93. The Bright Hope of Defeatism (A Critique of Historic Premillennialism)

Hello everyone and welcome back to the broadcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf. This is episode 93 defeating defeatism part 2

Well, hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the broadcast right now We're in a series called a practical post millennial ism where we're talking about the end times

Doctrine called post millennial ism now We're gonna define that term in the future and we're gonna see a biblical case for why this doctrine is the best doctrine

But in these early episodes, we really need to look at the other Eschatological views we need to understand how they're not only deficient

But they actually contribute to a defeatist Mindset that has hampered the church in the modern world and has caused her to retreat from culture

Expecting an imminent return of Christ who will come and rescue her from her bruised and beaten status that inglorious view has done so much to harm the

Bride of Christ in the modern world and to Immobilize her for mission so before we get

Started and before we get really deep into the biblical view of the end times and the and the pleasant

Optimism that post millennial ism affords. Well, we have to wade through the dirty waters of eschatological defeatism

We have to identify it and we have to know what it is so that we can flush it back down the tubes where it belongs

Now if you remember in episode 1 which was called defeating defeatism part 1

We tackled the most egregious of these end times perspectives a relative newcomer in the market of eschatological views

Which is called dispensationalism there it was shown how dispensationalism is a theological system of Fragmentation slicing up the

Bible into these seven arbitrary and totally made up epics Which have little or nothing to do with each other or the

Bible It's like ripping a chapter out of a out of seven different books and then gluing them together and hoping that you can put together a cohesive story well dispensationalism produces only incoherence and Confusion and as a viewpoint and inspires no one to do anything

This does not mean that all dispensationalists are lazy couch potatoes who are merely eking their way through life.

Not at all but what it does mean that Whenever a dispensationalist does any kingdom work evangelizing make disciples building and planting churches any of that They're not operating under their worldview

They're borrowing from ours if the sky is always falling and there's no time to build

Which means whenever a pre -millennialist will do anything, especially dispensationalism will do anything building working?

Whatever they're portraying their own worldview Their worldview doesn't substantiate it because it only substantiates panic and doom now furthermore by destroying the unity of Scripture and by assigning the church to this sort of arbitrary era that is doomed to fail and By punting all of the promises of Jesus's kingdom to some

Indeterminate epic in the future that we're never gonna see proponents of this view Naturally withdraw from culture in the here and now because frankly, what's the point?

We're never gonna win. We're only gonna lose we lose down here Our only hope is to be slingshotted out of here on an eschatological

Unbiblical rapture the consequences of that kind of view are devastating

Because while proponents remove themselves from culture society becomes supremely more and more decayed

And it sort of becomes a self -fulfilling prophecy for the prophecy pundits Instead of seeing the clear and obvious truth that society

Decay society becomes worse when the Christian Church fails to engage it when we remove ourself as salt and light as Jesus commanded well

Dispensationalists see that and they say look at the world has continued to get worse. Therefore.

We need to hunker down It continues to worsen because they continue to retreat further and further away

And as they retreat further and further away their fever to escape the mess that they've created ever increases

It's kind of like a fussy child who uses meltdowns in order to manipulate their mother refusing to clean his room because it's grown so bad that he doesn't even know where to start and it has grown from bad to Worse and he knows that if he just waits it out.

His mom will eventually step in she may fuss about it But she'll step in and she'll perform the rescue mission

What dispensationalist treat Christ much the same way frantically adopting increasing levels of hypomania?

Over society in the future and their charts and their tinfoil hats much like the prophets of Baal cutting themselves to manipulate the gods

Well dispensationalists do the same thing attempting to get Christ to come down and take them out of here this winning and psychotic viewpoint has produced a landscape of losers and it's high time for us to discard it

Now in episode 2 I invited renowned Bible scholar and teacher Gary DeMar on to the broadcast in order to help us to understand

How this view is not biblical and how it doesn't work for a variety of reasons and if you remember for over an hour

Dr. DeMar took us one passage at a time through the New Testament Proving how this rigid commitment to futurism does not account for what we see in the text

He showed us how the wars and rumors of wars the famines the earthquakes the abomination of desolation the great

Tribulation and all the other signs that show up there in Matthew 24 are not signs of a future tribulation period under a

European Antichrist But instead they're actual historical events that happen in space and time in the first century in the lead -up to the destruction of Jerusalem And as I said,

Gary DeMar took us one by one through these passages for over an hour completely and totally

Dismantling the dispensational view I highly recommend that you go and check out that episode which is on our

YouTube page It's on Spotify Apple wherever podcasters sold or distributed or whatever

And this is also a good time to say if you're not subscribed to subscribe. We'd love to have you now today

We're gonna look at a more reasonable view the reasonable older sister of dispensationalism

The sister who's got her head on a little bit more securely, which is called historic pre millennialism now by pre millennialism

I just mean that this is a view in relationship to the millennium that Jesus is going to return pre which means before he institutes his millennial reign

Unlike all millennialism and post millennialism which see Jesus currently right now

Reigning on his throne in heaven that we are in his reign Well historic pre millennialism sees that we're waiting for that.

We're waiting for Christ's future and physical reign on earth It hasn't happened yet, which by the way is gonna last for a literal thousand calendar years according to that view

Now for us to properly examine this view and to show how it's deficient

We're gonna need to move pretty quickly we're gonna have to paint with broad strokes and I'm not gonna be able to cover everything and Not even close to an exhaustive way.

This episode is probably gonna be over an hour as it is So I need to move quickly, but my goal is to show how this view

Historically came to be how it's not biblical and how it actually produces Antibiblical attitudes in Jesus's Church It undermines our mission and it has caused us and led to the mess that we're currently in in this country

That's right. I believe that pre -millennial ism both historic pre -millennial ism and its redheaded dispensational heifer is

One of the chief reasons that society is murdering a million babies Why men are trying to become women and why political elites are embracing

Marxism and running our country into moral? Chaos and so much more and you may be asking yourself.

