Apologetics Session 24 - Eschatology - Part 3

God I just thank you for this day. I thank you for these brothers who've come out. I just ask God that you would give us a good time tonight.

We have a good time of fellowship and learning Lord that you would speak to us through your word and that we would be able to talk about what's to come.

I just I thank you so much for the time and I pray that you would be with us in Christ's name.

Amen. All right so we've had two sessions so far on eschatology.

We've covered in the first session essentially the entire book of Revelation which was for sure a whirlwind tour and then we went through sort of the main millennial views.

The sort of three primary views which are represented up here of pre -millennial, amillennial, and post -millennial thinking around the position of Christ's second coming and the

Millennium. We have gone through some very specific views around you know in concert with these sort of three overarching views we've gone into some specific views.

Post -millennial preterism, post -millennial hyper -preterism, and then we started to go through the dispensational pre -millennialism.

That one first we went through dispensationalism which I'll probably review again tonight just very briefly and we sort of ended at mid tribulation pre -millennialism.

So the idea is that there's the Millennium and the positioning of Christ's coming in relation to that Millennium and then there's the

Rapture and the positioning of the Rapture within your particular view. So the first view that we went through was post -millennial preterism just by way of review.

This is a post -millennial view that is very optimistic. It views that the tribulation has already happened.

It actually happened a very long time ago culminating in the destruction of the temple in 70 AD by Rome.

It holds that Satan is currently bound in that he can't prevent the gospel from going forward. It believes that the

Millennium is either happening now or will happen very soon and it is not necessarily a literal thousand years although some preterists may believe that it is and it's just when that thousand year starts.

Again it's a very optimistic view and we talked at length about how because of their view which is that the the second coming of Christ is not going to occur until the world is won for Christ they're very evangelistic in their belief.

So that is something that regardless of your eschatological view you should probably be which is very evangelistic looking to win the world for Christ.

Pastor Jeff talks all about this all the time when he talks about the means for salvation although you know when you think about Calvinism and he just talked about this yesterday in yesterday's sermon when you think about Calvinism and the sovereignty of God God still ordains the means for salvation which he uses us to accomplish.

So preterists look at the the world very optimistically they believe that everything up into Revelation chapter 20 and verse 6 has already happened and that the only things that are in the future are things after you know starting at Revelation 20 and verse 7 so just again by way of review

Revelation 26 is blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection over such the second death has no power but they will be priests of God and of Christ and they will reign with him for a thousand years and then verse 7 is and when the thousand years are ended

Satan will be released from his prison so this is this is their view and we talked about the justification for this view being that Revelation is sort of apocalyptic language which we talked about as being you know poetic hyperbole and you know an example of this was

Psalm 6 6 where it talks about David saying you know I'm weary with my moaning and every night

I flood my bed with tears right so he wasn't literally saying that he floods his bed with tears that's an example of sort of poetic hyperbole and is how preterists do a lot of Revelation they so when you see something in like Revelation 6 14 where it says the sky vanished like a scroll and is being rolled up and every mountain and island was removed from its place well clearly that's not a literal thing that has happened but they view that as having already happened so they view that as sort of poetic hyperbole so that's that's kind of how the preterists justify it we talked about how they'll utilize quotes from Josephus you know talking about different things that happened when when the

Romans were attacking Israel up to the destruction of the temple and they'll use that to kind of draw parallels to some of the language in in Revelation so we talked about when

Josephus was talking about the Roman workmen who were leveling the roads for the soldiers so that they could walk through that that's something that they take is like removing the mountains right they were essentially removing the protections from Israel preterists also have a very small view of Revelation in so far that when it talks about the world they believe that it is talking really only about Israel that it's not actually talking about the whole world and so they'll they'll look at through that lens and and kind of take it from there so there were other examples that I gave again this is all on video this was was last

I guess it was two weeks ago but but the last session we talked about some of the examples that they had there they also believe that Nero Caesar was the first beast or the

Antichrist and one of the sort of neat things that I don't necessarily think is all that relevant but one of the things that they take is that in the

Hebrew language if you remember they use Hebrew letters to represent numbers and when you take the the

Hebrew name Nero Caesar which is Nero Caesar that those numbers equal 666 that's one of the one of the things and that you know there was the beast it talks about revelations persecuting for 42 months and Nero did persecute for about 42 months dipping

