Stress Not the Eschaton

Prayer for the Gospel, Faith, and Perseverance

All right, let's pray. Lord Jesus Christ, giver and perfecter of our faith, we thank and praise You for continuing among us the preaching of Your Gospel for our instruction and our edification. Send Your blessing upon the Word, which has been spoken to us and by Your Holy Spirit.

Increase our saving knowledge of You, that day by day we may be strengthened in the divine truth and remain steadfast in Your grace. Give us strength to fight the good fight by faith, to overcome the temptations of Satan, the flesh, the world, so that we may finally receive the salvation of our souls.

For You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Okay, so in the sermon today on 2 Thessalonians 2, which gives us some very distressing details of what the end of the world is gonna be like, I thought I would just dogpile onto that some more distressing details in what I consider to be a passage that is a clear cross-reference to 2 Thessalonians chapter two.

And as a clear cross-reference, you'll note that they work together, and you're gonna note that some of the themes here in Daniel chapter seven have cross-references in the book of Revelation, especially that really, really scary passage, Revelation chapter 13, about the beast and the dragon and all that kind of stuff.

And over and again, I note, and I'll just kind of reemphasize this idea, bad teaching on the eschaton gives anxiety. The Bible doesn't give us anxiety when we consider the details. And it's not that the details are not awful.

They are absolutely distressing and difficult details. But always the emphasis is on what follows. And so it's as if, the best way I can put it, it's as if that Christ, in his wisdom, has chosen to allow sin to run its course.

And we know this of the devil. And in fact, this is a fascinating passage I wasn't planning on, but let me pull this up. I'm gonna duplicate this tab. Isaiah chapter 14, in this interesting prophecy that really has in mind an earthly king, but also kind of pulls in the real issues regarding the devil himself.

We get this very fascinating text. Consider then, this is shooting past the human being that is being spoken of here, and also directly hits, really, the true nature of the devil. As Isaiah 14, 12. Oh, how you are fallen from heaven, O day star, sun of the dawn.

How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid low the nations. You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven. Above the stars of God, I will set my throne on high. I will sit on the mountain of the assembly in the far reaches of the north.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself like the most high. Now, let's be sober-minded about this, shall we? Is this not every three-year-old when they're having a temper tantrum?

Right?

Is this not you and I when we are so upset because we didn't get our own way? Or is that just me?

Right?

We are the most like the devil when everything is about me, me, me, me, I, I, I, I, and as I like to say in the corporate world, there is no I in team, right? There is no I in team. And so you'll note then that what is the opposite of this mentality, of this way of thinking?

The opposite of that is loving God and loving your neighbor. Serving your neighbor for your neighbor's sake so that the person that you see is not yourself, you see your neighbor and his needs. And so, and Christ in Philippians 2 exemplifies that beyond all reason, but you're gonna note then that in our epistle text in 2 Thessalonians 2, we have this picture of the man of lawlessness and this man of lawlessness sounds so much like the devil from Isaiah 14 that we have to kind of get what's going on.

And so the lawless one will be revealed and it talks about this, so listen to the way, so the rebellion's gonna come, this is the apostasy. The man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called God or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God proclaiming himself to be God.

That's just nuts. I mean, isn't this like the plot line for like every bad B-movie villain, right? And so God, for whatever reason, and he hasn't given us the reasoning, he has made it clear he's gonna let everything run its course as far as sin is concerned, so much so that this man of lawlessness will literally be activated by, you can almost think of him as like the devil incarnate, and the whole world is gonna come under his dominion, and I do mean that, the whole world, we'll see that in Daniel 7, and for a season, Christ is going to permit this guy to totally win.

It's almost as if, and I have to put it in these terms, no human being would be able to say, yeah, well, you never let us actually run the place and go at it really the way, we never reached our potential.

Humanity's gonna reach its full sinful potential at the end of the world. It's as if Christ is gonna take all the restraints off and everything is just gonna be nuts, just bonkers. It's gonna be bad, right?

So it's on this I wanna dogpile from Daniel 7, and you'll see why it's a cross-reference, and then we'll kinda flesh this out. So Daniel writes, in the first year of Belshazzar, the king of Babylon. What a great name, I mean, name your kid Belshazzar.

Yeah, where'd you find that name?

Oh, it's a Bible name.

If it's not a good one, it just sounds cool, you know?