How can I make such a bold claim that? Dispensationalism is or pre -millennial ism is one of the chief problems in our world.

Well because when a view So successfully undermines the church's mission causing her to retreat causing her to to slump down and defeat and to stop

Making disciples and to stop advancing and stop pushing back the gates of hell and cease holding culture accountable

Well, should we be surprised when the pagans run into all kinds of rank and disgusting error if pre -millennial ism

Causes the church to be impotent and the church causes the church's removal from the world causes the world to become rotten

Well, then dispensationalism is to blame or pre -millennial ism is to blame Let me give you an example

If you leave raw hamburger meat out on the counter it putrefies and that is what meat does when it's not preserved in a refrigerator

Well in the same way pre -millennial ism left the kitchen the society to go hide in the eschatological basement waiting for her rapture which hasn't come and Sadly while the church has been waiting for a for 50 years at the old rapture bus stop

Hands -in -pocket doing little else the meat of American culture has turned a slimy disgusting green and the moral maggots that infiltrated

Hollywood and Washington have crept in and totally infested this country

Vivid but true now my hope in the series is that some small way in some small way

We can be a part of changing that That we can be a part of seeing a more optimistic view of Christ of his kingdom and his mission

So with that, let us begin our time today talking about the history of historic pre -millennial ism

Then we'll talk about how it's unbiblical. Then we'll talk about how it produces unbiblical emotions. Then we'll close.

Let's begin The history of pre -millennial ism part one the ancient view

Now among the end times positions there are two schools of thought that go all the way back to the ancient and apostolic

Church after the canon of Scripture was closed and all of the Apostles died and as The early church began to spread in the hostile

Roman world Well, there began to be prominent and influential Christian thinkers who weighed in on a variety of theological

Subjects to help the church become robust in her thinking. Well, unfortunately for us eschatology was one of those doctrines that took

Significantly more time to systematize than the others. It probably is true in your life If you if you want to study doctrine

Maybe you'll start with the knowledge of God and salvation those things are are good and and actually you should study those things before you get

Eschatology doesn't mean eschatology is an important but the early church made the right decision and Prioritizing the systemitation of other doctrines first, which means that in the first two centuries of the church

We don't really have a lot of statements about Eschatology we have some scant points some underdeveloped postulations of what the earliest

Christians living in the first two centuries Believed about the end times but of our information there are two basic views that sort of rise to the fore the first view set forth prominently by Augustine of Hippo is

That when Christ ascended into heaven he sat down on his throne to reign Proponents of this view attest that he was not waiting for a future period of time where he's going to assume a millennial

Reign of a thousand literal years He's reigning now which made the thousand years described in the book of Revelation chapter 20 a non literal number

To be clear this group believed Jesus was reigning from the very moment that he ascended into heaven and sat down on the throne of God which is what

Kings do when you sit down as a king on your throne You're reigning and he would continue that reign until his kingdom had come in full

The church until he had finished building all of it. Now, that's the first view and that's the view that I hold

The other view represented in the ancient church is that Jesus would return at some point in the future

Maybe he's reigning in heaven and all of that but he's not reigning on earth and he won't reign on earth physically until the end when he returns and he sets up his kingdom for a thousand literal years this end time view shows up in Fragmentary form very early in the writings of church fathers such as Papias or Justin Martyr and Tertullian But it's laid out most fully by a man named

Irenaeus of lions and his work called against heresies Which goes all the way back to a hundred and eighty

AD which means that it is quite old That is a benefit actually to the historic pre -millennial view is that it goes back so far into church history

It doesn't make it right, but it does mean that it's an old view, which is good It's not like dispensationalism which popped up out of nowhere in the 19th century now

This view bolstered by a commitment to a literalistic hermeneutic of scripture tried to explain

Old Testament prophecies of worldwide peace and prosperity and global justice as future events as a

Physical period on earth at a particular time when Messiah would commence his reign upon his return

Meaning that the world is going to experience total peace His kingdom is gonna be unopposed and there's gonna be shalom all over the world.

There's gonna be There's gonna be vineyards that are planted and you're gonna tie your donkey up to the vine because you know

What if the donkey eats the vine who cares you have so many that that's the sort of Old Testament prophecies That that are talked about when it comes to the reign of Messiah that it's gonna be in a world filled with Peace and prosperity and justice and goodness and it's gonna be amazing

Now this is in fact precisely where post -millennialism and pre -millennialism agree

They both see these Old Testament prophecies is coming physically to the earth under the reign of Christ post -millennialist, however, understand these coming gradually and Increasingly upon the earth through the ministry of the church who is led by the

Holy Spirit that Jesus sent By the will of the Father that the church is going to spread

Jesus's reign Victoriously victoriously across the earth and that this sort of Kingdom that is described in the

Old Testament is going to come in over time and gradually Now the pre -millennialist however on the other hand see the current age that we are living in as a

Collapsing doomed epic that's going to fall down in fantastic defeat

The church itself is going to be completely and totally unsuccessful in her task to disciple the nations

Which is going to prompt Jesus to return to a world that is filled with evil To put it all away and to be crowned as its new king

Who's gonna reign bodily on earth for a thousand years and yet in the pre -millennial view near the end of Jesus's reign?

