Sunday, June 8, 2024 Eschatology Workshop Session Q&A

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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We did ask for a submission for questions, along with the form that we sent out, but I want to work through those that have been sent in.

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Some of them are similar, so I've grouped those together. And after we finish with those submitted questions, then we'll have time for some additional ones.

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One of the first questions we're going to talk about is about the Rapture, which we kind of had a negative statement about in the teaching that Matthew 24 and Luke 17 weren't exactly talking about that.

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One question is this, I didn't grow up hearing much about the Rapture, so I'm curious about the subject in general.

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And somebody else asked, will there be an all -inclusive Rapture for Christians?

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So, in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, Paul is trying to help the

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Christians in Thessalonica, with whom he had a brief stay. He's writing from the church in Corinth, hearing what they're going through, wanting to encourage them, so he sends them these two letters, 1 and 2

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Thessalonians. One of the things that had disturbed them was some false teachings, some rumors, and so on, that the day of the

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Lord had already come. They missed it, or they misunderstood it, or whatever.

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Just like in Corinth, some of them had begun to believe that there would not be any resurrection from the dead.

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So, these things matter. If you haven't noticed or felt it, what you believe about last things, the end times, and so on, is not something for academic speculation.

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It really does have an impact on the way that you live your life. If you think that, basically, the story of history is one in which

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Christ loses, the church is ever being attacked and dwindled down, there's nothing left, and the

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Rapture is the last chopper out of Saigon, that's going to have an impact on the way that you live your life, your plans that you make, the expectations that you have.

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Likewise, if there's somebody who believes that there is never any end at all, it impacts them.

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But, it's helped me ever since I really stared at 1

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Corinthians 15, 20 -26, ever since I really stared at that passage and saw that Christ is going to reign, and so all of His enemies are made a footstool for His feet, and then

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He's going to come back. That's been so encouraging to me, and it's simple, I can remember it.

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I can know what's going on today when I wake up. Jesus Christ is King, and He is defeating

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His enemies, slowly but surely, throughout history, and we win. What a great hope to have.

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It does matter what we believe, so pan -millennialism is still a hopeful kind of thing, it all pans out in the end.

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There's still a hope that things are going to turn out correctly. So, about the rapture, in 1

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Thessalonians 4, Paul is trying to encourage the people there against false teaching that would disturb them, unsettle them, discourage them, and in verse 13 of chapter 4, he says,

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I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep.

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Again, favorite biblical metaphor for death, of dying in Christ.

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We have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. Sorrow, yes, death is still an enemy, it is a separation.

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Mourning and sorrow are part of that, but there's mourning, and then there's mourning without hope. We should always mourn and sorrow with hope, and Paul wants them to have hope.

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Verse 14, for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and I hope we do, even so,

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God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus. Remember, Paul's hope to be absent from the body is to be present with the

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Lord, so we're not cut off from our Lord and Savior, our Good Shepherd, we're always with Him. Verse 15, for this we say to you by the word of the

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Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep, for the

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Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

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So he's talking about two different groups of people here, and it's not the dead in Christ and the dead without Christ, it's the dead in Christ and those who are still living when

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Christ returns. There's two groups, and they're both in Christ. But the concern was, what happens if you die, fall asleep in Christ, and then you don't get to experience and have a part in the blessings of seeing

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Christ return bodily from heaven? I mean, are you going to miss out? No, you're not going to miss out, because the dead in Christ rise first, and then we all are together with the

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Lord. So no one is going to miss out on the victory parade. We all get to be a part of the victory parade.

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Verse 17, then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them, meaning those who are dead in Christ rise first, and we're caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the

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Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord, therefore comfort one another with these words.

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Okay, so this being caught up together with them in the clouds, this being caught up is where we end up deriving through languages the word rapture.

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It's the only place in the Bible that we really have a clear explanation of this.

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Now, what goes on here? So Paul's mainly trying to comfort them about those who have fallen asleep, those who have died.

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Hey, they're going to be raised from the dead before we're caught up together with the

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Lord, so we're all going to be up together with the Lord at the same time. Be comforted in this. Do not be discouraged.

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In Thessalonica, Thessalonica was called an imperial city, an imperial city. Why was it an imperial city?

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Because the emperor had visited. The emperor didn't just go around and, you know, it wasn't like a president on a stump speech going to all these towns.

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The emperor did not make it to every place. In order for an emperor to come to your city, it had to be planned well in advance.

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You had to redo all your roads. You had to get ready. Everybody knew when he was coming, just around about, but there would be watchers and people waiting and seeing.

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And when the emperor's royal entourage came down that newly corrected road and everything had been prepared in the city, these loyal citizens, right, the loyal citizens of the city, he wanted to show that they really approve of this emperor, would rush out of the city and join with all of those who came with him, and then they'd have a royal parade into the city.

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That happened at Thessalonica. It happened recently in the memory of the Thessalonicans, and Paul is using that metaphor to explain the return of Christ and how we are all victorious together in him, right?

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So that's why he's using that metaphor. This kind of royal picture was something that wasn't unique to Rome.

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It was just how royalty was welcomed. Do you remember Palm Sunday? How'd that go? People came with Jesus from Galilee, and they were approaching

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Jerusalem, and those who were excited to welcome Jesus— wasn't everybody, by the way. Everybody wanted him there.

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The ones who loved Jesus came out of Jerusalem and joined with him, and then they paraded their whole way into the city.

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Now, given this, what is the rapture? The rapture is our victorious parade together with Christ on that last day of victory, when all of his enemies have been made a footstool for his feet, and we're all caught up together in his victory and in his joy.

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What a comfort! Oh, man, that's really comforting. And we have from Matthew 25 and John 5 and many other examples,

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Jesus clearly states that when he comes and raises the dead, he's raising everybody at the same time.

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The wicked and the righteous, the lost and the saved, the goats and the sheep.

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Everybody gets raised at the same time. Everybody gets dealt with at the same time. Certain passages in the

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Scripture will deal with how Christ deals with the lost. Certain passages will deal with how

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Christ deals with the saved at that time. But those passages are focusing in on Christ's right to judge and reward the lost or the saved.