Anyway. Better than Nimrod.

Yeah, I agree, much better than Nimrod, yeah, yeah. If you want somebody to be picked on and bullied for the rest of their life, name him Nimrod, you know? Anyway, so in the first year of Belshazzar, the king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head as he lay in his bed.

Then he wrote down the dream and told the sum of the matter. Daniel declared, I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of the heaven were stirred up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea different from one another.

And so you're gonna note here something, and this is one of the kind of the themes of Scripture. Fast forward to the end of the book of Revelation. What's in front of the throne of Christ?

Huh?

Well, yeah, they're there.

The four creatures are there. And also in front of him is the glassy sea, okay? So one of the themes of Scripture is that when the sea is storming and winding and all this kind of stuff, this is chaos.

This is, you know, bad forces are at work. And at the end of the book of Revelation, you have these four creatures there.

Well, except for kind of one,.

But you'd have these creatures there. And then, and also you have this glassy, calm sea. It almost makes you wanna, you know, go grab a swimsuit and maybe it's like an infinity pool,.

You know, sit there with a chaise lounge,.

One of those really cool Mai Tai's with umbrella and stuff. Yeah, just relax. Just, you know, picture of peace. So, you know, eschatology, you have these tumultuous themes followed by the peace and the calm that comes by Christ's victory over all of that.

So the four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. First was like a lion, had eagle's wings. And I looked, its wings were plucked off. And it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man.

And then the mind of a man was given to it. And behold, another beast, a second one, like a bear. It was raised up on one side. It had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. And it was told, arise, devour much flesh.

After this, I looked and behold another like a leopard with four wings of a bird on its back. And the beast had four heads and dominion was given to it. After this, I saw in the night visions and behold, a fourth beast.

Terrifying, dreadful, exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth. It devoured and broken pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it. And it had 10 horns.

And I considered the horns and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man and a mouth speaking great things.

Now if you know your book, the book of Revelation, this sounds a lot like what we see in like Revelation 13. Let me show you at least the idea here. And so Revelation and Daniel go together. Revelation 13, one, I saw a beast rising out of the sea, 10 horns, seven heads, 10 diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.

And the beast that I saw was like a leopard. Its feet were like a bear's and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. Interesting, you know, you see, kind of roll some things up into this thing. And its mouth was like a lion's mouth.

And to it, the dragon gave his power and his throne and his great authority. Oh, the dragon gave it to him, right? So he's sitting there going, well, we all know who the dragon is. And one of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but his mortal wound was healed.

The whole earth marveled as they followed the beast and they worshiped the dragon for he had given his authority to the beast. And they worshiped the beast saying, who is like the beast and who can fight against it?

And so here, in the book of Revelation, you kind of get this unholy trinity of the dragon, the beast, and the whore of Babylon, altogether this unholy trinity. And you can see then how this then is a direct cross-reference to what we're seeing in Daniel 7.

So this last beast, you know, I consider the horns, the beholder came up among them a horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. The horns were eyes and its mouth speaking great things.

And we learn from Revelation, these are great, bold, and blasphemous things. So and as I looked, and this is, you're gonna note then, so here we've got this picture and it's like,.

Ah, strong, iron teeth, and this stuff and it's all this anxiety.

And then you see what scripture does, all right? Gives us a picture, gives us all the gory details, and now comes the thing we should focus on. Not the gory details, watch this. So as I looked, thrones were placed, and the ancients of days took his seat.

Ancient of days is gonna be God the Father. And his clothing was white as snow, the hair of his head like pure wool. His throne was fiery flames, its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before him, and 1 ,000 ,000 served him, 10 ,000 times, 10 ,000 stood before him.

The court sat in judgment, the books were opened. All right, we know what that is, that's the day of judgment, right? I looked, then because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking, and I looked, the beast was killed, its body destroyed, and given over to be burned with fire.

As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. So here you've got this thing that just shows up,.

This powerful, mighty, teeth of iron, thrashing and destroying and stamping.

And all this kind of stuff. And no sooner is it described than, yeah, it was killed. It was killed, its body turned over to fire.

Well, that was fun, that was great.

And so you know, that's the theme. So then I saw in the night visions, behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man. He came to the ancient of days.

Ooh, I betcha I know who this is.

Who do you think that is?

It's Jesus, right?