There's gonna be a group of people who rebel against him showing that that even in Perfection in the rain that the pre -millennialist described as Jesus's his triumphing moment

He doesn't even keep all of his people and some of them rebel which is just crazy to me Now pre -millennialists understand the reign of Christ as a future event

Post -millennialists understand the reign of Christ is happening now That is how those two views go back all the way to the ancient world and they're both substantiated part to the

Middle Ages Now as the ancient church began to gain ground in the Roman world

Pre -millennial thought also began to wane and it sort of fell off the radar for more than a thousand years

With later apostolic fathers coming in around in the 3rd and 4th century such as origin who promoted his allegorical view which just means that he thought the

Millennium was not a literal time period and Augusta of Hippo's towering theological influence as well as Christianity becoming the official religion of the

Roman Empire during the time of Constantine Well pre -millennialism faded from the majority opinion to the minority report

It's hard to believe such a defeatist opinion when everything around you is becoming Christian And that's exactly what happened.

Well Augusta in particular was influential in this transition He argued that the

Millennium Described in Revelation 20 was not a literal number of years The same way that God does not own the cattle just on a literal thousand hills

But he owns all the cattle on all the hills Instead according to Augustan the 1 ,000 years represented the ongoing reign of Christ over his church

It's his full reign this became the prominent view in the early

Roman Catholic Church and it remained the majority position in Christendom all the way until the 16th century and really all the way until the late 18th century when a few radical offshoots of the

Reformation Gravitated back to pre -millennial thinking now for context the view that Christ has been reigning

Victoriously over his church and not waiting for a future return For that reign to ensue that view has been the dominant position of the church throughout the entire church history

Especially between the years 1400 and 1600 ad it has been the monolithic most represented position

So if you want to say what is the view that has been represented by most Christians at most time periods all throughout church history

It's either a millennial ism or post millennial ism, which we'll get into the distinctions of those next week part 3

The modern era During the Protestant Reformation Augustine's eschatological

Allegorical ism again the thousand years aren't literal was a decisive influence upon the magisterial reformers

This meant that the overwhelming majority Position on the end times events that are described in Revelation was that Christ was currently reigning over his church

Not awaiting a physical reign on earth at some point in the distant future Now you had some of the reformers who said that the

Pope was the Antichrist and all of that. That's fine We'll get into that maybe at some point, but at the same time

Everyone believed that Jesus was reigning now except a few radicalized offshoots of the

Reformation the counter -reformation such as the Mennonites and the anti or Anabaptist Those departed from the allegorical view of the

Millennium and they began constructing all kinds of different unique various in times positions

So they began making new views some of those groups began returning to the old historic premillennial thinking

Reinvigorating it sort of in seed form that would last for a couple hundred years until the Plymouth Brethren Would pick that up in the 19th century if you remember from last week the

Plymouth Brethren is where we get John Nelson Darby Who became the father of dispensational premillennialism and he's responsible for taking the fun out of the world and for bringing

Premillennialism back into the forefront of Christian eschatological thinking now before the

Reformation premillennialism was Almost entirely unattested for more than a thousand years of church history after the

Reformation It had a slight uptick in some radical reformers And then it picked up as the predominant view of church history through a man named

John Nelson Darby who brought it to the forefront of American evangelical thinking now

This is no credit to premillennialism as a position. It's no credit to its biblical exegesis

In fact, but it is what happened in history except among the Reformed churches You see dispensationalism was always a flawed view and never really fully adapted by Reformation churches churches that held tightly to the theology of the

Reformation and adopted its confessions and almost Entirely avoided this sort of repugnant stench on the eschatological world and Since it's so clearly deviated from Covenant theology and a proper human

Riddick from for understanding scripture Most of the Reformed churches completely avoided it like the plague

This was until George Eldon Ladd who was a 20th century theologian revived historic premillennialism from the ashes of history

Giving some Reformed thinkers a possible third option for eschatological thinking especially among strains of evangelicals and Baptists Unlike Darby who divided the

Bible into arbitrary dispensations Ladd rightly saw that the Bible is one unified

Redemptive story with Christ at the center of it seeking to reintegrate that view into his theological work this included

Reintegrating Israel in the church who dispensationalism divided and Ladd saw as distinct people yet under the same

Lord and he also rejected the rapture driven escapism of dispensationalism

Adopting instead a more moderate view where the church would suffer along with the world in a view called post -tribulational

Rapture where we would suffer right alongside the pagans in Antichrist seven -year reign of terror.

That is before Jesus returns And calls us home lad. Also, you know making things more moderate

He correctly identified that the pietism and the purely allegorical interpretation among some

Amillennials typically among the radical two kingdoms types did not do just its justice to the prophetic promises that are given in the

Gospels and in the Old Testament Which described these events as future realities that are going to come to pass on a physical earth and not just spiritually in heaven

You see according to him the radical amillennial types Relocated everything to heaven

Jesus is reigning and it's a spiritual kingdom with all the benefits in heaven Ladd says no and he's right in this that the promises in the

Bible actually have a physical impact on this earth He answers the question wrongly with pre -millennialism.

We'll talk about how he you can answer it rightly with post -millennialism But the point is is that the reign of Christ will have an impact on the world that we are living in and lad rightly saw that now all these modifications by lad and others were improvements and they certainly reinvigorated a kind of return to a true historic pre -millennialism that had been

Known among the apostolic fathers and had been dormant for about 15 to 1600 years yet while what lad did was an improvement the entire system was still built upon an entirely flawed premise a

Plank in the eye called futurism We are all products of the world in which we were born modern pre -millennialism is no different it was born into a world of German higher critical thinking the rise of secularism and theological liberalism and a gamut of academic

Disciplines that were seeking to undermine the sanctity and the sufficiency of Holy Scripture things like philosophy and psychology all of these viewpoints were beginning to gain steam at the exact same time that modern pre -millennialism was taking root and You would imagine that Modern pre -millennialism in its infant stages would need to answer the questions that that the secular liberal higher critical

Scholars are leveling and that's exactly what happened. Now these scholars Attacked the scriptures ferociously and there's few places in the