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But those aren't meant to be exclusive and say there's two different judgment seats. That's often been taught.

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But Jesus says most plainly in many, many places, not just here, but many places, everybody gets raised at the same time.

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Now, 1 Corinthians chapter 15 would focus in on how

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Jesus deals with the saved. Revelation 20 puts most of the focus on how

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Christ judges those who are lost and wicked. But that's not a statement or a passage that is, therefore, saying something opposite.

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It has no statement in there. It's like at this time the lost are not raised. It doesn't say in the passage at this time the saved aren't raised.

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That's inserted by systems of theology. The Scriptures themselves don't have that split. So the rapture is all -inclusive in the sense that all of the

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Christians, all of the saints are brought up together with Christ in the clouds. The idea of the whole metaphor of the rapture is he's coming, we're coming out, loyal citizens rejoicing with him, and he keeps on coming to the place where he's going to arrive, reign, and have a big judgment day.

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So the second question is Matthew 24 in Revelation, the connection. Where does

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Matthew in Revelation speak of 8070? Where does it speak of the last day? And how do we distinguish between those two?

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One of the concerns is called hyper -preterism or full -preterism.

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That's where people believe that there's no promise at all in the Bible anywhere that's left to be fulfilled.

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There's no sense in which Jesus is coming back bodily. There's not going to be resurrection of the dead. That is outside the bounds of orthodoxy.

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That's heresy, just straight up, cardinal heresy. We've already looked at various passages that show there's going to be a last day, the resurrection of the dead, and the differences you see from Matthew 24 in Revelation.

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In Matthew, there are many passages that talk about the kingdom of heaven. Now the kingdom of heaven is like.

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What is Jesus doing? So there's going to be a destruction of Jerusalem. The Old Covenant is going to pass away.

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Now what? If we're not going to be doing dietary laws and religious calendars, then what's the point?

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Imagine trying to be a Jew and like, well, what am I supposed to do? Forty years of being a

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Jew, and now what am I going to do? The kingdom of heaven is like. All of those parables describe what it's like to live in Christ's kingdom, how to serve him, how to love him, how to see things.

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And often, like in Matthew 13, at the very end, there's a sorting. The chaff is taken away and burned first, and the wheat are brought into the barn, or the bad fish are sorted out first, then the good fish are sorted out, and there's a sifting at the end of the age of the kingdom of heaven.

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That's the resurrection. That's the day of judgment, the very, very last day. So there's lots of things in the

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Bible that talk about that last day, the very end, usually having to do with the great sorting of everybody into two groups, sheep and goats, and the resurrection of the dead, which is attendant to that.

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And in Revelation, well, where in Revelation is it talking about something future that hasn't been fulfilled yet?

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Well, there's a variety of places, but we have the idea that everything in Revelation is future.

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For some people, just kind of that's how we were taught. Revelation is everything about what's in the future.

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Well, when God describes the judgments that he brings, the seals and the bowls and the trumpets, he very clearly identifies covenant breakers as the targets of the judgment.

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Well, who were the covenant breakers? That was the Jews, it was the old covenant. And the things that he pours out on them are the things from Deuteronomy 28.

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So there's a pretty specific audience in that regard. What good is it to us?

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What good is Revelation to us if it's been fulfilled? Well, what good is 1 Corinthians to us? We're not 1

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Corinthians, we're not Corinth. Well, it's the word of God, it's God -breathed. It's profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction, and righteousness.

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The man of God would be adequately equipped for every good work. So, yeah, it's the word of God, so it's great.

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We have a couple of questions very particularly about Revelation. One of those,

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I want to connect to a later question. One is, in Revelation 13, the second beast gives breath to the image, and what does that mean?

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So, well, that's like three cans of worms all mixed together, but we'll do our best.

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I think it took me four years to teach the Revelation, so there's a lot of context to this.

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But in Revelation 13, we're in a series of interludes.

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And the one before that, chapter 12, Revelation 12, is a mural, is a mosaic of all of history.

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And in chapter 13, we get more specific. Then I stood on the sand of the sea, and I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns.

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So, first of all, beast. When you read in Daniel, the empires of man are often called beasts.

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The seven heads is a quip about Rome, having seven hills, seven heads, seven different ruling districts in Rome.

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Everybody knew Rome was a seven -hilled city. We call Chicago the Windy City. It's just the nickname everybody knew.

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And ten horns. Why the ten horns? Well, again, the fourth empire of Rome had the ten toes.

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It was the ten emperors, the ten emperors that matter. So, Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian.

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Why these ten? Well, Julius Caesar was seen as the first emperor by all of the ancient historians.

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Modern historians say, well, but we don't care about them because back in this time period, they saw

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Julius Caesar as the first emperor. Why do they matter? Because this is during the imperial time of Rome, the very place where the kingdom that God of Heaven set up, smashed into the days of these kings,

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Daniel 2 .44. And Luke makes a very specific point of saying it was during the reign of Tiberius that Jesus began his ministry,

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Luke chapter 3. And you count down the 483 years of Daniel chapter 9 between the edict of Artaxerxes to rebuild the temple, 483 years on the dot, to the day

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Jesus started his ministry. So, those 77s, there's 69, and then the week of Messiah.

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So, this has been used many times to evangelize Jews. So, hey, look, let's look in Daniel. You like Daniel, don't you?

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This is what Daniel said would happen. Look, it happened. Jesus is your Messiah. Won't you believe? Many Jews have come to faith in Jesus Christ by that testimony from that prophetic passage in Daniel.

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So, there's a focus on the ten emperors of Rome because this is the time that the kingdom of Heaven shows up. So, ten horns.

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And on his horns, ten crowns. On his head, a blasphemous name. Now, the beast, blasphemous name, of course, emperor worship came early, claiming to be

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God, demanding worship. Now, the beast, which I saw, was like a leopard. His feet were like the feet of a bear, his mouth like the mouth of a lion.

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And so, there's this amalgamation. Rome was an amalgamation of former empires. Okay, so they had the glories of Babylon and Persia and Greece all kind of mixed in together.