It's right here in the book of Daniel. So Jesus, the one like a son of man, he came to the ancient of days, God the Father, was presented before him. And to him, the one like the son of man, to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people's nations and languages should serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away. His kingdom, one that shall not be destroyed. And so it's as if what we're really looking at in our world, if you consider the temptation of our first parents, Adam and Eve, humanity's fallen to sin, the temptation being you'll be like God, knowing good and evil, and us coming under the dominion of darkness as a result of it.

It's as if the devil's end game, for real, is this coup d 'etat to take the kingdom from Christ and have it for himself. And so, and when we consider like World War II, the Nazis, nuts, man, absolutely bonkers.

I mean, Hitler was about as insane and demonically so as any human could possibly be. And what does he do? He goes, he takes and he occupies all of Western Europe with the exception of the UK and Switzerland, right?

And we all know how this ended up for him, really poorly. Really poorly. And that being the case, it's like, what was the point of all of that? Because human history has written about this guy that he was absolutely just bat guano crazy.

He was just nuts. Does anybody think that Hitler was the example of like sound mental health?

No.

And so what's gonna happen then is that the world going through the cycles that it goes through, the next time this happens, or sometime in the future when this happens again, there's gonna be somebody about as mentally stable as Hitler, animated by the devil, and he's gonna succeed not in taking Western Europe.

He's gonna succeed in like taking over the world. It's gonna be a lovely regime. Lovely, lovely. I think if you read the book of Revelation, it makes me wonder if like the preferred method of death for Christians is going to be beheading, because it talks about all the people who are beheaded who stand before the throne of Christ.

That has not been, in human history, like the preferred method of killing Christians, but that is mentioned as a thing. So I mean, so it's gonna be just awful, you know? It's gonna, this guy's gonna make Hitler look like a schoolgirl, you know?

You know, he just wasn't ambitious enough, you know, not even close. And so this is a global thing, but here's, note where the emphasis is on. The kingdom's given to Christ, given to him by God the Father, the Ancient of Days, and his dominion is an everlasting dominion.

So the devil can rage, the devil can scheme, the devil can figure out a way to take over the whole world. Who cares? Because the kingdom's been given to Christ, and Christ is gonna permit this for just about that long, and then it's all gonna come to a screeching halt.

Screeching.

And at least when that fellow goes, we will not have the problem of like, did Hitler really kill, did suicide or not? Is he really dead or not? We'll have a definitive answer. Christ himself is gonna kill him with the breath of his mouth.

So the emphasis, again, is not on the details. The details are there to let us know, listen, something bad's coming, but this is what you should expect. So as for me, Daniel, my spirit was within me, was anxious, which is kind of a normal thing.

When you read eschatology in the Bible, it is not an abnormal thing to sit there and go, whoa, that's dark, that's scary. So the visions in my head, they alarmed me. So I approached one of those who stood there, and I asked him the truth concerning all this.

So he told me, and he made known the interpretation of the things. All right, so these four great beasts are four kings who will arise out of the earth, but the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever and ever.

Okay, so note, all right, these are four kings coming out of the earth, but, but the saints of the Most High will and shall receive the kingdom, and they shall possess the kingdom forever and ever and ever.

There's where the emphasis is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, these are four beasts, but the saints are gonna win. So then I desired to know the truth about that fourth beast, which was different from the rest, exceedingly terrifying, its teeth of iron, claws of bronze, which devoured in broken pieces and stamped what was left with its feet, and about 10 horns that were on its head, and the other horn that came up, and before which three of them fell, the horn that had eyes and a mouth that spoke great things that seemed greater than its companions.

As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them. All right, so here's the playbook.

Are you ready?

This guy shows up, he's gonna make war with the saints, and we're gonna lose. Is everyone in this? That's the playbook. Yes, you've already been signed up, and you can't get out, okay? So, as Maximus would say, so in the midst of the battle, if you find yourself in a wheat field and the sun on your face, you're already dead.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So this is a glorious battle. We're going to be brutally, brutally manhandled. It'll be like the Patriots versus whatever team.

Yeah, the Vikings.

Sorry.

Yeah, well, that's painful for some people here, you know? So, yeah, you get the idea. It's really that bad, all right? Go, Pats, go. Yeah, go, Pats, go. I mean, you guys remember that dark day on Super Bowl history when the Patriots looked like they were gonna actually lose the Super Bowl?

