemy. 01:37:17.360 --> 01:37:21.120 It's blasphemy that's dismissed elsewhere in scripture. 01:37:21.120 --> 01:37:23.680 You cannot say that Jesus has already come back. 01:37:23.680 --> 01:37:25.680 That has yet to happen. 01:37:25.680 --> 01:37:28.720 And again, it hasn't happened because all the nations certainly at this 01:37:28.720 --> 01:37:30.080 point hadn't been reached. 01:37:30.080 --> 01:37:33.440 If they've been reached now, that's one thing checked off, but there 01:37:33.440 --> 01:37:37.360 are other stops that are in the way of being able to 01:37:37.360 --> 01:37:39.440 say, well, Jesus could come at any time. 01:37:39.440 --> 01:37:42.800 And many of those prophecies are yet to be fulfilled. 01:37:43.520 --> 01:37:47.440 Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, 01:37:47.440 --> 01:37:50.560 and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will 01:37:50.560 --> 01:37:53.760 fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 01:37:53.760 --> 01:37:57.040 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, 01:37:57.040 --> 01:37:59.840 and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they 01:37:59.840 --> 01:38:01.920 will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven 01:38:02.000 --> 01:38:05.600 with power and great glory, and he will send out his angels 01:38:05.600 --> 01:38:08.800 with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from 01:38:08.800 --> 01:38:13.600 the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. 01:38:13.600 --> 01:38:16.400 Again we can very obviously see this is not going to be 01:38:16.400 --> 01:38:20.960 something that is subtle or something that anyone on the earth will 01:38:20.960 --> 01:38:25.360 miss. The second coming is going to be the most obvious thing 01:38:25.360 --> 01:38:27.200 in all of history. 01:38:27.200 --> 01:38:31.920 Everyone will know when it happens, there will be zero doubt. 01:38:31.920 --> 01:38:35.360 From the fig tree learn its lesson as soon as its branch 01:38:35.360 --> 01:38:38.720 becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is 01:38:38.720 --> 01:38:42.400 near. So also when you see all these things, you know that 01:38:42.400 --> 01:38:44.800 He is near, at the very gates. 01:38:44.800 --> 01:38:48.800 Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until 01:38:48.800 --> 01:38:50.640 all these things take place. 01:38:50.640 --> 01:38:53.680 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass 01:38:53.760 --> 01:38:55.360 away. 01:38:56.000 --> 01:38:56.240 So 01:38:56.320 --> 01:38:59.360 I think the crucial part here is where Jesus says, Truly I 01:38:59.360 --> 01:39:03.280 say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these 01:39:03.280 --> 01:39:04.880 things take place. 01:39:04.880 --> 01:39:09.440 Now there's been debate for two thousand years over what this generation 01:39:09.600 --> 01:39:14.240 means. One possible interpretation would be that it means those who were 01:39:14.240 --> 01:39:18.720 living, and therefore that would support the premise that all this had 01:39:18.720 --> 01:39:21.920 to be fulfilled by the destruction of the temple. 01:39:21.920 --> 01:39:24.960 And that would be a possible reading if not for the fact 01:39:24.960 --> 01:39:27.200 that he's describing the end of days. 01:39:27.200 --> 01:39:30.000 The trumpet blast, the gathering of the elect. 01:39:30.000 --> 01:39:31.840 That's all revelation stuff. 01:39:31.840 --> 01:39:33.040 That is the end of all things. 01:39:33.440 --> 01:39:34.880 It's judgment day. 01:39:34.880 --> 01:39:36.800 It is the second coming. 01:39:36.800 --> 01:39:42.480 So the only way that this generation, which must admit is ambiguous, 01:39:42.480 --> 01:39:45.440 it could potentially refer to a number of different things. 01:39:45.440 --> 01:39:49.920 When we had the concrete examples of all the things that must 01:39:49.920 --> 01:39:54.640 take place before the generation will pass away, you cannot possibly conclude 01:39:54.640 --> 01:39:58.320 that it is speaking of those who are living in the first 01:39:58.320 --> 01:40:04.400 century. It's an absolute impossibility to believe the text and to believe 01:40:04.400 --> 01:40:06.560 that that is what's going on. 01:40:06.560 --> 01:40:09.840 And so again, this is one of the most basic places where 01:40:09.840 --> 01:40:12.320 the clear interprets the unclear. 01:40:12.320 --> 01:40:17.280 If you have an ambiguous statement this generation, the most natural, obvious 01:40:17.360 --> 01:40:20.320 and in isolation explanation would be those who are living. 01:40:20.320 --> 01:40:21.600 Absolutely agree with that. 01:40:21.600 --> 01:40:23.520 That's the most simple reading of it. 01:40:23.520 --> 01:40:25.840 But then when you look at all the tests, have all the 01:40:25.840 --> 01:40:27.360 nations heard the gospel? 01:40:27.360 --> 01:40:28.800 Has the Son of Man come back? 01:40:28.800 --> 01:40:30.320 Have the trumpets blown? 01:40:30.320 --> 01:40:32.960 Has the lightning been seen from the east to the west by 01:40:32.960 --> 01:40:34.320 every living man? 01:40:34.320 --> 01:40:36.960 No. None of those things have happened. 01:40:36.960 --> 01:40:38.320 And therefore, this generation 01:40:39.200 --> 01:40:41.840 absolutely cannot refer to those who are living. 01:40:41.840 --> 01:40:43.360 So it's a very simple thing. 01:40:43.360 --> 01:40:46.320 You don't have to speculate, and this is not a matter of 01:40:46.320 --> 01:40:54.160 opinion. The things which are absolutely impossible disqualify a possible hypothetical interpretation 01:40:54.160 --> 01:40:56.560 of an ambiguous verse. 01:40:56.560 --> 01:41:00.880 So Jesus wasn't screwing around, he didn't say anything wrong, but when 01:41:00.880 --> 01:41:04.560 he said this generation, I think that the interpretation that many of 01:41:04.560 --> 01:41:07.360 the church fathers have held that I think is consistent is that 01:41:07.360 --> 01:41:08.960 this is talking about the church age. 01:41:08.960 --> 01:41:11.840 'Cause again, when you look at this stretch of things, some of 01:41:11.840 --> 01:41:14.640 them, you know, from the moment the the all of that discourse 01:41:14.640 --> 01:41:18.960 began here at the beginning of chapter twenty-four, when they were asking 01:41:18.960 --> 01:41:23.200 him, you know, about his kingdom, he said, here's the stuff that's 01:41:23.200 --> 01:41:24.240 gonna happen first. 