Bible where these attacks were leveled more ardently Than on the person work of Jesus Christ from accusations that he never existed that he was a failed messianic upstart among many or that he was a false prophet who did

Not come back in the time frame that he had given Secularists were continually attacking the credibility of Jesus more ferociously than piranhas on a hambone and this is not a foolish strategy if you're a secularist if you can

Invalidate the author and the perfecter of the Christian faith and if you can remove the cornerstone from the structure

Well, then you can dismantle the entire Christian building of all the places However that critical scholars aimed the barrel of their guns most pointedly

It was in Jesus's prediction contained in the Olivet Discourse If they could show that Jesus was a false prophet there that what he had predicted to happen did not come true in the way that he described it then they could dismiss

Jesus as One of the Legion of Gods that were invented by mortal men that were relegated to the museum shelves

In doing that they could live however, they wanted without being held accountable to a living absolute sovereign

Now according to these scholars the only possible way to understand Jesus's words in the Olivet Discourse was

Matthew 24 Luke 21 Mark 13 is to see him predicting his immediate return

Jesus according to them made it Abundantly clear when he thought he was going to come back to the world and that was gonna happen in a single

Generation from the time of his death if you remember a generation is 40 years So secular scholars accused

Jesus of believing that he's going to return within 40 years and they say it

Did not happen therefore Jesus is a false prophet and Because pre -millennial ism was starting to gain its footing at the same time

These accusations were being leveled they had to come up with an answer to this question. And unfortunately, they got it wrong

Maybe they had good motives. Maybe they tried hard. Maybe they swung and missed but they missed it nonetheless

Now I want you to remember the context so that I can prove this to you Jesus is not talking about the future in Matthew 24.

He is doing what the secular scholars accused him of he's saying I'm gonna return within 40 years.

So what's the context of Matthew 24? We go back to Matthew 21 where Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem and they give him only leaves

They were a city that was supposed to bear fruit for God and they they didn't have any so they gave him leaves instead

This is important because near the end of Matthew 21 or at least near the middle of it Jesus curses a fig tree which offered him only leaves and no fruit these these events happened nearly in the same day

So the fig tree Represents Jerusalem in the same way that they gave him leaves and no fruit this fig tree gave him leaves and no fruit and Jesus Cursed it and he cursed it and said it would be ripped up and thrown into the fire

Just like the city of Jerusalem would happen in AD 70 now that fig tree became sort of Typological picture of what was going to happen to Jerusalem Matthew 21 18 through 22

After that, he goes into the city He walks into the city and he tells three successive parables about how the kingdom of God was gonna be taken away from the apostate

Jewish leadership and it was gonna be giving to a people who bear the fruit These people weren't gonna offer him just leaves and stubble and hay they were gonna give him fruit and it's gonna be his church

That's going to do that. Not the Jewish religious leaders. There's those parables. You can find Matthew 21 28 through chapter 20 through 14

It talks about a landowner. It talks about a vineyard owner. It talks about a father with two sons

It talks about a man who threw a wedding feast the point of all of those parables is that Jesus is

Going to take that kingdom away from the Pharisees and give it to a people who will produce

God's fruit and it says in the text that the Pharisees understood that he was Unleveling these judgments against them so that's the context

Matthew 23 furthers that context when Jesus after he gives these parables of Judgment, then he pronounces seven covenantal woes upon the city

He tells them that all of the wrath that God has been storing up since the beginning of the world since Cain killed

Abel It's gonna be poured out on that Generation of false shepherds. No one at the time was standing around looking at Jesus saying

I bet he's talking about the end of the world They didn't he said it's gonna fall on you. Your city is gonna be left in flames

Matthew 22 7 your temple your house is gonna be left to you Desolate desolate that's

Matthew 23 Everyone understood what Jesus was talking about He was talking about the downfall of that city and it was so clear that the disciples became freaked out and paranoid so much so that they asked him what he was talking about and Jesus made himself even more clear by telling his disciples that not even one stone from that flawed

Fruitless temple was gonna be left upon another Matthew 24 1 through 2 instead wars and rumors of wars were gonna occur false

Prophets were gonna arise famines and earthquakes heightened persecutions tribulations and abomination that caused desolation

We're all gonna come against this people and against this temple leaving it desolate Culminating in the dazzling return of Jesus Christ within a single generation

Matthew 24 29 through 41 now since liberal scholars can clearly read from the text that Jesus intended to come back in judgment against that Generation of sinful

Jews within 40 years. They see that. Well, Jesus didn't bodily come back

Therefore he's not a real prophet. He's a false prophet and they level that blasphemous charge against Jesus Saying that he's not

God, but he's merely a man Well in doing that The pre -millennialist had to have an answer and it was during this period when the pagan men were running roughshod over the text believing that They had somehow invalidated the

Christian faith by dethroning the Christian Christ Well pre -millennialism was born and it was born to give an answer and out of the best intentions as we said before It gave the wrong answer

It attempted to craft an eschatological position that rescued Jesus from the attacks of the liberal scholars

But it answered it wrongly If you want to know more about this event, you can read

RC Sproul's book the last days according to Jesus I think it's chapter 1 or chapter 2.

He goes into detail about this and it's fascinating and he's right Now to do this to pull this off pre -millennialism

Needed to reinterpret everything that Jesus was saying in these passages they need to completely destroy the context that Jesus was operating under and Somehow instead of seeing the

Olivet Discourse is happening in the lifetime of the people that Jesus gave it to they're gonna have to find

Some way to tie it into the future which in that which would invalidate the accusations that are being pummeled against Jesus by these scholars they'd have to say no no, no, no.