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They were an amalgamator. And so, this chimera or dragon, the dragon, the dragon gave him his power, his throne, and his great authority.

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So, why was this empire in place? Because of the devil,

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Satan. Satan, who has the power to deceive the nations. Satan, who is controlling the nations.

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Satan, who fills all the rulers with his demons. Remember, Paul says, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, rulers of the forces of the dark age.

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Remember that the binding of Satan was specifically for this one particular purpose, that he was no longer able to, what?

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Deceive the nations. Not that he can prowl around like a lion, seeking whom he may devour, that's still the case.

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The point is, he can't deceive the nations anymore. That's how he was bound. He's in control of these great empires here.

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I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed.

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When Julius Caesar was assassinated, all the historians said, that's it, that's over, no more imperial experiments in Rome.

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We're going to stick with the republic thing. They thought that the imperial time of Rome was not going to work after Julius got assassinated.

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But Augustus, the next Octavian, whose name was changed later on, became emperor, and he brought it all back.

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Augustus. And all the world marveled and followed the beast. Now, look at this amazing empire.

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Everybody's after this. So they worshipped the dragon, who gave authority to the beast. Caesar is lord. And they worshipped the beast, saying, who is like the beast?

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And who is able to make war with him? Nobody wanted to cross Rome. The peace of Rome was not brought about by winning hearts and minds.

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It was, we have a big army, and we're going to crush you if you ever cross us. And so nobody wanted to fight the beast.

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Why is he the sea beast? In the Old Testament, it's well established that the sea was a metaphor for the nations.

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The nations were loud and far away like the sea. And so more than one place in the Old Testament, the nations are referred to as the sea, which is why in the

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New Covenant, the new heavens and the earth, there is no more sea. Ephesians 2 says there's no more split with the Gentiles.

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There's more to it than that, but moving on. Verse 5. He was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies.

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He was given authority to continue for 42 months. Why these 42 months?

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Well, it's because, we'll see later, he made war against the saints for that time. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God to blaspheme his name, his tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven.

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It was granted to him to make war with the saints and overcome them, and authority was given to him over every tribe, tongue, and nation.

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I thought that was Jesus' role. Well, yeah, his kingdom is established that way. But what we have here is a beast for 42 months, three and a half years,

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Nero waged war on the saints and won. Christians getting killed all over the place.

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It was a bloodbath. Verse 8. All who dwell on the earth will worship him whose names have not been written in the book of life of the

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Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If anyone has an ear, let him hear. He who leads into captivity shall go into captivity.

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He who kills with a sword must be killed with a sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

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So the saints need to know those who are killing and enslaving, they will be killed, they will be enslaved.

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So just hang on. God's wrath, God's justice is coming. You can hang on. Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, or in other words, land, as often the word is used out of the way.

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So there's the beast of the sea, that's the nations. And what about the beast of the land, the land?

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Well, he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. So he had the features of a sacrificial animal, but he had the voice of the devil, a serpent, so he was deceptive.

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So he was deceiving even while he had the features of a sacrificial animal.

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And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed.

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So the proposal here is that this land beast, the beast of the land, is the people of the land, is the

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Templeite Jews, who have the shape of the sacrificial system, but they speak deceptively, whose father is

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Satan. And they're just a front man, just a front man for Rome. The garments of the vestments of the high priest were under lock and key by the

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Roman proconsul in Jerusalem, did not allow the high priest to have them except on certain days.

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They also selected which high priest could serve. Rome was a financier of the temple, and the

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Sadducees liked it that way. When it came time for them to do anything, they always got the

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Romans to help them do their dirty work. How did they kill Jesus? By using the swords of Rome. What did the

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Jews say in their opportunity to receive Messiah as their own? They said, we have no king but Caesar, a front man.

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The land beast is the front man for the sea beast. He performs great signs, so even he makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men.

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This diabolical sign that they keep on, where did the fire come down on the altar from in Exodus when they just started up the temple, the tabernacle?

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It came down from heaven. The claim in Jerusalem is that they're still offering up sacrifices in the same way that they always have.

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This is where the light of God is, this is the truth. And the idea is, oh, he performed great signs, even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men.

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And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who is wounded by the sword and lived.

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The temple was called an image made by human hands, the word very provocatively used of an idol.

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Stephen preached that in Acts chapter 6 and 7. He said this is an image made by human hands.

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He called the temple an idol, an idol. It was covered over in the gold and silver of the

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Roman economy. Jerusalem was a great trade city, had very, very special trade agreements with the

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Roman Empire. No Jew had to offer the pinch of incense to their emperor and say

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Caesar is Lord, they were exempt from that. But what they were required to do was offer up a sacrifice for the emperor in the temple on a regular basis to show their loyalty to Rome.

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And Rome gave a lot of money to Jerusalem and they beautified the temple because it was a claim of privilege.

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And Jerusalem, the leaders in Jerusalem reciprocated. And the relationship was great for a long time until it went really bad really fast.

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So he was telling everyone to worship the image. Look at the image, look at the temple. And cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed.

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Now what happened to the Christians who spoke out against the temple? They got killed.

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He causes all both small and great, rich and poor, and free and slave to receive a mark on their right hand or their foreheads and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name.

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So basically, this is coming from Deuteronomy 6. Remember the Shema, Hero Israel, Lord your

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God, the Lord him only shall you serve. The Lord is one. And the instructions was to put the word of God on the hand and on the head.

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Write the word of God upon your hand and upon your head so that no matter what you do, you do all in the name of the

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Lord no matter where you look or whatever you think, it's always in the context of the word of God. And the

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Pharisees took that literally and bound little boxes called phylacteries upon their hands and their heads showing their loyalty.

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They were well approved. But if you were not of the system, then you could not participate.

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I know this is hard to believe, but there's such a thing called cancel culture. I know it's hard to believe.

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But you were not allowed to partake in so much of the life there in Jerusalem if you weren't going to play along.