01:41:24.240 --> 01:41:28.400 The temple's gonna be destroyed, people are gonna flee Judea, it's gonna 01:41:28.400 --> 01:41:31.920 be really bad, the days will be cut short, everyone is gonna 01:41:31.920 --> 01:41:34.800 see, everyone's going to hear the trumpet blast, and it's going to 01:41:34.800 --> 01:41:36.000 be the end of all things. 01:41:36.000 --> 01:41:41.920 That's an all-encompassing church age prophecy from the day that it was 01:41:41.920 --> 01:41:43.440 given until today. 01:41:43.440 --> 01:41:45.520 And it has yet to be fulfilled, because we haven't heard the 01:41:45.520 --> 01:41:47.200 trumpet blast either. 01:41:47.200 --> 01:41:49.920 So portions of this have yet to happen. 01:41:49.920 --> 01:41:52.880 Therefore, this generation shall not pass away. 01:41:52.880 --> 01:41:55.440 I think the only reasonable reading that's left for us is that 01:41:55.840 --> 01:41:57.440 it's referring to the church age. 01:41:57.440 --> 01:42:01.360 It's referring to us, not as a living generation, but as part 01:42:01.360 --> 01:42:03.120 of the church more broadly. 01:42:03.120 --> 01:42:07.120 The bride of Christ has yet to be reunited with the bridegroom. 01:42:07.120 --> 01:42:11.280 When the trumpet blasts, that will happen, and until then these things 01:42:11.280 --> 01:42:13.840 are not completely fulfilled. 01:42:13.840 --> 01:42:17.120 But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the 01:42:17.120 --> 01:42:20.320 angels of heaven or the Son, but the Father only. 01:42:20.320 --> 01:42:23.040 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming 01:42:23.040 --> 01:42:26.080 of the Son of Man, for as in those days before the 01:42:26.080 --> 01:42:30.480 flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until 01:42:30.480 --> 01:42:33.600 the day when Noah entered the Ark, and they were unaware until 01:42:33.600 --> 01:42:36.080 the flood came and swept them all away. 01:42:36.080 --> 01:42:38.720 So will be the coming of the Son of Man. 01:42:38.720 --> 01:42:42.000 Then two men will be in the field, one will be taken, 01:42:42.000 --> 01:42:43.200 and one left. 01:42:43.200 --> 01:42:46.400 Two women will be grinding at the mill, one will be taken, 01:42:46.400 --> 01:42:47.200 and one left. 01:42:47.760 --> 01:42:51.280 Therefore stay awake, for you do not know on what day your 01:42:51.280 --> 01:42:54.800 lord is coming, but know this, that if the master of the 01:42:54.800 --> 01:42:57.440 house had known in what part of the night the thief was 01:42:57.440 --> 01:43:00.000 coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have left the 01:43:00.080 --> 01:43:02.320 house be broken into. 01:43:02.320 --> 01:43:05.520 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is 01:43:05.520 --> 01:43:08.400 coming at an hour you do not expect. 01:43:08.400 --> 01:43:12.160 Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has 01:43:12.160 --> 01:43:15.600 set over his household, to give them their food at the proper 01:43:15.600 --> 01:43:19.520 time. Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing 01:43:19.520 --> 01:43:20.640 when he comes. 01:43:20.640 --> 01:43:23.760 Truly I say to you, he will set him over all his 01:43:23.760 --> 01:43:27.920 possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, My master is 01:43:27.920 --> 01:43:32.160 delayed, and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eats and drinks 01:43:32.160 --> 01:43:35.520 with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day 01:43:35.520 --> 01:43:38.320 when he does not expect him, and at an hour he does 01:43:38.320 --> 01:43:41.600 not know, and will cut him in pieces, and put him with 01:43:41.600 --> 01:43:42.720 the hypocrites. 01:43:42.720 --> 01:43:49.040 In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 01:43:49.040 --> 01:43:54.160 Here we see very clearly from Scripture what Christians are to do 01:43:54.160 --> 01:43:56.800 and what Christians are not to do. 01:43:56.800 --> 01:44:01.440 It's the same thing that we already said earlier in the episode. 01:44:01.440 --> 01:44:05.440 As Christians, we are to stay awake, we are to be watchful, 01:44:05.440 --> 01:44:07.760 we are to wait for the return of the master of the 01:44:07.760 --> 01:44:10.640 house, which of course is Christ. 01:44:10.640 --> 01:44:14.240 We are to wait for his second coming. 01:44:14.240 --> 01:44:17.680 That doesn't mean again that we are to scour the news headlines 01:44:18.320 --> 01:44:22.080 and try to correlate everything with a verse of scripture. 01:44:22.640 --> 01:44:27.920 it means that we live the Christian life in anticipation and expectation 01:44:28.080 --> 01:44:33.280 of Christ's return, Whether it happens in our lifetime or we die 01:44:33.280 --> 01:44:36.960 and see him at the judgment, which the judgment is not bad 01:44:36.960 --> 01:44:38.240 news for Christians. 01:44:38.240 --> 01:44:40.160 Do bear that in mind. 01:44:40.160 --> 01:44:43.120 The judgment is terrible news, if you are not a Christian, of 01:44:43.120 --> 01:44:46.160 course. That's where we see the weeping and the gnashing of teeth, 01:44:46.160 --> 01:44:49.600 which is of course a description of hell. 01:44:49.600 --> 01:44:53.440 But we are to stay awake and wait for Christ by living 01:44:53.440 --> 01:44:58.560 a Christian life, not by growing derelict in our duties and thinking, 01:44:58.560 --> 01:45:01.760 well, Christ hasn't come back yet, so it must be a long 01:45:01.760 --> 01:45:04.000 time in the future, I'll just do whatever I want for a 01:45:04.000 --> 01:45:06.080 couple decades, and then I'll repent. 01:45:06.080 --> 01:45:07.600 That's not the Christian life. 01:45:07.600 --> 01:45:08.800 That's apostasy. 01:45:08.800 --> 01:45:12.400 And you have no guarantee that at the end of that period 01:45:12.400 --> 01:45:15.200 of apostasy, you'll come back to the faith. 01:45:15.200 --> 01:45:18.160 You have no guarantee you'll live through that period. 01:45:18.160 --> 01:45:23.040 Again, you have no guarantee of tomorrow, let alone ten, twenty, thirty 01:45:23.040 --> 01:45:25.440 years in the future. 01:45:25.440 --> 01:45:30.560 Everything is according to God's will and God's good grace. 