No, these things don't happen in Jesus's lifetime He's not a false prophet. No, these things happen in the future and secular scholars did not fall for it

They say you can't do that to the text. That's not what it says, but pre -millennialism did it? Anyway, instead of attempting to show how these events really happened within the time frame that Jesus said

Premillennialist argued that most of church history most scholars even the people standing right in front of Jesus listening to him speak

Misunderstood what Jesus was actually saying and doing and instead these predictions occur sometime in the remote future

Not within a single generation of Jesus's listeners now while the people who heard him say these things were still living

Premillennialist began to argue that they were wrong and the events were never intended to happen in the past They were only ever intended to happen in the future

In fact, they still haven't happened today and they're not going to happen until sometime in the future

When no man knows the day or the hour and you've heard the line Now this means that when the disciples asked

Jesus What would be the sign of the downfall of the city and what would be a sign of the downfall of this era?

And of the Jewish temple well in Matthew 24 3 They asked him these questions in order to to have the pre -millennial view

You would have to believe that Jesus ignored his followers questions and Instead decided to talk about the things that were not going to happen for another 2 ,000 plus years and would have zero relevance to their life and their circumstances

It would be like Jesus saying the city is under judgment. The temple is going to be destroyed Not one stone is gonna be left upon another and the disciples say when's it gonna happen

Jesus says I don't know But let me tell you about what's gonna happen 2 ,000 years from now because that's really fascinating has absolutely nothing to do with your life that would have us believe that all of the signs that Jesus gave were for a future generation and not for the people who were

Standing right in front of him They were instead a road map on how to read the passage and how to walk through the

Great Tribulation In the modern world if that sounds like a thoroughly crazy and utterly insane way to interpret the text then you're right

Congratulations, you're still sane Not only would that Overlook the disciples their emotions their feelings their questions in the entire context

It would also in it would ignore all of the evidence that there is To present that these are actual events that happen and we could present that to liberal theologians proving

That Jesus prophecy came true And if you want on my blog and on this podcast I've got like 10 to 20 episodes on Matthew 24 where I prove that all of these things happened

There really were wars and rumors of wars happening in the first century There were and and that was a much more critical sign back then than it even is today because they were living under the

Pax Romana, which meant that there were no wars. We don't live during that time We live in a time where there's constant wars just under Joe Biden's failed presidency

We've had two maybe possibly three wars that have been rumored to start and now we see that they have the

Pax Romana That was not the case. So wars and rumors force was a sign that meant that meant a lot of sense to them there was an astonishing number of earthquakes between the year 80 70 or 80 30 and 80 70 if you look it up in the history you'll

See that there were even pagans who were saying that these earthquakes are a sign of judgment You remember when Jesus rose from the dead earthquake when he died earthquake

There were earthquakes happening all the time and that was a signal to Jesus's disciples that these things were happening

Now there was an empire wide wide famine that one of the historians tell us about that that covered the entire

Roman world people were afraid that they were gonna lose everything there were false prophets Acts chapter 5 tells us about two of them

There was an uptick in persecution by the Jews the whole book of Acts is about that One by one all of the signs that Jesus gave to us in that chapter can be shown to have already happened

Which gloriously fulfills everything Jesus said that's even true of the second coming

When you understand what Jesus is talking about He's not promising to come at the end of human history surfboarding on the clouds coming down from heaven and then you know

A sword literally coming out of his mouth like his tongue has now turned into a spear No, he is talking in Old Testament ways

He's not talking about rapturing a church out of here as the pre -millennialists suggest. He's promising a judgment coming

Against Jerusalem that was gonna happen just like in the days of Noah You see in the

Old Testament judgment comings happened when God raised up armies to destroy his wayward people it happened when he raised up Syria to destroy

Israel it happened when he raised up Babylon to destroy Jerusalem and Judea This is just ways that God does this and the judgment that he describes in Matthew 24 is not a righteous

There's not a rapture of the righteous, but it's a rapture It's a sweeping away of the wicked just like in the days of Noah Look at what it says in verse 37 and beyond For the coming of the

Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah for as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking marrying and giving and marriage until the day that Noah entered the

Ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away

So will the coming of the Son of Man be? Then there will be two men in the field one will be taken and one will be left two women will be grinding in the mill

One will be taken and one will be left. Jesus is not arguing for an end of human history coming

He is our he's not arguing for a rapture of all the righteous Christians on earth He's arguing for a cataclysmic judgment on the wicked that looks like and smells like the judgment that God poured out on the generation that was alive during the preaching of Noah and Just like Noah preached to them to repent and they did not listen but they hard in their heart in the same way the

Jews hard in their heart to the preaching of Christ and his Disciples and as a result all of the wicked were swept away in that original devastating flood and in the same way

Jerusalem's leaders were gonna be killed by God's Son By sending the

Roman armies because they refused to repent and turn to him They were gonna be swept away by the torrent of God's awesome

Fury and that happened when the floodwaters of the Roman legions descended upon the city Drowning the rebels in their own blood letting their dead bodies decompose in the heat of the noontime day

That's Matthew 24 28 when the vultures even surrounded the city and those bodies set there and decomposed

Until the Romans set the city on fire and carried away all of its wealth in their boats

Do you see the Noahic themes there? Jesus is not talking about a future rapture

He's talking about a coming in judgment against Jerusalem And he's using the same kind of language that he used in the prophets when he raised up nations and judgment against other nations

For instance when God decided to judge Nineveh, he rode on the clouds in judgment against them.