Christians and tar and setting on fire and all kinds of terrible things the problem comes in when you talk about the second beast creating a statue for the first beast forcing the world to worship it and the second statue talking and you know leading and causing the world to worship it it's kind of harder to justify those types of things so we went through some slides around preterism and some of the like I said with these views

I try to steel man most of them except for the one that's heretical I try to steel man most of these rather than straw man them so some of the big things with preterism are all the discourse where it talks about all these things happening soon you know this generation will not pass away that type of language which is a is is sort of something that lends credibility to this view the one thing that it also does require is a very early dating of Revelation so if the destruction of the temple was in 70

AD the dating of the writing of Revelation would have to be somewhere around 65

AD during you know the part of the problem of this is this was also during Nero's you know reign and would be like right in the middle of that also most early

Christians held the date to be somewhere in the 90s AD rather than in the 60s

AD so it requires a pretty early dating of Revelation and I did talk about how that preterists they're very prominent preterists they're very respected theologians such as R .C.

Sproul, Doug Wilson, James White, Jeff Durbin these are people who I personally listen to and and and and respect they're they're strong reformed theologians who hold the preterist view then we talked about hyper preterism which is the only heretical view that that we covered as I said in the early parts of this session you know these views my views

I hold fairly loosely I'm happy to be convinced that my view is incorrect but well

I don't I don't know if I'd be happy that it was because I generally I don't want to go through the tribulation but regardless I'm open to my view let's put it that way

I'm open to my view being proven wrong however you know so in general we don't look at these eschatological views as something to divide over and we should be gracious to one another but they are important and we should debate them but hyper preterism is the one exception in of the views that I'm covering here that is actually heretical because hyper preterism views all of Revelation as having already occurred and and like we said it views it views it contradicts the

Apostles Creed the Nicene Creed it views that everything in the

Bible has already been fulfilled the second coming has already happened we're now living in the eternal kingdom there is no literal resurrection there's no eternal life we're in the new heavens of the new earth congratulations everyone and it denies you know central tenets of Christianity so this this one is the one heretical view that that we should actually divide over because this this one can't be true so that brings me back to the premillennial dispensational view so again premillennial meaning that the

Millennium hasn't happened yet or isn't in the process of happening and it's dispensational in that it holds to dispensationalism rather than covenant theology covenant theology teaches things like replacement theory it's it that the church replaces

Israel and so when the New Testament is talking about Israel it's actually talking about the church it holds that there's a covenant of works and then a covenant of grace

I don't really have a problem with that so much but but the the replacement of Israel at the church brings lots of curious questions to mind around 144 ,000 that we talked about when we're going through Revelation talked about 12 ,000

Jews from you know 12 12 ,000 from each tribe and so when you argue with somebody who holds to covenant theology in this whole replacement theory you have to say okay which tribe am

I if I'm one of the 144 ,000 which tribe am I from since I'm not ethnically Jewish I don't

I don't know how you answer that question but dispensationalism offers seven dispensations that the Bible is essentially divided into the seven dispensations one being innocence for Eden post

Eden which is conscience post flood which is civil government the promise which is Abraham Moses and the law the church age which we're in currently which is you know

Jesus and then the Millennium which is the theocracy that's to come so pre millennialism holds that Jesus will return in the future reign for a little literal thousand years the first resurrection of the saved is at the beginning of that Millennium followed by the thousand year reign and then at the end of the

Millennium Satan is released deceives those who he can and as a final has a final rebellion and then the judgment and the second resurrection happens and so that's kind of very briefly the the order of things and regardless of your view of the rapture that still holds true the question of the rapture starts to come in when you start looking at pre -tribulation pre -wrath or mid -tribulation pre -wrath and post tribulation views of when the church will actually be raptured prior to the

Millennium so we went through pre -tribulation arguments which again tried to steel man the argument here so the the pre -tribulation arguments the first and foremost was the first Thessalonians 5 1 through 11 passage which talks about how we're not destined for wrath right so it talks it says now concerning these the times and seasons brothers you have no you you have no need to have anything written to you for you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the