01:45:30.560 --> 01:45:33.840 Whatever God gives you He gives you is a gift, and you 01:45:33.840 --> 01:45:37.600 are to use it in a Christian fashion while living a Christian 01:45:37.600 --> 01:45:41.200 life. Not to live a dissolute life and wait until the very 01:45:41.200 --> 01:45:44.640 end and hope that you can repent on your deathbed, because again 01:45:44.720 --> 01:45:47.120 that is not a Christian life. 01:45:47.120 --> 01:45:48.240 That is a wicked thing. 01:45:48.880 --> 01:45:53.760 And do remember there are rewards for living as a Christian, there 01:45:53.840 --> 01:45:56.400 are rewards for your works in this life. 01:45:56.400 --> 01:46:00.480 They do not save you, they do not justify, but God promises 01:46:00.640 --> 01:46:02.480 rewards in the next life. 01:46:02.480 --> 01:46:06.800 So if you live a dissolute life for thirty, forty, fifty years, 01:46:06.800 --> 01:46:09.760 maybe you manage to do that for eighty years and repent on 01:46:09.760 --> 01:46:11.600 your deathbed. 01:46:11.600 --> 01:46:15.440 If you actually repent, you will indeed be saved. 01:46:15.440 --> 01:46:18.960 However, those eighty years that you could have been living as a 01:46:18.960 --> 01:46:24.000 Christian and doing good works and accruing treasure in heaven, you wasted 01:46:24.000 --> 01:46:26.640 them, you wasted your life. 01:46:26.640 --> 01:46:28.000 It is better to live as a Christian 01:46:29.120 --> 01:46:33.920 than to live as a wicked member of this generation. 01:46:33.920 --> 01:46:37.120 It may look like they're living it up, like they're having a 01:46:37.120 --> 01:46:42.720 grand time, but ultimately, everything that they have done is dust and 01:46:42.720 --> 01:46:46.080 ash. All of it will be burned away, and if they do 01:46:46.080 --> 01:46:49.760 not repent by the end, they will burn with it. 01:46:49.760 --> 01:46:53.600 Whereas if you live the Christian life, you will be accruing rewards 01:46:53.600 --> 01:46:57.520 in heaven and also have eternity to enjoy 01:46:57.520 --> 01:46:58.160 them. 01:46:58.720 --> 01:47:01.040 For the sake of time, we're not going to read through all 01:47:01.040 --> 01:47:05.040 of chapter 25, but just to give you an overview, and I 01:47:05.040 --> 01:47:07.920 want to assign this as reading homework for you. 01:47:07.920 --> 01:47:10.480 Go read Matthew chapter 25. 01:47:10.480 --> 01:47:14.480 What you'll find is just as there was a one parable talking 01:47:14.480 --> 01:47:18.160 about being awake and being prepared, there are two more parables. 01:47:18.160 --> 01:47:21.360 There's a parable of the ten virgins, and then there's the parable 01:47:21.360 --> 01:47:22.480 of the talents. 01:47:22.480 --> 01:47:27.360 And both of them are about vigilance, watchfulness, and obedience in this 01:47:27.360 --> 01:47:30.880 life in anticipation of the master's return. 01:47:30.880 --> 01:47:32.800 And the message of both of them is the message of this 01:47:33.280 --> 01:47:38.080 episode. God says, believe this stuff and keep watch. 01:47:38.080 --> 01:47:38.960 And that's it. 01:47:38.960 --> 01:47:40.400 And so that's all we're saying. 01:47:40.400 --> 01:47:44.400 Our exhortation is nothing more or less than Christ's own words to 01:47:44.400 --> 01:47:47.040 believe this promise and to keep watch. 01:47:47.040 --> 01:47:51.680 And then the last two paragraphs of Matthew 25 are Christ describing 01:47:51.840 --> 01:47:56.880 in eschatological terms him sitting on the judgment throne, separating the sheep 01:47:56.880 --> 01:48:01.760 from the goats, entering us into paradise and entering the damned into 01:48:01.760 --> 01:48:03.680 eternal torment physically. 01:48:03.680 --> 01:48:06.960 That's the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world 01:48:06.960 --> 01:48:08.640 to come. 01:48:08.640 --> 01:48:09.280 And then 01:48:10.160 --> 01:48:13.360 just to give you an idea where this was positioned in Christ's 01:48:13.920 --> 01:48:18.240 ministry, the very next thing, the very beginning of chapter twenty-six, he 01:48:18.240 --> 01:48:21.040 says, when Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to 01:48:21.040 --> 01:48:24.320 his disciples, You know that after two days of Passover is coming, 01:48:24.320 --> 01:48:27.920 and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified. 01:48:27.920 --> 01:48:29.920 So this is the very last thing that he said in his 01:48:30.000 --> 01:48:33.920 earthly ministry effectively, and he didn't give it to a huge crowd 01:48:33.920 --> 01:48:34.640 of people. 01:48:34.640 --> 01:48:36.880 This was to the disciples that he gave this teacher. 01:48:37.520 --> 01:48:40.800 It was passed on to us because it applies to us. 01:48:40.800 --> 01:48:44.560 It wasn't just about them going out and warning the Jews of 01:48:44.560 --> 01:48:47.840 the next forty years, watch out, because the temple's going to be 01:48:47.840 --> 01:48:51.120 destroyed. It was for all believers in all times and all places 01:48:51.520 --> 01:48:58.080 since then to keep watch, believe God's promises, treat his prophecies with 01:48:58.080 --> 01:49:02.400 respect, even understanding them as Daniel understood them, which wasn't to say 01:49:02.480 --> 01:49:03.040 not at all. 01:49:03.040 --> 01:49:05.280 He says I've heard, but I do not understand. 01:49:05.280 --> 01:49:07.920 And then Daniel said, O my Lord, what shall be the outcome 01:49:07.920 --> 01:49:08.800 of these things? 01:49:08.800 --> 01:49:11.920 And God said, Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut 01:49:11.920 --> 01:49:14.720 up and sealed until the time of the end. 01:49:14.720 --> 01:49:19.440 So we can't go beyond that because there's nothing revealed beyond what 01:49:19.440 --> 01:49:22.480 scripture has left in some cases ambiguous. 01:49:22.480 --> 01:49:24.880 But when these things are fulfilled, we will know. 01:49:24.880 --> 01:49:28.400 And that's the tenor of all three of the parables in Matthew 01:49:28.480 --> 01:49:32.560 24 and 25, when you keep watch, when you see the bridegroom 01:49:32.560 --> 01:49:35.760 coming, when you see the master returning, you're gonna know it, you're 01:49:35.760 --> 01:49:38.720 gonna see the signs, and you're gonna believe it because you have 01:49:38.720 --> 01:49:40.880 treasured these promises in your heart. 