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Even James, the brother of Jesus, found this out. I think it was AD 65, 66, right before the siege of Cestius that James, brother of Jesus, who wrote the book of James, was killed for his faith because they just kept on hunting down all the

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Christians and killing them and trying to get rid of them out of the city. Now, remember that the

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Jews were doing this in the name of Rome, right? The Sanhedrin was authorized by Rome to have ruling authority over all of Judaism wherever it was.

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And since the followers of the way, Christians, were seen as an immoral cult sect of Judaism, then the

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Sanhedrin said, we have the right to exterminate them. We have the right to take them out. Rome has given us this authority, right?

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And Rome had ever since Pompeii. All right. The Sanhedrin had the right to rule over all

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Jews. Verse 18. Here is wisdom. Here is wisdom.

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Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast. For it is the number of a man.

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His number is 666. Which beast? Remember, the land beast is the front man for the sea beast.

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Okay? So it's the mark of the sea beast that they're looking for on the head of everybody. So let him who understands calculate the number of the beast.

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For it's the number of a man. His number is 666. Total value. We don't understand this because we use the

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Arabic numbering system. But you've seen Roman numerals, right?

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On clocks, outlines, III, III, IV, so on.

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The numbering system for most cultures for a long time were just letters.

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Same thing happens in Hebrew. So the numbers are just letters put into a particular context.

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And so there was a custom of having fun riddles. Very well known.

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Fun riddles combined with numbers. Letters as numbers and numbers as letters. And they put riddles everywhere.

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So there's graffiti still in Rome to this day where some young man says, the number of he who loves so and so is, and he's got a number up there.

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So hopefully she sees that and then she's thinking, okay, who are the boys that I know and what's the value of all their letters summed up?

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They had a meme running around Rome. This is the number of the one who murdered his mother.

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It was about Nero. Because Nero had murdered his mother, Agrippina.

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And so it was just a political meme running around. It's graffiti in Rome. It's very common that they had this.

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So this is not out of ordinary. It's not some sort of secret society code or something like that. John writes the entirety of Revelation as if he's an

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Old Testament prophet. He writes the Greek as if it's taken out of old style

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Hebrew. It's kind of like somebody who wanted to pretend to be Elijah so they speak in very old fashioned language.

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Or they speak in the King James because they feel it makes them more of a prophet. So he's doing that because as I said before, 404 verses and 700 something allusions to the

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Old Testament. So he's doing that on purpose to showcase the Old Testament better. The number 666 is, if you take the

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Hebrew spelling for Nero, Caesar, and write it out, and again,

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Hebrew didn't have vowels back then. It was just consonants. And you write out the spelling for Nero, Caesar in the

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Hebrew and total it up at 666. If you find a variant of this same verse in a different manuscript being translated into Latin, they say that his number is 616.

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The number of the beast is 616. Why? Because the same rendering in the Latin, that numerical value is 616.

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Nero, Caesar. So this has been pretty well known throughout church history that the number of the beast, the one who was persecuting the saints for three and a half years, was

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Nero. Putting it all in order, why was the one beast, the second beast giving breath to the image?

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Remember that idols, they don't talk, they have mouths that don't talk, they have eyes that they can't see, ears they can't hear, they're just dead.

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So how did the ancient idolaters make their idols really special?

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They found this one time, a Roman Catholic idol, Mary, was crying. They later found the plumbing that made it work.

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They would give breath to their idols. In fact, they had special ceremonies idolaters had where they would give life to their idols through special ceremonies.

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John's saying the land beast, these temple zealots, are giving life to their idol.

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They're making it work. They're making it alive and saying, hey, everybody be impressed by this temple, by this golden idol.

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So that's basically the background of that. And we've got to talk about the beasts. So, question about Revelation 20.

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Someone writes, in the Pentecostal tradition I was raised in, hell and the lake of fire are the same, but in this verse, one is cast into the other.

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What are the differences in the place of the dead? Abraham's bosom, heaven, paradise, hell, lake of fire.

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How many instances in the Bible that hell is mentioned means a place of the dead rather than a place of eternal conscious torment full of fire and brimstone.

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A follow -up question on that is, if hell or lake of fire was created for Satan and the fallen angels, why are they allowed to continue on?

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Why not just take care of them right away? All right, so first of all, the second question is a classic question called a theodicy or the justification of God, the problem of evil.

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If God is God and he is good and he is powerful, why is there problems and evil? Jesus told a story.

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Jesus told a story in which he said, once upon a time there was a field. There was a farmer and there was a field.

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And the farmer went out and he sowed good seed. And an enemy came along and sowed bad seed.

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And think about these seeds where they looked the same when they were coming up in the ground, but when they got bigger, you could see that some were wheat and some were tares.

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Servants come to him and say, an enemy has done this, let's go rip out the tares immediately, get rid of these things.

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Jesus says, oh no. The farmer says, oh no, if you do that, then you'll tear up some of the wheat along with them.

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So we're gonna let them grow up all the way together till harvest time. And then we're gonna harvest them all at the same time.

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And what we're gonna do is we're gonna take all those tares and we're gonna take them away and burn them like the chaff that they are.

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And then we're gonna take all that wheat and bring them into the barn. And then Jesus explained it and said, the field is the world.

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The field is the world. The enemy is Satan. My father has his people. There are the people who are of the seed of the woman, right,

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Genesis 3 .15. And there are those who are the seed of the serpent. And why not just take the tares away?

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Why not just finish it? Because if you do that, you're going to lessen the harvest.

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You hear what he said? You're gonna damage the wheat. Meaning the farmer says, you're going to lessen the harvest if you try to end all the problems early.

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So what is God up to? God is up to maximizing his glory, his grace, and the good.

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We don't know. I mean, we're like the servants. Come on, let's get this fixed. But God has more wisdom than we do.

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So Jesus' answer to the problem of evil, trust God. He's gonna bring about the best of all of this.

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Just trust him. Wait until the proper time. So that's the answer to the problem of evil. Why is evil allowed to continue on?

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But about the terms, depending on your translation, you're gonna read in some places in the

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Old Testament, Sheol, or the place of the dead, or the grave. And then sometimes translations can call it hell.

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Very unfortunate choice with the King James translators to make the place of the dead or Sheol just straight up hell.