Lord will come like a thief in the night while people are saying there's peace and security then suddenly destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman and they will not escape but you are not in darkness brothers for that day to surprise you like a thief for your children of light children of the day we are not of the night or of the darkness so then let us not sleep as others do but let us keep awake and be sober for those who sleep sleep at night those who get drunk or drunk at night but since we belong to the day let us be sober having put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet the hope of salvation for God is not destined us for wrath that's the important one verse 9 for God is not destined us for wrath but to obtain salvation through Jesus Christ who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him therefore encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing so that's really we talked about and when we went through Revelation does anyone remember the sort of three big slides that I went through what those three events were there were seven what's all right so there was the seals trumpets and the bowls right the seals was we talked about the scroll of the

Lamb and John was as he's you know in heaven he's in his vision he's in heaven and he's crying because no one is worthy to open the scroll and then they said stop crying because Jesus was was there and was worthy to open the scroll and we talked about how scrolls in those days were sealed seven times right so you know land deeds wills etc and so as the seals are being opened different events are happening right and you know so when you talk about the wrath the trumpets are generally looked at as wrath the bowls are generally looked at as wrath but the wrath doesn't really begin until really after the sixth seal right and so when it says we're not destined for wrath that that says okay well at least up to that point we're pretty safe saying that if we're not destined for wrath then we're not destined for any of those trumpets or bowls right and when and the seventh seal as well so all that does is save us though from from that right so from a pre -tribulation view that says okay well that saves us from part of the tribulation and but not all of the tribulation but the pre -tribulation argument you know over and above that also talks about in Revelation 310 when it says the church will be spared from the hour of trial this is

Jesus it says because this is Revelation 310 because you have kept my word about about patient endurance from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to try those who dwell on earth another is that the seven -year tribulations is specifically a time for God to work with the

Jews and not necessarily the church God's messenger angel Gabriel speaks of this in Daniel 9 the tribulation is referred to as Daniel 70th week and so in Daniel 9 24 it says 70 weeks are decreed about your people in your holy city to finish the transgression to put an end to sin and to atone for iniquity to bring in everlasting righteousness to seal both vision and profit and to anoint the most holy place

Paul also speaks about it in Romans where the final gent once the final

Gentile is saved the church is raptured blinders removed from the eyes of the Jewish people so that you know this talks about because the church actually isn't mentioned after I think it's

Revelation 4 the church really isn't mentioned much after that it's really all about you know

God working with the Jewish people and then another argument is

Luke 21 36 where Jesus said but stay awake at all times praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place in the stand for the son of man so it's talking about you know escaping so pre tribulation as we use these passages to argue for the rapture of the church before the tribulation tribulation is actually structured in into two three and a half year segments so the full tribulation is seven years the the tribulation is broken into the first three and a half years in the second three and a half years and if you actually

I'm probably gonna bring up a timeline when we talk about pre -wrath here in a minute that talks a bit about it as well but there's there's you know the pre tribulation stance which is that prior to the tribulation

God will rapture his church then the tribulation will occur which is inclusive of all seven seals the trumpets and the bowls there's mid tribulation as you think it's right at the midpoint right which is sort of when the

Antichrist is revealed there's post tribulation as which we'll talk about in a bit I think it happens you know at the end and then there's also a view that is sort of just after mid tribulation that is a pre -wrath which says that Christians will go through all the tribulation up to the point of wrath of God's wrath being unleashed on the world and then will be raptured and so that's kind of the the gist of where that goes pre tribulation is to use these these verses as arguments mid tribulation mid tribulation is and this is kind of where we left left off last time mid tribulation is believe that it happens right at the middle right which is essentially at the fifth seal the opening of the fifth seal and they'll generally point to the current chronology given in Thessalonians 2 1 through 2

Thessalonians 2 1 through 3 which talks about the man of lawlessness so now concerning the coming of our

Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him we ask you brothers not to be quick quickly shaken in mind or alarmed either by spirit or spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us to that effect you guys can probably remember this from pastor's sermon where he talked about how there must have been people who were writing letters impersonating the

Apostles let no one deceive you in any way for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed the son of destruction so cornerstone what are the three things that have to happen pastor

Jeff does this all the time from the pulpit what are the three things apostasy revelation of the abomination of desolation a revelation of the

Antichrist and and then the day of the day of Christ amid tribulation views mid -tribulational views teach that the

Antichrist will not be decisively revealed until the abomination that causes desolation right which occurs right at the that midpoint and so in Matthew 24 15 it says so this is