01:49:40.880 --> 01:49:45.200 Just as Mary treasured the promises that God had given in Scripture 01:49:45.200 --> 01:49:48.640 before the angel came to her, when the angel came and said, 01:49:48.800 --> 01:49:52.320 You are going to bear the Christ, she didn't say, I don't 01:49:52.240 --> 01:49:53.760 have any idea what you're talking about. 01:49:53.760 --> 01:49:56.720 She knew exactly what the prophecies were The only thing that Mary 01:49:56.720 --> 01:50:00.560 was confused about is how could she fulfill the prophecy of bearing 01:50:00.560 --> 01:50:03.040 the Son of God when she was a virgin? 01:50:03.040 --> 01:50:05.680 She understood that that didn't add up. 01:50:05.680 --> 01:50:07.920 She didn't know what she had to do to obey God. 01:50:07.920 --> 01:50:09.440 And so the angel told her, I'm going to take care of 01:50:09.520 --> 01:50:11.360 that. God's gonna take care of that. 01:50:11.360 --> 01:50:16.880 So for us to receive God's prophecy in the review mirror as 01:50:16.880 --> 01:50:20.240 it's presented in scripture, doesn't mean we're gonna understand it any ban 01:50:20.400 --> 01:50:23.280 better than Daniel did, or any better than John did in his 01:50:23.280 --> 01:50:26.320 apocalypse, but it means that it's just sitting there for us. 01:50:26.320 --> 01:50:30.080 These are real things, even if we don't understand them, when they're 01:50:30.080 --> 01:50:34.400 manifest, when they are fulfilled, we will know it when we see 01:50:34.400 --> 01:50:37.440 it. And the only way to know it when we see it 01:50:37.440 --> 01:50:40.880 is to believe it and to keep watch. 01:50:41.200 --> 01:50:47.200 So obviously, in scripture, the most relevant book discussing future prophecies is 01:50:47.200 --> 01:50:50.000 revelation, the apocalypse of John. 01:50:50.000 --> 01:50:52.960 And we're not even going to get into any of those details 01:50:52.960 --> 01:50:54.560 because it's a vision. 01:50:54.560 --> 01:50:56.960 It's a terrifying, inscrutable vision. 01:50:56.960 --> 01:50:59.360 There are things, some of which seem to be repeated. 01:50:59.360 --> 01:51:02.640 It's obviously very symbolic language. 01:51:02.640 --> 01:51:07.920 There are things that are presented visually that would have had to 01:51:07.920 --> 01:51:11.040 make sense to people in all times and in all places. 01:51:11.040 --> 01:51:14.160 You know, one of the examples that we gave last year, when 01:51:14.080 --> 01:51:19.840 we did the episode on 6,000 years and counting, I mentioned that 01:51:20.160 --> 01:51:25.440 the description of God hovering over the face of the waters was 01:51:26.560 --> 01:51:33.840 descriptive, but when scientists recently have simulated what the pre-big bang state 01:51:33.840 --> 01:51:36.560 of the universe would have looked like, they expected to find a 01:51:36.560 --> 01:51:37.520 gas or something. 01:51:37.520 --> 01:51:41.760 And when they plugged all of their best knowledge, their best hypotheses 01:51:42.000 --> 01:51:45.920 into a simulation, what they actually simulated was something that was a 01:51:45.920 --> 01:51:49.200 perfect liquid called quark gluon plasma. 01:51:49.200 --> 01:51:50.960 Now I have no gluon is. 01:51:50.960 --> 01:51:56.080 And so if God had talked about cork gluon plasma in Genesis, 01:51:56.080 --> 01:51:58.160 it would have done no one any good whatsoever. 01:51:58.160 --> 01:52:01.760 So what he said, he said over the face of the waters. 01:52:01.760 --> 01:52:05.120 The visions that are given in Daniel and that are given in 01:52:05.120 --> 01:52:09.200 Revelation Revelation are in terms that anyone can understand at any time. 01:52:09.200 --> 01:52:12.320 Because if you start using weird words, it's not going to mean 01:52:12.320 --> 01:52:13.440 anything to anyone. 01:52:13.440 --> 01:52:16.320 For example, as I mentioned earlier, there were the four beasts in 01:52:16.320 --> 01:52:19.440 Daniel, and three of them were named, and Rome was not named 01:52:19.520 --> 01:52:20.800 because it didn't exist yet. 01:52:21.120 --> 01:52:24.080 And so God didn't give a name to a thing, he just 01:52:24.080 --> 01:52:26.640 said this is gonna come, and it's gonna be the last and 01:52:26.640 --> 01:52:29.440 greatest of these beasts that's gonna conquer everything. 01:52:29.440 --> 01:52:30.240 That was Rome. 01:52:30.240 --> 01:52:33.680 That was very clearly fulfilled by Jesus Day. 01:52:33.920 --> 01:52:36.480 So we're not going to get into any of the details of 01:52:36.480 --> 01:52:40.720 Revelation itself, but it is crucial to put it in its proper 01:52:40.720 --> 01:52:42.400 historical context. 01:52:42.400 --> 01:52:45.760 So I'm just going to give a few facts here to establish 01:52:46.080 --> 01:52:50.000 the credentials of the Apocalypse of John. 01:52:50.000 --> 01:52:52.640 Two things, two points that are crucial. 01:52:52.640 --> 01:52:55.920 One, this was written by John the Apostle. 01:52:55.920 --> 01:53:00.240 Two, this was written in about AD ninety-five or AD ninety-six. 01:53:00.240 --> 01:53:04.480 It was written decades after the destruction of the temple. 01:53:04.480 --> 01:53:06.480 This is important for two reasons. 01:53:06.480 --> 01:53:09.920 One, John wrote it, it is a prophetic book. 01:53:09.920 --> 01:53:12.480 It is actual inspired scripture. 01:53:12.480 --> 01:53:16.640 It's at the end in part because nobody understands it. 01:53:16.640 --> 01:53:18.480 So it's long been the view of the church. 01:53:18.480 --> 01:53:21.440 It's a view that is, I think, an absolutely necessary one. 01:53:21.440 --> 01:53:27.760 We can't go around deriving theology from revelation in isolation. 01:53:27.760 --> 01:53:32.160 You can't make a conclusion from revelation that isn't supported elsewhere simply 01:53:32.160 --> 01:53:36.960 because it's too weird to be making any conclusive statements. 01:53:36.960 --> 01:53:39.040 And yet at the same time, it is scripture. 01:53:39.040 --> 01:53:41.040 It is inspired by God. 01:53:41.040 --> 01:53:47.840 I've seen in other times some analyses of the various intermingling of 01:53:47.840 --> 01:53:51.360 different parts of scripture represented in Revelation. 01:53:51.360 --> 01:53:56.160 And it is astonishing how much scripture is pulled in by illusion, 01:53:56.160 --> 01:53:57.520 by quotation. 01:53:57.520 --> 01:54:01.120 So many different parts of the entire corpus of the Bible are 01:54:01.280 --> 01:54:06.720 are incorporated into revelation that it can only possibly have a supernatural 01:54:06.720 --> 01:54:11.440 origin. No man could possibly know scripture well enough to have made 01:54:11.440 --> 01:54:13.360 up revelation. 