Remember that? Okay, I was so excited, I was gleeful. I was sitting there going, I was gonna watch this and just sitting there going, yeah, yeah, and then with like two minutes left, they scored like 500 points, right?

It's like Brady turns into Superman. Okay, he is the man of lawlessness.

He's the greatest of all time.

He's the GOAT, greatest of all time.

I did not do this money trick.

Okay, Bruce is all, this one's on you, man. This one's on you. Now, all that being said, though, you kind of get the idea. So, the playbook is this, we're gonna lose. Is this current, cursed creation the thing that we're going to inherit?

No.

So, Christ has basically said, the devil can have it. He's gonna let it run its course. The plan is, he's gonna wage war against the saints and he's gonna prevail full stop. You sit there and go, but, but, but, but, but, listen, this is all gonna burn.

It's all gonna burn. Do you not know that? Your inheritance is not here in this current cursed creation. Let me fast forward a little bit to the end using 2 Peter, shall I? 2 Peter chapter three, starting at verse eight.

Do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord, one day is as 1 ,000 years, 1 ,000 years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises, some count slowness, but he is patient toward you, not wishing that anyone should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

This is absolutely Christ's will. This is really why he's being patient. But, the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and the heavens will pass away with a roar. The heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done in it will be exposed.

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting and hastening the day of the coming of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn, but according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

Cool.

All right.

So, we're sojourning here. This is not our final destination, and if the devil wants this, he can have it. The thing is, he doesn't have you, because it's not God's will that any of us should perish. He's been patient towards us, and working repentance in us and faith so that we will trust that we will be forgiven, reconciled to God by what Christ has done for us.

And so, you'll note then, the assurance then that we have, the hope that we have, is beyond this existence. Now, to somebody who's an unbeliever, this is all you got.

This is it. YOLO, right? You only live once.

So, they're gonna hang on tight to all of this stuff. But when the final countdown starts, whenever that is, I don't know if it's gonna be on Thursday, or if it's gonna be 2 ,000 years from now. It's none of my business as to when it's gonna go down.

But when Christ has determined, notice that Christ says that there is a day that has been fixed by the Father. This is not a movable date. This is a hard date in human history, and it always has been.

That as things progress towards that date, and as we get closer and closer, there are certain milestones to expect, and all of this has been determined by God. And that being the case, there's not a thing you are going to do to be able to stop it.

But we're gonna, Christians are gonna be martyred. I know. The devil's gonna take over the earth. Yeah.

So what?

To no avail.

He doesn't win. He gets exactly what he wants, and then the whole thing just comes to an end. Full stop. So, coming back to this glorious text, we are told, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them, until, and that's your big word, until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High.

So, this horn prevails against the saints, then the day of judgment comes, and God is the judge, and the judge goes,.

I rule in favor of the saints.

And we all go, ah, right? In other words, that last touchdown that he scored, was, it didn't count, you know, because the judge rules, no, no, no, no, that was, it didn't work that way. They win, you lose.

So, till the Ancient of Days comes Most High, and then the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom. You're gonna win. Christ is one. You don't need to sweat any of this. So, he said, thus, as for the fourth beast, there shall be a fourth kingdom on the earth, which shall be different from all the kingdoms.

It shall devour the whole earth, trample it down, and break it into pieces. In other words, the globalists are gonna win, right? Oh, yeah, that's what they say. The globalists are the ones who are gonna fix everything, and by the way, when you consider the theology of the so-called Christian globalists, holy smokes.

I mean, you could not be trying harder to lay the foundation for this fourth beast if you were trying, you know? Have you all seen the Netflix documentary, The Family? You should. It'll scare you, okay?

Yeah, you should watch it.

Just watch it.

And I will say this, that I can confirm that this group exists. I have run into members of this group who have openly discussed with me their plans, and their goal is to create a global Christian government.

Ew, I know. So, yeah, just watch it. If you have questions, come to me.

We can talk, all right?

So, the globalists are gonna win. Brexit, it won't last long. You seem disturbed, Bruce.

Okay, you've come a funny trail. Even though I've tried to establish a theocracy, it has been blipped.

Yep, but we finally have figured out how to do it right, Bruce. We're gonna do it right this time. You see, true Christian theocracy has never been tried, just like true communism has never been tried, all right?