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Sometimes when you read about Sheol or the place of the dead or the grave, depending on your translation, you will find it as a judgment against evildoers.

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Well, death is a judgment against evildoers. You'll also find it as an enemy of the righteous.

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Well, it is an enemy of the righteous, but we have one who has conquered death in the grave. And you're gonna find that throughout the

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Old Testament. You're also gonna find punishment of the wicked even after death in descriptions that end up being used as hell.

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Got a six series blog on our church website on the doctrine of hell. You can go look it up.

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Lots of information there. But when you come to Revelation 20, when it says that hell is thrown into the lake of fire, that is actually

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Hades or Sheol, the grave, the place of the dead. Remember what enemy does Jesus defeat last?

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Death. Okay, there you go. No more death. There goes away death. So it's not about hell getting put into the lake of fire.

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When we read through scriptures, we have two last things. There's something called

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Abraham's bosom and paradise. When Jesus tells the story about the leper who was begging at Lazarus's door, and when he died, he ended up at a feast sitting somewhere, laying somewhere, and his head was in Abraham's bosom.

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That is not a special celestial category. John had the place of honor at the

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Last Supper, didn't he? His head was in Christ's bosom, place of honor. Jesus' whole point was that the lowliest ends up in the best.

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The last shall be first. That's the point of the story. It's not some special place.

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When Jesus promises the thief, today you'll be with me in paradise, he wasn't saying there's something other than heaven called paradise.

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We're taking synonyms and we're creating entirely new categories, but there's no need to problematize or complicate the

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Bible like that. We have assurances in the Old Testament that those who die in faith are going to be with God.

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Those who die in rebellion end up in judgment. The Old Testament is not as clear as the

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New Testament about that, but those categories are still there. No reason to add a bunch of new categories simply because God is a creative writer and uses synonyms.

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This is not a systematic theology textbook. I hope that helps.

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Question, how do we understand the new heavens and the new earth? How does Christ restore all things to himself upon his return?

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Gradually or a dramatic and sudden restoration at his return? Along with this,

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Revelation 3 .12, Jesus promised to build into his temple the conquering believer and into the

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New Jerusalem. Given that, when should we see the events of Revelation as still being future rather than yet fulfilled?

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Has the New Jerusalem come down in the church? When we're asking about what is the timing of the new heavens and the new earth, what is the timing of the

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New Jerusalem? Obviously, everybody wants to let the Bible be their guide.

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For that, we're going to do two things.

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Let's start with Acts 2 and then we'll go over to Hebrews 12. The New Jerusalem in Revelation 21,

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John says, an angel took me up into a high mountain and said, Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the

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Lamb. He showed me a city. The bride is the city.

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He says, I will show you the bride. Take a look over here. Hey, there's a city. Then the city is described in all of her splendor and all of her beauty and a lot of amazing things about it.

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The whole point is this. The New Jerusalem is not where we're going to live.

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It's who we are. Are you part of the bride? Are you part of the church?

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Are you the bride of Christ? John specifically says, the angel says,

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Come, and I'm going to show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb, and he shows me a city. He shows me a city and a beautiful, beautiful city.

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And there's a lot of riches there, but the idea is, and it says that the

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New Jerusalem is descending out of heaven. It's in the process of descending. We never see it touched down.

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It's just in the process of descending, kind of like the kingdom is always advancing. The kingdom is ever advancing.

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We've got missionaries going from Venezuela to North Africa.

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We've got missionaries going from South Korea to New York. The kingdom is always advancing.

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The New Jerusalem, she's just always descending. She's in this perpetual descent until Jesus comes back.

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There's a growth of the kingdom. He's ruling and reigning until all of his enemies are placed as a footstool for his feet, and then the end comes.

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There's not a sense, and we don't see her touch down, but she's still a present reality. In Galatians 4,

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Paul says, The Jerusalem above is our mother. In Galatians 4, he says, I don't go back to the

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Jerusalem on earth, the Jerusalem which now is, he says in Galatians 4, he said, that's like going back to Ishmael.

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By the way, if you go to Old Covenant Jerusalem today, you can still see the wailing wall, and you can still see the limestone.

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You can still see the shape of Mount Zion from Mount Olives, beautiful picture. But if you go back to Old Covenant Jerusalem today, who are you going to find there?

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Ishmael, right? You're going to find

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Islam at Old Covenant Jerusalem location today. That's what Paul said in Galatians 4.

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But he said, don't go back there. Don't think about that. Think about the New Jerusalem. Think about the Jerusalem above, who is the mother of us all, right?

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We're all citizens of the New Jerusalem, so she's our mother. And this is some points that are going to be made here.

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So on Pentecost, Peter is with the apostles. The Holy Spirit comes down.

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Sound of rushing wind, tongues of fire over each one of them. They begin to preach the gospel in languages they had never learned, though Jews from all over the

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Roman Empire, from these other places, began to hear the gospel being preached to them in their heart languages, the ones that they knew best, though with Galilean accents, which was really weird.

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And so the critics were like, yeah, I think they're drunk. I'm pretty sure they're drunk. That's the best explanation here.

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And Peter says, no, not with those spirits, but with the spirit. And he begins to preach to them and say, hey, this is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

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So in chapter 2 of Acts, in verse 15, he says,

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For these are not drunk as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken by the prophet

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Joel. All right, so Joel is getting fulfilled here right now. And it shall come to pass in the last days, says

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God. Oh, there you go. Last days. There we go.

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Spirit comes down. Gospel is being preached. And Peter says, welcome to the last days.

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Last days of what? The arrival of the new covenant signals the last days of the old.

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Do you remember King David and King Saul? How can you have two anointed at the same time?

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They did. Right? The kingdom will be torn away from you, King Saul. I'm going to give it to a man after my own heart who does what

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I call him to do. And you have anointed King David and anointed King Saul all at the same time.

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And boy, there was jealous fighting. Same thing happens here. It's a pattern. We have the old covenant.

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The kingdom is being taken away from them and being given away to those who will do the work of it, who have the heart for God.