01:54:13.360 --> 01:54:16.240 So if it's supernatural, it's one of two things. 01:54:16.240 --> 01:54:20.400 Either God wrote it and it's inspired, or the devil wrote it 01:54:20.400 --> 01:54:21.520 to deceive us. 01:54:21.520 --> 01:54:23.280 No man could have done this. 01:54:23.280 --> 01:54:25.920 And when we look at it, there's nothing in it that's inconsistent 01:54:25.920 --> 01:54:29.680 with anything else we know about Christian doctrine or anything. 01:54:29.680 --> 01:54:31.200 Parts of it are confusing. 01:54:31.200 --> 01:54:35.200 Just as Daniel is confused, and he says so in his own 01:54:35.200 --> 01:54:38.240 epistle. In the book of Daniel, he's like, I don't know what's 01:54:38.160 --> 01:54:38.640 going on. 01:54:38.640 --> 01:54:40.400 He falls on his face in terror. 01:54:40.400 --> 01:54:45.200 Okay. That's a natural place for a man reading this to be. 01:54:45.200 --> 01:54:48.000 A few facts for you just to establish the claims I made 01:54:48.000 --> 01:54:50.720 about the authorship and the timing. 01:54:50.800 --> 01:54:54.480 The most well known and historically significant student of the Apostle John 01:54:54.480 --> 01:54:58.080 was Polycarp of Smyrna, who was born in about A.D. 01:54:58.080 --> 01:55:00.400 sixty-nine and lived to about one fifty-five. 01:55:00.400 --> 01:55:03.680 He was the bishop of Smyrna, which is a modern-day Turkey. 01:55:03.680 --> 01:55:06.960 He's considered one of the most important apostolic fathers. 01:55:06.960 --> 01:55:10.880 According to early church tradition, particularly the writings of Irenaeus, he was 01:55:10.880 --> 01:55:13.120 a direct disciple of the apostle John. 01:55:13.120 --> 01:55:17.680 And Irenaeus, who is himself a student of Polycarp, emphasizes this connection 01:55:17.680 --> 01:55:20.560 in his writings against the heresies. 01:55:20.560 --> 01:55:24.000 Also, Justin Martyr, who was born about 100 and lived to about 01:55:24.080 --> 01:55:28.080 165, in his dialogue with Trifo, which was written at the end 01:55:28.080 --> 01:55:31.600 of his life, mentions, quote, a certain man with us whose name 01:55:31.600 --> 01:55:35.040 was John, one of the apostles of Christ who prophesied by a 01:55:35.040 --> 01:55:36.720 revelation that was made to him. 01:55:36.720 --> 01:55:41.040 So this is directly connecting the apostle John to the apocalypse of 01:55:41.040 --> 01:55:46.800 John. Irenaeus of Lyon, he was born in 130 and lived to 01:55:46.960 --> 01:55:53.280 202. In his work against heresies, written at about 180 A.D., Irenaeus 01:55:53.280 --> 01:55:57.280 quotes extensively from Revelation, attributes it to John the Apostle. 01:55:57.360 --> 01:56:01.360 He writes, We will not, however, incur the risk of pronouncing positively 01:56:01.360 --> 01:56:04.800 as to the name of Antichrist, for if it were necessary that 01:56:04.800 --> 01:56:08.160 his name should be distinctly revealed in this present time, it would 01:56:08.160 --> 01:56:12.000 have been announced by him who beheld the apocalyptic vision. 01:56:12.000 --> 01:56:15.520 For that was seen no very long time since, but almost in 01:56:15.520 --> 01:56:18.400 our day, towards the end of Domitian's reign. 01:56:18.400 --> 01:56:24.080 Now, Emperor Domitian reigned from AD 81 through ninety six, which means 01:56:24.080 --> 01:56:29.600 that there's absolutely no possibility that John's revelation could have been written 01:56:29.600 --> 01:56:31.040 prior to eighty one. 01:56:31.040 --> 01:56:33.280 And because it was written when he was on the Isle of 01:56:33.280 --> 01:56:36.160 Patmos, it had to be at the near the end of his 01:56:36.720 --> 01:56:38.960 ministry had to be roughly A.D. 01:56:39.280 --> 01:56:41.280 95 or 96. 01:56:41.280 --> 01:56:46.160 So we're establishing John wrote it, the Apostle John, and it was 01:56:46.160 --> 01:56:48.400 done in a certain period of time. 01:56:48.400 --> 01:56:54.800 Now, when you're quoting men who were not inspired, this is where 01:56:54.800 --> 01:56:58.080 Protestants in particular get into all sorts of trouble because, like, oh 01:56:58.160 --> 01:56:59.440 well, that's tradition. 01:56:59.440 --> 01:57:00.800 That could mean anything. 01:57:00.800 --> 01:57:03.760 Well, it is tradition in the sense that it's history, in the 01:57:03.760 --> 01:57:08.160 sense that the earliest witness, which is not some metaphorical, it's not 01:57:08.160 --> 01:57:09.600 some literary term. 01:57:09.600 --> 01:57:13.760 It's literally dudes who were there, who saw, who talked to guys 01:57:13.760 --> 01:57:14.720 who saw. 01:57:14.720 --> 01:57:17.760 My grandpa was born in 1897 or 98. 01:57:17.760 --> 01:57:20.240 He sat on Geronimo's lap when he was a little kid. 01:57:20.240 --> 01:57:22.160 He was a witness to Geronimo. 01:57:22.160 --> 01:57:25.120 So I am one step removed from Geronimo. 01:57:25.120 --> 01:57:29.200 That's a living link to something in history that to me is 01:57:29.200 --> 01:57:30.480 ancient history. 01:57:30.480 --> 01:57:35.760 So it's possible for really wild leaps of generations seemingly to occur 01:57:35.840 --> 01:57:38.960 just by connection of one man to another man over the span 01:57:38.960 --> 01:57:40.560 of time. 01:57:40.640 --> 01:57:42.400 Couple more facts that are important. 01:57:42.320 --> 01:57:44.400 Melito of Sardis, who died about A.D. 01:57:44.640 --> 01:57:49.520 180. According to Eusebius, Melito wrote a work on the apocalypse of 01:57:49.520 --> 01:57:52.240 John, though that work is now lost. 01:57:52.240 --> 01:57:54.960 And this indicates to us that Revelation was known and studied in 01:57:54.960 --> 01:57:57.520 Asia Minor by the mid-second century. 01:57:57.520 --> 01:58:00.880 So it wasn't simply that John wrote it, but it was also 01:58:00.880 --> 01:58:06.480 something that was under significant examination in circulation by other early church 01:58:06.480 --> 01:58:10.080 fathers. Regardless of what you think of their theology, the simple fact 01:58:10.080 --> 01:58:14.400 is that this was not some weird Gnostic thing that was just 01:58:14.400 --> 01:58:16.000 kind of in the periphery. 