That's Nahum 1 3 When God decides to destroy Babylon the Sun went dark and the moon didn't give its light

Isaiah 13 10 the moon also didn't give its light in the downfall of Egypt That's Ezekiel 32 7 the heavens and the earth quaked and shaked in the prophecy of Joel Joel 2 10

Which by the way is describing the coming catastrophe on Jerusalem when you look at Joel 2

It says that the Pentecost is gonna happen The Holy Spirit's gonna come down upon believers and they're gonna prophesy in those days and then

Jerusalem is gonna be destroyed That's exactly what happened in Jesus quotes from that passage in Matthew 24

Those apocalyptic images that Jesus is using is not talking about a future when every eye on earth will see him

Surfboarding on the clouds. That's not what he's saying. He's using Old Testament images to describe a

New Testament reality, which is Jerusalem is gonna come under the curse of God Matthew 23 is all about that seven covenantal curses are pronounced here in Matthew 24

He gives apocalyptic imagery and that's gonna happen in their lifetime They're going to soon be destroyed within a 40 -year window and guess what it happened far from these passages and Validating the prophecy of Christ or undermining his divinity.

They actually Overwhelmingly substantiate it and make this the single greatest fulfillment of prophecy that has ever been given bar none and this proves the point in Order to rescue biblical passages from a perceived supposed societal skepticism

Premillennialism has removed them from their church -age context and punted them deep into the post -rapture world instead of doing the hard work of exegesis to see what the original author intended to communicate to the original audience many premillennialists assume an auto

Futurism a an automatic future fulfillment that applies to every text with little to no exegetical warrant for doing so for instance

When Isaiah said for unto us a child is born into us a son is given the premillennial still say

That's about Jesus Christ, and they would be right when they do so but in the same verse when it says that the kingdom that His kingdom is gonna spread and the increase of his government of his peace is gonna know no end

Well, you ask them when that's gonna happen and they say well That's not gonna happen until the Millennial Kingdom. And then the question you have to ask them is why?

How in the world do you think that that is what Isaiah meant Isaiah said that the king is gonna be born and he's gonna

Begin a kingdom and there is no break in the text it's not that he's gonna be born and then go take a 2 ,000 year siesta and Then start his kingdom that's ludicrous.

That's not what he's talking about. Here's another example in Daniel chapter 7 You'll remember Daniel foresees the coming of the

Son of Man He comes up with the clouds of heaven in Daniel chapter 7 Well premillennialist assume that this is speaking about the second coming of Christ when he comes down and when he makes war with the

Antichrist and abolishes all the rebellion that there is on earth and inaugurates his Thousand -year kingdom.

Well, this is just absolutely and clearly not what Daniel is speaking about and this is

Really kind of hard to take serious if you understand the context Daniel says that the

Son of Man goes up to the Ancient of Days. He does not come down. He ascends. He does not descend further

Jesus himself says that he is the Son of Man that Daniel's talking about that he is the one who's going to ascend up to the

Ancient of Days on the clouds and that it's The wicked high priest Caiaphas who's actually gonna witness it

Matthew 26 24 so for Caiaphas to be an eyewitness of Daniel 7 coming to Fulfillment that would mean it would have to happen in Caiaphas his lifetime

It can't be an event that happens in our distant future It happened just 50 days after Jesus was raised from the dead meaning that this passage from Daniel has

Already been fulfilled by the ascension of Jesus Christ and since Daniel says that this is when the

Son of Man comes into his kingdom and receives his glory and Starts stepping into the beginning of his worldwide expansion of his dominion

Well, we should not mark that as a future millennial kingdom, but we should see that kingdom as happening now

Because it already occurred at the ascension of Christ. We are currently living in it

Now I can give you plenty more examples But it's clear to me that pre -millennial ism has adopted a hermeneutic of autofuturism or by that I mean automatically applying a futuristic interpretation to text that it does not apply

That's not to say that there aren't passages in the Bible that are future There absolutely are but we do not apply an auto futuristic hermeneutic

We look at the text we understand what it minutes in its historical context And if the original author intended to communicate a future outcome to the original audience

We receive that but if not instead of asking what does this text mean to the to me?

We actually go back and ask the right question and say what does it mean to the original audience? That sort of failed hermeneutic that is applied liberally in the pre -millennial movement has fueled endless

Speculation newspaper exegesis and is settled into the church Like the whooping cough and is strangled

Jesus's church of its vigor and its life How pre -millennial ism produces putrid pessimism?

while offering a better view of eschatology than Dispensationalism that's for sure the doctrine of pre -millennial ism will inadvertently cast a shadow over Christian life and over mission as understood in the historic pre -millennial framework this anticipation for a post rapture coming of Jesus Doesn't actually contribute hope it contributes to a sense of defeat ism among believers

It produces a culture of negativity that looks to the end of the world

Instead of faithfulness to Christ and it will cause a generation of churchgoers to wait

Passively with their hands in their pocket waiting on a rapture that just isn't coming

Instead of actively engaging in churches or working to see all of Christ Permanate their home or building the kingdom in our generation or trusting

God with his promises. They wait without hope and What follows as we come to a close of today's episode?

I want to briefly describe why pre -millennial ism produces such rank Pessimism and I'm gonna give six reasons for that reason number one a defeatist attitude a key concern in pre -millennial thinking is a

Defeatist attitude which is far from a biblical virtue Instead of adopting real biblical things like hope or courage or long -suffering or joy

This outlet leads to sinful attitudes that must be repented of sinful motivations that must be avoided

For instance Romans 837 says in all these things that means in everything you and I go through in the age of the church that we're

Living in now and not a future age that is to come in all these things We are to be more than conquerors through him who loved us

Now this first doesn't emphasize Defeated emphasizes victory through faith.

It doesn't emphasize ongoing failure It says that and it doesn't emphasize an ever -worsening world.

That's gonna be bankrupt until Christ returns No believers are to think about their efforts in society as as not hopelessly futile

But something that actually is making a difference This pre -millennial mindset does not produce godly men and women and children

It certainly doesn't produce vigor or long -suffering or a can -do attitude That should be present among Jesus's servants and instead it leads to pessimism and passivity and an acceptance of the world's decline it's a sort of Just you know, well, we know the world's declining.