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So King David comes along. King Saul is jealous of King David. They're both anointed at the same time. And there's a big ruckus and a big fight and a lot of chaos.

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But in the end, King Saul is gone and King David is the only one left. This is the New Testament period where you have the old covenant.

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When David got anointed by Samuel, it was a signal that Saul's days were numbered. And he knew it.

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So when the new covenant comes, the old covenant days are numbered. And they knew it.

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So this is the prophecy. Verse 17. As you come to pass in the last day, says God, that I will pour out of my spirit on all flesh.

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Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions. Your old men shall dream dreams. And all my men servants and maid servants,

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I will pour out my spirit on those days, and they shall prophesy. Not just the spirit of God in the tabernacle, not just the spirit of God upon a judge here or a prophet there or a king there, but upon all who are in this new covenant.

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I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapors of smoke.

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The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the

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Lord. Well, what's he talking about? These are the last days of what? The old covenant. What's the sun, moon, and stars showing up here again?

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Same thing Jesus said in Matthew 24. Last days of the old covenant means last days of Jerusalem.

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And it shall come to pass that whoever calls in the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now, if you go read Joel's context, he goes on to say that if you call upon the name of the

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Lord and you flee to Jerusalem, you'll be safe. Now, what do we know from Jesus' statement to Peter and the disciples?

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Don't go to Jerusalem. Flee Judea, go to the mountains. And Peter is preaching to people in Jerusalem at that moment in time.

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And he's saying from this passage in Joel, he's not taking it out of context.

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He's saying this is fulfilling Joel's prophecy. So flee to Jerusalem and you'll be safe.

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Peter, we're in Jerusalem. What are you talking about? Not that Jerusalem, not the old covenant

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Jerusalem. New covenant Jerusalem. As he preaches through, he quotes from the

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Psalms and David about the promise that the son of David is going to reign from Jerusalem on a throne.

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And then Peter says, this is fulfilled in your hearing because Jesus Christ is at the right hand of the

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Father. So anybody waiting around for Jesus to rule from a throne from his father's

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David, Peter says in chapter two of Acts, done been fulfilled. David's still in the grave.

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Jesus is the right hand of the Father. And notice what he says in verse 40.

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And with many other words, he testified and exhorted them, saying, be safe from this perverse generation.

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Just like Jesus said, right? This perverse generation is under the judgment of God. You need to be saved from the wrath is about to come down on this place in this generation.

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So he's saying the very same thing. I'm not saying that our generation ain't wicked. I'm not saying that.

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I'm saying Peter was preaching to the people in front of him, saying, you need to be saved from this generation. So keeping that in mind, there was there's an awareness.

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There's an awareness amongst the apostles of the coming to a close of the old covenant.

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Hebrews 8, 13, that which is the old covenant is obsolete, ready to pass away. The new has come.

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So now turning over to Hebrews 12, I think, is a. Are we to think of the new heavens, the new earth, the new

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Jerusalem, new creation as something that is present? In Hebrews 12, in verse 18, after exhorting the

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Christian, the Jewish Christians to not go back to the shadows, the sacrifices, the rituals and so on.

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We read verse 18, for you have not come to the mountain that may be touched. And that burn with fire and the blackness and darkness and tempest into the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged at the words should not be spoken to them anymore, for they could not endure what was commanded.

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And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said,

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I'm exceedingly afraid and trembling. So I think this is Paul preaching and Luke writing, but he's basically saying this.

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You have not come to the mountain of the old covenant. That's Sinai, that's straight out of Exodus 19.

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Read it for yourself. This is Exodus 19 in a nutshell. This is the old covenant. He's saying you have not come to the old covenant.

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He says you have not come to a mountain that can be touched. You have not come to a mountain that can be shaken to pieces.

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So if we've not come to a mountain that can be touched, what kind of a mountain have we come to? One that cannot be touched.

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One that cannot be shaken. Verse 22, but you have come to Mount Zion, contrasted to Mount Sinai.

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You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. Okay, that's clarifying.

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What's the city of God? Is it old covenant Jerusalem or new covenant Jerusalem? Is it the mountain you can touch or the mountain you can't touch?

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You have come, past tense. Welcome, believer. Welcome, Christian. You have come to Mount Zion. We're here.

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Welcome. And to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. To an innumerable company of angels.

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To the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven. To God, the judge of all.

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To the spirits of just men made perfect. If you come to Mount Zion, you come to Jerusalem, who else have you come to?

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You have come to Jesus. Verse 24, the mediator of the new covenant. See? To the blood of the sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

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Abel's blood cried out from the ground for justice. For satisfaction.

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Jesus' blood cries out, it is finished. It is satisfied. Okay? So, welcome.

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Now, those are the contrasting pictures, right? So, there's Mount Zion. It can be touched.

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It's getting all shooken up. And here is Mount Zion. It can't be touched. You come to Jesus. It's everlasting.

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It's way better. Verse 25, see that you do not refuse him who speaks. For if they,

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Old Covenant, did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven.

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So, talking to the Jews, the Hebrews. Make up your mind.

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How long will you deviate between two? Are you going to be for the Old Covenant or the New? Verse 26, whose voice then shook the earth.

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Remember his voice shook Mount Sinai? I just said that a little bit earlier. But now he is promising, yet once more

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I shake not only the earth but also heaven. Straight out of Haggai. Haggai's description of the building of the New Temple, which will bless all the nations of the earth.

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Yet once more I shake not only the earth but also heaven. Now, so, heaven and earth are going to be shaken and they're going to pass away.

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Just like Isaiah said. Just like Jesus said. What heaven and earth? Not the stars. Not the throne room of God.

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Not the dirt that we walk around on. Not that. The old system.

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The old structure. All of that's going to be shaken. Verse 27, now this yet once more indicates the removal of those things which are being shaken as of things that are made.

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The things which cannot be shaken may remain. So, our faith in Jesus Christ, there in the first century in AD 70, in the last days of the

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Old Covenant, all of that was shaken off. We do not offer blood sacrifices, do we?

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Right? We do not go through rituals. We don't have ritual hand -washing when we walk in, do we?