01:58:16.000 --> 01:58:20.240 This was central to the early development of the Christian faith which 01:58:20.240 --> 01:58:21.600 we hold to this day. 01:58:22.080 --> 01:58:26.800 Clement of Alexandria, who died in 215 A.D., refers to Revelation in 01:58:26.800 --> 01:58:29.520 his writings and accept them as scripture. 01:58:29.520 --> 01:58:33.360 And while not directly dating Revelation, he mentions John's return from exile 01:58:33.360 --> 01:58:37.440 in Patmos after the death of quote the tyrant, which is generally 01:58:37.440 --> 01:58:39.360 understood to refer to Domitian. 01:58:39.360 --> 01:58:42.960 And Tertullian, who died in 240 AD, in his works in the 01:58:42.960 --> 01:58:47.360 early third century, frequently quotes from Revelation, he treats it as scripture. 01:58:47.360 --> 01:58:51.280 And then Eusebius of Caesarea, who lived until three hundred forty AD, 01:58:51.280 --> 01:58:56.320 which incidentally is after the first council at Nicaea, in his book 01:58:56.320 --> 01:59:01.280 on church history he reiterates Irenaeus' account placing John's exile in the 01:59:01.280 --> 01:59:04.480 writings of Revelation during Domitian's reign. 01:59:04.480 --> 01:59:10.640 So there is almost universal consensus from those earliest in church history 01:59:10.800 --> 01:59:12.240 that these facts are true. 01:59:12.240 --> 01:59:16.400 The John the Apostle wrote it, that he wrote it decades after 01:59:16.400 --> 01:59:18.400 the destruction of the temple. 01:59:18.400 --> 01:59:22.000 And that's important again because when we look at the Judaizing heresies 01:59:22.000 --> 01:59:25.680 of today, they want to say no, Revelation can only possibly have 01:59:25.680 --> 01:59:30.800 been written about AD sixty-eight, and that somehow this epistle, I guess, 01:59:30.800 --> 01:59:33.920 was in circulation for you know a dozen or so months before 01:59:33.920 --> 01:59:37.840 the destruction of the temple as somehow a warning to the Jews 01:59:38.400 --> 01:59:41.680 specifically, you know, not to believers, but to the Jews, hey, your 01:59:41.760 --> 01:59:43.920 temple's gonna be destroyed by God. 01:59:43.920 --> 01:59:46.640 Well, history doesn't back that up. 01:59:46.640 --> 01:59:48.880 The earliest witnesses don't back that up. 01:59:48.880 --> 01:59:53.040 And it's also theologically not only unnecessary, but bankrupt. 01:59:53.040 --> 01:59:57.360 What is important is that when you look at the descriptions of 01:59:57.440 --> 02:00:02.000 the prophecies in Revelation, and it's worth reading, it's worth reading through 02:00:02.000 --> 02:00:05.520 the whole thing, even just in wonder and confusement, like wow, this 02:00:05.520 --> 02:00:07.120 is wild stuff. 02:00:07.120 --> 02:00:10.960 There are very clearly parts of it that would seem to refer 02:00:10.960 --> 02:00:13.120 to the destruction of the temple. 02:00:13.120 --> 02:00:19.040 And while the Judaizers use that as evidence, so-called, that somehow revelation 02:00:19.040 --> 02:00:21.440 had to come before the destruction of the temple. 02:00:21.440 --> 02:00:23.360 I think that when you look at 02:00:24.240 --> 02:00:30.400 how we've described Daniel's revelation, Daniel's vision, and the prophecies that Jesus 02:00:30.400 --> 02:00:35.600 gave in Matthew 24, they span vast time periods. 02:00:35.600 --> 02:00:40.080 They go beyond what we would normally consider, you know, a boundary. 02:00:40.080 --> 02:00:44.640 And so for Revelation written in eighty, ninety five, or ninety six, 02:00:44.640 --> 02:00:48.240 to refer back to the destruction of the temple makes perfect sense. 02:00:48.240 --> 02:00:50.960 In the sense that it was a vision of all these things 02:00:50.960 --> 02:00:54.880 happening. And those were happenings, they were profound happenings. 02:00:54.880 --> 02:00:59.360 And so for the vision that God gave to his prophet and 02:00:59.360 --> 02:01:05.120 his apostle John to include one of the most important moments and 02:01:05.120 --> 02:01:09.440 markers in the passage of time in church history, the destruction of 02:01:09.440 --> 02:01:09.760 the church. 02:01:09.760 --> 02:01:14.560 Of the temple, the absolute closure on the Jewish period. 02:01:14.560 --> 02:01:16.000 Of course, that would be in there. 02:01:16.000 --> 02:01:17.120 That makes perfect sense. 02:01:17.120 --> 02:01:20.720 That doesn't do anything to time when it was written. 02:01:20.720 --> 02:01:23.120 And frankly, as soon as you start saying, well, I think this 02:01:23.120 --> 02:01:26.160 had to occur before the temple, otherwise, you know, maybe it was 02:01:26.160 --> 02:01:27.760 inspired by those events. 02:01:27.760 --> 02:01:30.000 Well, then you're denying the inspiration of scripture. 02:01:30.000 --> 02:01:33.200 You're saying that a man wrote this, God didn't write it. 02:01:33.200 --> 02:01:37.920 The somehow, you know, John just incorporated things that he remembered from 02:01:37.920 --> 02:01:43.120 decades prior and he what he made up his visions, then we 02:01:43.120 --> 02:01:44.320 have a much bigger problem. 02:01:44.320 --> 02:01:47.360 Cause I said, like if you seriously delve into it, I wouldn't 02:01:47.280 --> 02:01:50.000 necessarily recommend it, but if you want to look into some of 02:01:50.000 --> 02:01:53.840 the in-depth analyses of how much of Revelation is tied to all 02:01:53.840 --> 02:01:56.800 of Scripture, it's bonkers. 02:01:56.800 --> 02:02:01.360 It's insane how much of it incorporates the entire text of Scripture. 02:02:01.360 --> 02:02:04.320 I do not believe that a man could have written that. 02:02:04.320 --> 02:02:07.680 Now that's maybe you can imagine some man who just knew scripture 02:02:07.680 --> 02:02:10.240 so well, he knew it, you know, as well as God, and 02:02:10.240 --> 02:02:13.760 incidentally as well as Satan, to do something like that. 02:02:13.760 --> 02:02:17.040 To me, it's more believable that only a supernatural source could have 02:02:17.040 --> 02:02:17.680 written it. 02:02:17.680 --> 02:02:21.360 And so it doesn't concern me in the slightest that the destruction 02:02:21.360 --> 02:02:25.040 of the temple is represented certainly in part in the visions, because 02:02:25.040 --> 02:02:27.840 the visions span thousands of years. 02:02:27.840 --> 02:02:30.240 That's uh getting back to the millennium thing earlier. 02:02:30.240 --> 02:02:34.000 That's where the millennium specifically comes up repeatedly. 02:02:34.000 --> 02:02:35.440 It's a symbolic period. 