So what can we do about it? It's that kind of attitude It's merely Believing that the world is just a sinking ship.

So what does it matter? Which is I guess good news if you if you're hoping for the world to just totally destroy itself before the

Lord's imminent return This anti -christian mentality Undercuts the hope of the

Christian gospel the Christian imperative to disciple the nations and to spread the Lord's gospel to the ends of the earth

So it must be rejected reason number two the psychology of defeatism

Now similarly pre -millennial ism paints a picture of a world Spiraling inevitably out of control which appeals to the carnality of men and women who are living in this society

Let me let me say it to you like this Our society is known for negativity instead of feel -good stories and positive news events or or even

Entertainment that is focused on building things like like, you know winning a championship or things like those movies have sort of gone away

Today, we live in a world where news organizations are pumping defeat and death and disaster into our homes on a minute -by -minute basis if you'll notice so many of our movies that are coming out are not about Triumphant things are not about even feel -good things are about the world's coming to an explosive end whether it's an asteroid that's killing everyone

Or it's AI that's taking over everything or it's a cyber attack on our grid that causes us to leave the world behind this society is addicted to digital death and Destruction that is made ubiquitous through the ever -growing web called the

Internet Have you ever wondered why it's called web and internet? Predators are what catch things in nets and webs do not let yourself be caught in the negativity

That is being pumped into your home through your device It's that expectation that we've all lived under in this society and sadly

Premillennialism appeals to it and works well in that kind of environment. It appeals to the kind of carnality

That is inside fallen man and ignorant Christians it appeals to the people who don't know their

Bible and who don't know that the virtues of the Christian faith and the fruits of The spirit that he brings into your life is not pre -millennial pessimism, but hope and joy and love and grace and peace

Premillennialism presents a constant barrage of future chaos and moral decay leading

Christians into an addiction to abject despair Which makes premillennialism the

CNN or the MSNBC of Christianity it's fake news all the time constantly delivered and For that reason we have to reject it

Reason number three the church's role in an interim age Premillennialism also casts this current age that you and I are living in as entirely unimportant

Contradicting the biblical call to active stewardship of the world or even the fact that God through the second

Adam is gonna redeem the world That's Romans 8, but for a moment, let's look at Genesis 1, which is the stewardship of the world the cultural mandate

Genesis 128 tells us to be fruitful multiply and take Dominion Well instead of taking

Dominion and being fruitful and multiplying families and subduing things to the glory of God Premillennialism produces a piss -poor mindset that expects the

Church of Jesus Christ to lose No matter what we do. We're just gonna crash and burn anyway.

So what's the point? That sort of pep talk would be a horrible locker room speech by any coach that ever delivered it

Can you imagine a head coach coming into the locker room at halftime and saying well boys? I don't want you to be deceived right now.

We can't win out there They're better than us and they're gonna win, but don't worry at the end of the game

Everything will work itself out. I mean Can you imagine what the team would feel like under that sort of message

I mean, what do you think that team is gonna do or act like if they believe that coach's message? They're gonna slack off lazily go through the motions in the playbook and they're gonna get their rear ends handed to them in Fantastic fashion, then they're gonna walk away saying yeah, you know, the coach was right

He told us that we were gonna lose and we did This is precisely the kind of outcome

Premillennialism is producing an age of people who expect to lose and Praise God that history tells a different story than that which means

God is not beholden to our sinful pessimistic logic He will have the victory which is why we must get rid of these eschatologies of defeat reason for a passive church waiting for redemption

Now premillennialism by placing the inauguration of Christ's kingdom in the Indeterminate future encourages the church to keep circling the runway in a perpetual holding pattern with no plan ever to land

This has led to all kinds of ecclesial passivity in the church where the mission is not something that we do today

But rather the mission is that we all hunker down together and wait for an escape as mentioned above That's like a child waiting for the parent to clean the room for them instead of getting up and cleaning it themselves

Jesus did not commission us to that sort of impetulant posture. He called us to work reason number five missionary work in the shadow of the

Millennium One of the most crucial and critical teachings that Jesus gave to his church is the

Great Commission Matthew 28 19 through 20 That is the commitment for us to do missions all across the world to spread the gospel to all the nations to make the nation's disciples of Christ This directive does not convey an immediate or imminent eschaton

But it emphasizes a long -term ongoing sustained effort that is not going to be finished very quickly

The task of discipling pagan nations is it implies both time and rigorous work however under the shadow of pre -millennial

Mirkwood Which emphasizes a rapidly deteriorating space and an imminent return of Christ.

Well the modern church perceives the Great Commission or at least acts out the

Great Commission as if it's not urgent or entirely futile altogether No one invest time and energy and resources into a failed project or a sinking ship

That's the way that evangelicalism has acted about discipleship for a hundred years and it is destroyed the climate of the church

Now take an opposite example, for instance a man like William Carey He's often hailed as the father of modern -day missions.