Note, I just read the text.

Yeah, yeah.

I have a question. Yeah.

We're like listening, and I hear what you're saying, but no, I'm a little, sometimes I get frustrated with. Yeah, in the dark. Regarding what? You just said.

The globalists have it right?

Well, no.

No.

But we wanna save as many people along the way.

Define save, because I used to work for Focus on the Family. Oh, we were gonna save everybody.

How?

By making a memorial, okay?

Okay. All right.

If we're gonna talk about saving people, number one, it's above my pay grade. Christ has to save them. My job's to preach the word, in season and out of season, and it is through the preaching of the word that God makes Christians.

Now, what has been disappearing with alarming frequency within the visible church nowadays? The word of God, the gospel itself. And where people are attending places called churches, where there is no word of God preached, where the gospel is not proclaimed, where people are not called to repentance, are there being Christians made?

No. No.

Yeah, so here's the idea is that, coming back to our epistle text, what are we called to do? Stand firm, hold to the traditions, word and sacrament,.

And do your good works.

And so the thing is, is that when evil comes up, all right, and we'll note that in history, you can kind of see this. You see the rise of Hitler in the post-war, in the World War I era, in that decade after.

And you know what the church did?

They stayed silent.

That's when they should have been most prophetic. Say, this guy is evil, this is wicked, this is sin.

But you know what they did?

They blended Nazi ideology, many churches did, blended Nazi ideology with Christianity. All right, and they came up with the German church movement, if you call it, and they replaced the crosses on the altar with swastikas.

You know, living church in America is in the exact same.

Uh-huh.

You know, the only agenda that seemed best for us.

Yeah.

We're talking about serial, you know, they both are disqualified. Don't be deceived, and every time the Bible says, don't be deceived, guess what? Because you're gonna get fooled if you don't watch out.

Yeah.

You know, these people aren't Christian. You go down the list of these unrepentant, defined sins. We have a serial adultist.

Narcissistic one, too.

Well, but he was replacing a serial earth-worshipping, you know, globalist.

Yeah.

They're disqualifying on different ends, and just pick which church is okay with which one. As opposed to holding them both up. There is a line of evangelicals. I'm trying to witness to atheists sometimes, and they're like, look at all the evangelicals who are okay with Trump doing all these things.

Why aren't I okay doing all these?

Well, that's hard to preach the gospel in.

Mm-hmm.

And see, the thing is is that when the right-hand kingdom abdicates its responsibility and gets in bed in the left-hand kingdom, bad things happen, period. We should be speaking prophetically to both Republicans and Democrats.

Instead, because we are signed up as members of one party or another, oftentimes, we're willing to be silent as Christians because we recognize, well, it would be better to have our guy rather than the other guy.

T .K. Chesterton's quote, society's, was this Luke Chesterton or Lewis? Society's don't differ on.

Boy, I don't know if that was Lewis or Chesterton. I like the quote, though.

Yeah.

So the job of the church is to not pick a side. And it's a bipartisan thing, but to sit there and say, Christ says, the word says, repent. And so the sins of Donald Trump are glossed over. And have you seen the woman who is his spiritual advisor who is now on staff at the White House?

I'm gonna say this publicly, and boy, I probably will regret it. As soon as I saw the news that Paula White was on staff at the White House, I thought, good grief. The whore of Babylon has just appeared on the scene.

That's how evil this woman is. Her theology is so whack. I mean, this is a woman who exploits the poor and exploits minorities and makes herself rich, basically saying, if you give thousands of dollars, God will bless you.

And she's been doing this for decades. And she's like the chief spiritual advisor to Trump. Nothing good can come from this. And I don't care if you're a true blooded Republican or not. I used to be the treasurer for the Republican Central Committee in Southern California for the congressional 43rd and 44th districts down in Southern California.

Mary Bono was one of the people I worked with. I get it, but it's like, why are we being silent about this? And if you speak up, you know what? You're gonna be shouted down by Christians. But in the time that Hitler was coming and rising, it was obvious what he was going to do and what he was about.

And if you weren't sure,.

All you had to do was read his book.

Do you think that Hitler hid his agenda in Mein Kampf.

That he put it in code?

He spelled it out in exact language what he was going to do. And when he came to power, you know what he did? He did what he said he was going to do. And where was the church? There were few, and I mean this, few who were speaking out against him.