02:02:35.440 --> 02:02:38.640 It's obviously a very long period of time because the things that 02:02:38.640 --> 02:02:42.160 Jesus mentions in Matthew twenty four, the things that some of which 02:02:42.160 --> 02:02:46.960 John reiterates, clearly some happened, clearly some haven't happened yet. 02:02:46.960 --> 02:02:51.600 We're now well past 2,000 years since Jesus' birth. 02:02:51.600 --> 02:02:54.400 And so the fact that some of those things would have happened 02:02:54.560 --> 02:02:58.000 and some haven't happened yet doesn't mean it's not prophecy. 02:02:58.000 --> 02:03:01.760 It means that God's time scales are not our own. 02:03:01.760 --> 02:03:04.160 A day is like a thousand years to him, and a thousand 02:03:04.160 --> 02:03:05.120 years are like a day. 02:03:05.440 --> 02:03:08.080 When God told us that, he was saying, you know, don't worry 02:03:08.080 --> 02:03:08.560 about it. 02:03:08.560 --> 02:03:11.040 You're not necessarily going to be a make sense of it any 02:03:11.040 --> 02:03:13.280 more than Daniel could or John could. 02:03:13.280 --> 02:03:16.160 When they saw these things, they were confused, we're going to have 02:03:16.160 --> 02:03:17.040 the same response. 02:03:17.040 --> 02:03:19.600 The important thing is not to dismiss them. 02:03:19.680 --> 02:03:23.680 And so it's worth reading through Evelation, as as Corey said, not 02:03:23.680 --> 02:03:25.840 to make it your whole personality. 02:03:25.840 --> 02:03:28.640 It's not where you should spend most of your time, but it's 02:03:28.640 --> 02:03:30.320 worth reading through once or twice. 02:03:30.320 --> 02:03:32.960 And if you want to delve into some of the other ties, 02:03:32.960 --> 02:03:37.120 that's certainly useful because it's gonna make other parts of scripture richer. 02:03:37.120 --> 02:03:41.520 But it's a vision without a prophet to interpret it for us. 02:03:41.520 --> 02:03:43.280 John had no one to interpret it for him. 02:03:43.280 --> 02:03:44.560 He didn't know what was going on. 02:03:44.560 --> 02:03:47.920 He was as confused as we are, and he was God's apostle. 02:03:47.920 --> 02:03:50.640 So we don't need to feel bad about not understanding it. 02:03:50.640 --> 02:03:54.400 But we are commanded by God to keep watch, to take these 02:03:54.400 --> 02:03:58.960 promises seriously, and to be prepared so that if in our days 02:03:59.680 --> 02:04:02.480 these things happen, we'll know it when we see 02:04:02.480 --> 02:04:03.120 it. 02:04:03.760 --> 02:04:07.680 When it comes to the book of Revelation, if you are so 02:04:07.680 --> 02:04:12.160 inclined and you really want to read these materials, hopefully you've read 02:04:12.160 --> 02:04:16.240 other parts of scripture first, because that is the best and strongest 02:04:16.240 --> 02:04:19.280 recommendation any true teacher is going to give you. 02:04:19.280 --> 02:04:23.360 Before you read Revelation or some of the other prophecies, read the 02:04:23.360 --> 02:04:24.480 other parts of Scripture. 02:04:24.480 --> 02:04:28.720 You need that foundation as a Christian, you need the background to 02:04:28.720 --> 02:04:33.680 help place some of these things into their proper points in what 02:04:33.680 --> 02:04:37.040 it means to be a Christian in Christian theology. 02:04:37.040 --> 02:04:43.040 However, you can certainly profitably read chapters two and three. 02:04:43.040 --> 02:04:45.760 You can read chapter one, of course, as well, which is basically 02:04:45.760 --> 02:04:49.280 the introduction to the book of Revelation. 02:04:49.280 --> 02:04:54.400 But chapters two and three are the letters to the churches. 02:04:54.400 --> 02:05:00.160 These are actually a good example of the typological or cyclical fulfillment 02:05:00.160 --> 02:05:05.200 as it were, because yes, these are written to actual historical churches, 02:05:05.200 --> 02:05:09.120 because the church of Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamum and Thyatira and 02:05:09.120 --> 02:05:13.600 Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, these churches existed. 02:05:13.600 --> 02:05:16.000 However, the past tense there matters 02:05:17.280 --> 02:05:20.320 because these are now places that are located in Turkey. 02:05:20.320 --> 02:05:24.880 This is no longer Anatolia, of course, just Greek Anatole, the East. 02:05:24.880 --> 02:05:27.840 This was the eastern region of what 02:05:28.720 --> 02:05:33.040 was at various times parts of different empires, but from the point 02:05:33.040 --> 02:05:35.840 of view of the Greeks it was the East, and that's why 02:05:35.840 --> 02:05:37.360 it was called Anatolia. 02:05:37.360 --> 02:05:38.640 That's where these churches were. 02:05:38.640 --> 02:05:43.440 These were Greek churches at the time, some Celtic populations in the 02:05:43.440 --> 02:05:47.680 area as well, but that's a discussion for another day. 02:05:47.680 --> 02:05:51.920 These letters are written not just to these churches, they are written 02:05:51.920 --> 02:05:53.280 to every Christian. 02:05:53.280 --> 02:05:55.840 They are written to every church today. 02:05:55.840 --> 02:05:59.040 Because the things that are addressed in these letters, whether it is 02:05:59.040 --> 02:06:03.360 praise or condemnation, are things that we see in modern churches, things 02:06:03.360 --> 02:06:06.240 that we see in historical churches, things we will see in every 02:06:06.240 --> 02:06:11.040 single church until the end of time, until Christ returns, it doesn't 02:06:11.040 --> 02:06:14.880 mean that every church has every good thing mentioned in the letters 02:06:15.040 --> 02:06:19.520 or every bad thing mentioned in the letters, because it some way 02:06:19.520 --> 02:06:22.000 these are again typological. 02:06:22.000 --> 02:06:25.600 You may have one church that's like the church in Ephesus, or 02:06:25.600 --> 02:06:28.480 another that's like the church in Thyatira. 02:06:28.720 --> 02:06:33.040 These can be read profitably, because they are still as applicable to 02:06:33.040 --> 02:06:36.720 us today as they were to the churches to which they were 02:06:36.720 --> 02:06:40.800 originally written in AD ninety-five, say. 02:06:40.800 --> 02:06:44.320 That happens to be the year that the Lutheran study Bible gives 02:06:44.320 --> 02:06:47.840 for the composition of Revelation I see no reason to disagree with 02:06:47.840 --> 02:06:51.120 it. It is one thing that I like about the Lutheran study 02:06:51.120 --> 02:06:55.360 Bible. It just bluntly states the historical belief concerning the author and 02:06:55.360 --> 02:06:56.960 the date, and that's it. 02:06:56.960 --> 02:06:58.560 Which is what Christians should do. 02:06:58.560 --> 02:07:01.120 We don't need to engage in the higher criticism of trying to 02:07:01.120 --> 02:07:04.640 find some way to squabble over dates and authorship. 