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We don't have any of those trappings of the Old Covenant anymore. Those are all shadows.

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Christ is the substance. All that was shaken and has passed away. You know how many people would be confused and distraught today if the

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Temple of Judaism was still standing in Jerusalem? What did

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Jesus say to his disciples about prayer of faith? If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you may say to this mountain, be lifted up and cast into the sea.

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What mountain? They're on the Temple Mount. He just cleansed the temple, by the way. He just judged the temple, by the way.

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He just condemned the temple just a few sentences prior, and now he's saying to them, you have a test of faith coming up, but if you believe, he will take up this mountain and cast it into the sea.

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And who overwhelmed the Temple Mount and took the Mount was the Gentiles, the age of the Gentiles. So this was shaken up, taken away.

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Verse 28, therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, our mountain can't be touched, our kingdom cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve

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God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire. So, obviously, not every eye is dry yet.

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Not every sorrow is alleviated yet. Not all sickness is gone. Death is still an enemy.

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So, well, you know, if we're looking for the new Jerusalem, we're looking for the new creation, then all these things have to be gone.

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Actually, no. When we think about Jesus Christ, he's king of kings, he's lord of lords, he is the name which is above every name, he has all authority in heaven and on earth.

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Simply because there are folks who remain who don't submit to him doesn't mean he's not king. He's still king.

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Hebrews talks about that in Hebrews 2. We don't yet see everybody subjected to him, but he's still king.

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He's still worthy. And the same is true about the new Jerusalem, the new creation, and so on.

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New Jerusalem is descending. It is in motion. It is in progress. The kingdom is advancing.

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It is expanding. It is in motion. And it is a momentum that began with Jesus Christ's death upon the cross, his resurrection from the dead, his ascension to the right hand of the

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Father, and ain't nothing going to stop it until he comes back again. And that is why, over the centuries and over the millennia,

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Christians have been a people of hope and forward progress. Christians were the ones who explored the world.

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Christians were the ones who translated the languages. Christians were the ones who educated the natives so that they could read the Bible for themselves.

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Christians were the ones who built hospitals. Christians were the ones who built orphanages. Christians were the ones who advanced and advanced and advanced and advanced.

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We didn't make up that. That is the hope that we have. And is the world a terrible, evil, wicked, difficult place?

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but we know what's going to happen, right? Christ is going to win, all of that's going to be placed as a footstool for his feet.

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What's the timeline? I don't know, but after I wake up, Christ is King, right?

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Okay, we have two minutes, well maybe not two minutes, but anyway, questions or anybody want to ask questions?

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I did not get to. There's plenty to talk about, there's no way we could cover everything in this, these four sessions.

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Yes? Yes. That was

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Hal Lindsay's position, and I understand why he came at it that way. Now, we have to wonder, who is

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Jesus talking to? He's talking to his disciples, and he was saying to them over and over again that they, like Peter and John and James, that they were going to see some things, okay?

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So he's telling them to watch, and they were going to see what?

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They were going to see, like a fig tree putting out its tender branch and leaves, so that they know what summer would near, that they would see these things, right?

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So Jesus was telling his disciples that they were going to see that, and given what he had just described, he had just described the tribulation, the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, which

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Luke describes as armies surrounding Jerusalem. So Jesus says, now you watch,

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Peter, you watch Bartholomew, you, James the Less, you, keep an eye out, weather eye on the horizon, you watch this, and when you see these things happen, you'll know that it's ripe and the time's about here.

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So he was telling his disciples to pay attention, because he's talking to them. So we have,

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I think, a good instinct as Christians, when we read the Bible, to say this matters to me, and that is the right and proper instinct to have when we read the

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Bible. But in order for it to matter to us accurately, we have to remember who was talking to who in the first place.

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It's kind of like finding a letter without a heading, and without a closing, and you think it's to you, and you might come up with all manner of, well, conclusions about your relationship, until you find out who it is who wrote it, and who they wrote it to, and then it would be clarifying.

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See, Jesus is talking to his disciples about what they should pay attention to.

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Matthew records it, that all Christians can see how well

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Jesus shepherded his people, how accurate Jesus's prophecies are, and to see that when we live in troubled times, all we have to do is pay attention to our master, follow his instructions, and believe in his promises.

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Now, this isn't saying to us that Israel is a fig tree. I can understand why someone might think that, but this doesn't say

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Israel is a fig tree, and it doesn't say that we, in our generation, are the ones who are going to see it.

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It says that to the people right in front of Jesus. So that would be my response to that.

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We have two, there are, in the New Testament, the Christians are looking for Jesus's judgment coming that will bring vengeance upon their enemies and deliver them from their troubles, but they're also looking for the resurrection of the dead, and that's a comfort, too.

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We still have that ahead of us. We still have Jesus Christ coming back and raising the dead. That's still ahead of us, so.

01:00:11

Okay, so we've been handed a system, a system that has been so entrenched in our churches and our loved ones that we think that there are certain things which cannot be contested.

01:00:33

We have to discover where in the Bible does it say that there's going to be a tribulation that is going to be seven years long, and read it for ourselves.

01:00:43

And that's really my ultimate hope for us, is we would read it for ourselves, read the scriptures for ourselves, and see if that is indeed the case there.

01:00:51

Jesus says the tribulation, the great tribulation here that Revelation echoes and says much the same thing, he says if you want to escape the great tribulation to his disciples who are right in front of them, you should leave

01:01:04

Judea and go to the hills. We've been taught, and I'm saying church in general over the last hundred years or so, we've been taught the great tribulation is going to be all over the world and be all such cataclysmic chaos and terrible things, and so all these people are going to die, and tens of millions, hundreds of millions of Jews are going to die.

01:01:26

That's what we've been told. But we have to find out where that is in the scriptures, right?

01:01:33

So the great tribulation that we read about in Matthew 24, Jesus says is going to happen to that generation in which he was living, and his disciples would see it, and if they wanted to avoid it, go for the hills and leave

01:01:46

Judea. So, did it last seven years? No, it lasted three and a half.