His life demonstrates actually the foolishness of the pre -millennial view William Carey worked in India for four decades

Amidst significant challenges without seeing any substantial results or fruit and yet it was his lifelong sacrificial commitment which laid the foundation for a

Significant Christian presence in India in the years to come the long -term perspective and horizon with men like William Wilberforce and William Carey for missions and discipleship and government work is essential for the church and for the

Christian Like Jesus and the early Apostles this world that we're living in can also be turned upside down if we adopt a

Faithful long -term perspective and we do the work that Jesus called us to do consistently and joyfully over lifetimes reason six the paralysis of imminent expectation

Premillennialism which holds that Christ return is imminent and could happen at any moment

Also causes tremendous problems in the individual believer and also in their churches

Now while this urgency can encourage a state of ongoing readiness and a spiritual alertness

Which Christ certainly speaks about and that's a good thing. It also can lead to a spiritual paralysis

Instead of focusing on engaging with the present world. It creates a Christian more focused on waiting than doing

Remember it was the one who buried his master's coin and waited for him to return who was beaten for his

Insolence and stupidity and it was the ones who were found Joyfully and diligently working working all the way up into the point that the master returned who were rewarded for their labors

Reassessing our framework While premillennialism does provide a framework for understanding the end times it's not a very good one

In fact, it is a thoroughly wretched one. That is miles away from the biblical text

You could if you wanted do a lot of things you could drink a gallon of windshield washer fluid, but that's certainly not advisable

It was not gonna quench your thirst either. It's just gonna leave you empty inside and sick Well in the same way holding to a premillennial view of the end times is certainly you possible you can do it

But it's not gonna be helpful It's gonna undermine a biblical attitude of of hope and worship it's gonna cause

Unbiblical behavior that's gonna lead to passivity inactivity and other blatant sins and as mentioned before whenever a person becomes captivated with missions or discipleship or seeing the

Lord's Kingdom grow for the glory of Christ and and Seeing it spread on earth as the waters covers the sea

Whenever that happens, it's not attributed to premillennialism It's attributed really to the gospel or other doctrines.

It's not premillennialism that produces these things It's actually when premillennials do these kinds of things they're doing it in spite of their flawed eschatology and not because of it in Cases where premillennialists do robustly biblical things they oppose their own worldview

That's why I cannot in good conscience present it as a viable biblical view from my research and my assessment

It is clear where it belongs and that's in the dumpster fire that it created

Instead of adopting such an odious noxious viewpoint that so clearly stifles

Christians engagement in the world and slows mission and discipleship and produces people who are perpetually paralyzed in fear and Doesn't promote

Christian faithfulness to the commands of Christ and produces a sour Disposition instead of love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self -control and and it and something that is that produces

All of these different negative things I can't recommend that and it's evident and it's necessary for us to discard that and reevaluate our eschatological position before we're toxified up in it, which

Will be reevaluating that over the weeks ahead and we'll be giving the biblical view soon. So hang tight and keep watching

Conclusion Brothers and sisters as we conclude today's episode through the winding paths of eschatological defeatism

I need us to pause and reflect for a second you and I have just put on the waders and we've

We've squished and squashed our way through the ugly swamp water of pre -millennial pessimism and we've seen its potential to dampen our zeal for Christ and to hinder the mission that he's called us to and While that kind of mud and muck holds so many

Christians paralyzed and in a morbid stupor I don't want us to end that way today.

I Want you and I to lift our gaze off of this and on to the glory of Jesus Christ Which is where our hope comes from.

I want us to remember dear Christian that we are not a people of despair and defeat We are a people of hope our

Lord Jesus Christ seated at the father's right hand is raining now He's not on a hammock soaking up the vacay rays and in Tahiti.

No, he's raining supremely over his curate creation He's gonna restore his creation and he's not going to wait until the church

Crashes and burns to begin the cleanup project No He's given you the mop in the broom and told you to get started to be active participants in the redemption story and praise

God for that because of this let you and I Discard the defeatism that we've been hearing about and embrace the hopeful message of the gospel with zeal and with passion casting aside the fears of the chains of fear and the biting

Immobility of the defeat that pessimism has offered us Served us up on a cold plate and let us be the kind of people brothers and sisters whom

Jesus will find working when he returns Let him find us working in our homes working in our marriages working with our children building up our churches

Engaging sinful culture and let us never be the kind of people the pre -millennial

Ostriches who hide our head in the sand hoping to be rescued out of here. No, let us be young lions and lionesses that boldly and courageously

Declare the gospel of our triumphant Lord who triumphed over the grave who is the first fruit of a new creation

Who in his resurrection will bring all of us to resurrection. Let you and I be found working

Now in the coming weeks, we're gonna examine the biblical case like I said before postmillennialism a perspective that does not paint a picture of doom and gloom but one of triumph and glory a

View that aligns with Christ's Great Commission. It's it aligns with the great With the cultural mandate and Genesis 1 it's consistent with other biblical scriptures all the biblical scriptures

I would argue and a view that urges us to go forth boldly to make disciples of all the nations

We're gonna explore how that Perspective empowers you and I to be salt and light in a decaying world in a world that Desperately needs the pervasive truth of Christ and the illumination of his gospel

We're gonna look at how this view encourages us to invest in long -term missions remembering that our labor and the

Lord is not in vain first Corinthians 15 58 and we're gonna see how We are called to be builders in the kingdom of Christ Matthew 16 18

Cultivators in his garden Genesis 2 15 until he comes again first Corinthians 15

But as we end today's episode I want you and I to rise up from the latrine of defeatism

And I want us to wear the kingly robe and the mantle of godly. Hope and I want you and I to be a part of the generation that sees the church cease from its retreating a

Generation that sees the church invigorated to begin advancing again and seeing the gates of hell fall down on our feet again

I want you and I To be the generation that brings the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ heralding his kingdom that is ever growing ever reaching ever transforming to a world that is ever dying and ever in need of the only hope that can only be found in Christ as You go into this week brother and sister

Carry with you that hope Ponder the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 15 13 who said made the

God of hope Fill you with all joy and all peace and believing so that by the power of the

Holy Spirit you may abound in Hope let you never be

Consumed with defeat and let you abound in great. Hope Join us next week as we evaluate one more deficient view of eschatology

Before we gonna examine the biblical view the better view the view that I think scripture teaches but until then

Thank you for tuning into the broadcast May God richly bless you and keep you and keep your heart filled with hope until next time.

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