02:07:04.640 --> 02:07:07.440 That's not a Christian way to approach these matters, really. 02:07:07.440 --> 02:07:10.480 That's needless academic squabbling. 02:07:10.480 --> 02:07:14.960 But to return to the letters in Revelation, these are good for 02:07:14.960 --> 02:07:20.000 Christians to read, because they tell us the things for which Christ 02:07:20.000 --> 02:07:24.000 praises churches and the things for which he condemns them. 02:07:24.000 --> 02:07:28.480 And it is also vitally important to recognize the threat that is 02:07:28.480 --> 02:07:31.040 present in these letters to the churches. 02:07:31.040 --> 02:07:34.720 The threat is the removal of the lampstand. 02:07:34.720 --> 02:07:38.320 The threat is to take away the position, the place of that 02:07:38.320 --> 02:07:43.920 church within the larger church upper KC, it is possible for a 02:07:43.920 --> 02:07:46.800 church body to apostatize. 02:07:46.800 --> 02:07:50.000 That is certainly a relevant warning for us today. 02:07:50.000 --> 02:07:53.920 And so chapters 2 and three of Revelation can be read very 02:07:54.080 --> 02:07:56.880 profitably by any Christian. 02:07:56.880 --> 02:08:00.960 The rest of the book, of course, gets into visions and things 02:08:00.960 --> 02:08:04.320 that are more difficult to interpret, but just reading those letters to 02:08:04.320 --> 02:08:09.360 the churches, it is straightforward, we see the things that Christ praises, 02:08:09.360 --> 02:08:13.200 we see the things that He condemns, and that is profitable for 02:08:13.200 --> 02:08:16.640 any Christian to read. 02:08:16.640 --> 02:08:17.600 And so we will close out 02:08:18.480 --> 02:08:23.680 this episode with a reading from Scripture, this one from Second Peter, 02:08:23.680 --> 02:08:26.240 chapter three. 02:08:26.240 --> 02:08:28.880 This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, 02:08:28.880 --> 02:08:32.880 beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind 02:08:32.880 --> 02:08:36.400 by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the 02:08:36.400 --> 02:08:39.920 holy prophets, and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your 02:08:39.920 --> 02:08:43.840 apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the 02:08:43.840 --> 02:08:48.960 last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires, they will say, 02:08:48.960 --> 02:08:51.200 Where is the promise of his coming? 02:08:51.200 --> 02:08:54.960 For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as 02:08:54.960 --> 02:08:57.760 they were from the beginning of creation. 02:08:57.760 --> 02:09:02.560 For they deliberately overlooked this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, 02:09:02.560 --> 02:09:05.680 and the earth was formed out of water and through water by 02:09:05.680 --> 02:09:09.360 the Word of God, and that by means of these the world 02:09:09.360 --> 02:09:12.800 that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 02:09:12.800 --> 02:09:15.840 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist 02:09:16.080 --> 02:09:19.920 are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment, 02:09:19.920 --> 02:09:22.320 and destruction of the ungodly. 02:09:22.320 --> 02:09:26.160 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord 02:09:26.160 --> 02:09:29.840 one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as 02:09:29.840 --> 02:09:30.800 one day. 02:09:30.800 --> 02:09:34.160 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count 02:09:34.160 --> 02:09:39.360 slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, 02:09:39.360 --> 02:09:42.080 but that all should reach repentance. 02:09:42.080 --> 02:09:45.120 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and 02:09:45.120 --> 02:09:48.240 then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly 02:09:48.240 --> 02:09:51.680 bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the 02:09:51.680 --> 02:09:54.240 works that are done on it will be exposed. 02:09:54.240 --> 02:09:57.920 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of 02:09:57.920 --> 02:10:01.440 people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting 02:10:01.440 --> 02:10:04.800 for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of 02:10:04.800 --> 02:10:07.840 which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the 02:10:07.840 --> 02:10:10.480 heavenly bodies will melt as they burn. 02:10:10.480 --> 02:10:13.840 But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and 02:10:13.840 --> 02:10:17.200 a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. 02:10:17.200 --> 02:10:21.920 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be 02:10:21.920 --> 02:10:25.920 found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace, and count 02:10:25.920 --> 02:10:29.280 the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother 02:10:29.760 --> 02:10:33.360 Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as 02:10:33.360 --> 02:10:35.840 he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of 02:10:35.840 --> 02:10:39.200 these matters, there are some things in them that are hard to 02:10:39.200 --> 02:10:43.840 understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as 02:10:43.840 --> 02:10:45.840 they do the other scriptures. 02:10:45.840 --> 02:10:50.160 You, therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not 02:10:50.160 --> 02:10:54.000 carried away with the error of lawless people, and lose your own 02:10:54.000 --> 02:10:57.520 stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and 02:10:57.520 --> 02:10:59.280 Savior Jesus Christ. 02:10:59.280 --> 02:11:02.240 To him be the glory, both now and to the day of 02:11:02.240 --> 02:11:07.440 eternity. Amen. 02:11:07.440 --> 02:11:08.000 We signed 02:11:09.120 --> 02:11:10.560 We Sonic Sunday 02:11:12.800 --> 02:11:15.120 Sunny. We saw anywhere 02:11:17.360 --> 02:11:17.920 to sing.