01:01:52

Jesus' ministry lasted three and a half years, and the tribulation lasted three and a half years, and that was prophesied by Daniel in Daniel chapter 9, and you add three and a half plus three and a half, and there's the seven!

01:02:04

There's the seven, but what did Jesus say about it, right? Let me encourage you about this.

01:02:10

Someone actually said, how to share what Scripture says in Old and New Testaments to those who have never read through the

01:02:15

Bible. That's a big subject matter, isn't it? But Jesus Christ is the light of the world, and he's the light of the word.

01:02:23

I would say begin with Jesus and things that he says, concentrate there, and the more

01:02:28

Christ is exalted, the more clarity you're going to find everywhere else. So I think when

01:02:35

Jesus Christ is exalted as King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and we take his words first, what does he say first here, and then interpret everything else in light of what he says in the

01:02:44

Olivet Discourse, I think things get pretty clear, pretty simple, pretty fast. We don't have time to go through Daniel, or time to go through Revelation, and so on, or we'll go through Ezekiel, but I tell you what you can do,

01:03:02

I can tell you what you can do, read through Ezekiel 38 and 39, and then read through the book of Esther, see what you think, okay?

01:03:15

Read through Ezekiel 38 and 39, and then read through the book of Esther, see where Haman is mentioned in Ezekiel 38 and 39, and how all the armies are on horses with bows and arrows, and how the nations gather together against Israel, and then go read

01:03:31

Esther, see how it turns out. Sometimes people look, why is Esther in the book of the Bible? The book of the

01:03:37

Bible, God's not even mentioned in it. Well maybe Esther's in the Bible to show the fulfillment of Ezekiel 38 and 39, whose armies were on horseback with bows and arrows, and primitive weaponry.

01:03:53

No army that we're going to see anywhere in the near future, under any circumstances, is going to be riding on horses with bows and arrows, and axes, and wooden spears, riding over hundreds of miles of terrain to go attack the modern state of Israel.

01:04:16

Doesn't fit at all, but when you read Esther, Ezekiel 38 -39, it all fits rather nicely.

01:04:25

So I would say read it for yourself though. Any other questions? Well it's a metaphor about the commerce, yeah, it's a metaphor about the commerce.

01:05:28

So the image of the mark on the head and the mark on the hand comes from Deuteronomy chapter 6, talking about everything being done needs to be done in honor and light of God, who is the king of Israel.

01:05:44

They're not supposed to be like other nations that had their own kings, right? That was their sin, they want to be like the other nations and have their own king, but God was their king, and that's what the

01:05:54

Shema was all about. God is your king, serve him only. And so they were put to put his word on their head and their his word on their hands, no matter what they did, and all that they did in their life was farming, commerce, just the whole life.

01:06:09

So everything they did had to be done under the authority of God. When we come to this, he starts talking about the hand and the head, he's talking about those who have to say

01:06:21

Caesar is Lord or else you don't get to do business around the Roman Empire.

01:06:27

If you did not give the pinch of incense to the to the monthly pyre on the first day of the month, which is called the the day of the

01:06:35

Emperor, then you could not be credentialed to be a part of any of the guilds.

01:06:40

You could not do your masonry work, you could not do your fishing work, you could not do a whole lot of work because you were not up on your credentials of Caesar is

01:06:49

Lord. So there was a test that became very critical later on in the persecution of Christians that is well attested to, that if you did not worship the

01:07:01

Emperor, eventually instead of just not being able to do business or to have have a job in certain areas of the

01:07:09

Roman Empire, that you'd actually be killed because you would not worship the

01:07:14

Emperor. The Jews had an out, they had an exemption because they had this practice in Jerusalem at the temple where they would worship

01:07:22

God there but they would offer a sacrifice for the Emperor, so they had an exemption. But Christians were not

01:07:29

Jews and they would testify to that because they were preaching the gospel, they would not they were not ashamed to confess

01:07:36

Jesus Christ before men. They would not say Caesar is Lord, acts as testimony of that, they would only say

01:07:42

Jesus is Lord. They would offer pagan offerings and sacrifices and they would not, but many in the church who were not truly born again, persecution, the shallow seed on the shallow soil faded away in the persecution.

01:07:55

They went back to Judaism, it was easy, you got the exemption back. But if you didn't take the mark of the beast, if you weren't an

01:08:04

Emperor worshiper, you could not do business, you could not, you were not allowed, you had to have your credential.

01:08:11

So that was pretty well widespread, the arrogance of the

01:08:18

Roman Emperors just grew by leaps and bounds and there's insanity did as well, but they all spoke of themselves, especially

01:08:26

Tiberius and onward, spoke about themselves as being gods and demanding the worship of the people.

01:08:36

Yeah, it was on their money. Jews wouldn't use the Roman money because they saw it as idolatrous and so they would have money changers in the temple to exchange

01:08:44

Roman currency for Tyrian from Tyre currency. Of course they exchanged that at an awful rate because they were stealing from everybody and Jesus took care of those money changers.

01:08:56

But I would probably not like it at all and probably would try to avoid that, but the application of this passage

01:09:34

I think is important, okay. So the interpretation of the passage I would say is safely within what happened in the

01:09:40

Roman Empire at that time. I think application -wise, Christians should be against tyranny everywhere where it appears, okay.

01:09:49

And we already have a system in which we are required to use a certain type of currency and the currency is bound to the state, which is unnatural.

01:10:08

Education is bound to the state, that's unnatural. Health care is being bound to the state, that's unnatural.

01:10:16

So these are the progressions of tyranny, okay. So I think

01:10:22

I would be against that because that's tyranny. I wouldn't say it's the mark of the beast, I would say it was a mark of a beast because tyrannical empires and nations are described as beasts in the scripture.

01:10:37

States are not evil in and of themselves, they are to be a good lean guard dog to go after evildoers.

01:10:44

But if you start feeding that beast, he just gets bigger and bigger and bigger until he takes everything over, as history proves.

01:10:52

So all right, we're going to close it there.

01:10:59

Any future questions that this may have turned up, you can go on our website and submit them to our podcast for our season four and we'll try to get to them in the order that we can get to them.