Jesus so when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the Prophet Daniel standing in the holy place let the reader understand and in Daniel 9 27 which is the reference that Jesus was talking about it says and he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice an offering and on the wing of abominations shall come the one who makes desolate until the decree decree to end is poured out on the desolator so pastor

Jeff talks about this all the time he's sort of practice I guess for this for this stuff so quick question yeah go for it so on the line up on the top so those bubbles on top yeah it's hard to see but yeah you've got you've really only got the three views here which is the the pre -trib mid -trib and post -trib views right up there where it's got this this box that talks about the tribulation right and it talks about the church is being raptured either in the pre -trib mid -trib post -trib this particular view

I got the references for where I got all these pictures the word document that since they'll be our last session on eschatology

I'll send out to everybody so you'll have references to where I got a lot of these images there are tons of images online but this one doesn't cover pre -wrath it's so it's it's one that we'll add to as well but the pre -wrath you would see basically as a dot just next to that metal dot right it would literally be just right next to it but between the post -trib and the mid -trib and then the one that drops down below that yes

Lillian says Christ returns oh okay so Christ returns at the end of the tribulation right which okay revelation pretty clearly clearly spells out right before the you know he establishes his millennial kingdom new heavens

Newark New Jerusalem all of that right and then after the millennium you've got the final rebellion and then the final judgment where you end up with believers and unbelievers versus a post -millennial view which would say that you know all this stuff has happened already where you know the the sort of tribulation happened back before 70

AD we're now in essentially this this church a church age where society progressively improves again they're optimistic very optimistic view after which the world is one for Christ and Christ comes back a second time for the final judgment now in a post -millennial view the church you know at some point is going to be raptured only to come right back down immediately to you know to have the judgment right so and then we're going to talk on millennialism is the last one we're going to talk about so we'll get to that bottom one here in a minute but the mid tribulationist would use

Daniel 725 which says the Antichrist will have power over the Saints for three and a half years to bolster their point of basically being raptured being around for the tribulation to be raptured so Daniel 725 says he shall speak words against the

Most High and shall wear out the Saints of the Most High and shall think to change the times and the law and they shall be given into his hand for a time times and half a time

Daniel super confusing too so I'm sure my father -in -law could probably step you through like I said he spent a he spent a year doing this so so they assume that this is the first half of the tribulation and that the

Saints spoken of are the church so it's a couple of assumptions that are made they also interpret the day of Christ as the rapture so the church will not be caught up in the heaven until after the

Antichrist is revealed. One of the other things that mid tribulationists talk about is that foundational to mid tribulationism is that the trumpet in 1st

Corinthians 1552 is the same trumpet mentioned in Revelations 11 15 the the trumpet in Revelations 11 is the final in a series of trumpets and it's essentially the last trumpet and so the the the trumpet of 1st

Corinthians so it's the last trumpet of 1st Corinthians 15 but the problem with this is that the trumpet in Corinthians is a call of God whereas the ones in Revelations are judgment right there it's not calling people home it's it's it's essentially causing judgment you know on the earth so the trumpet that's the call of grace to God's elect whereas the other ones a pronouncement of doom on the wicked right so they have different purposes so it's hard to complete them so that leads us into so we've done pre tribulation we've done mid tribulation now we've got pre -wrath so the pre -wrath view is similar to mid tribulation but with a difference so the timing of the rapture is super super close to mid tribulationist but mid tribulationist holds it's right at the middle of that three and a half years which is essentially at the fifth seal but pre -wrathers will view really the rapture having you know having to do with when the beginning of the day of the

Lord is which they would argue is just after the sixth seal and so the pre -wrath rapture theory views the trumpet and bowl judgments as the wrath of God which they clearly are and that the church is exempted of that we just talked about that with 1st

Thessalonians 5 9 but the first six seal judgments are not considered the wrath of God they're they're viewed as the wrath of Satan or the wrath of the

Antichrist the the wrath of God is really viewed at that seventh seal and beyond right because the seventh seal if you remember was silence in heaven because of the the horror that was happening and then you've got the seven trumpets which if you remember was like a third of the sea a third of the freshwater you know the

Sun the moon and the stars like with a third darkened it was like thirds right a lot of sort of judgments for that and then you finally have the bowls which is everything in the sea dies and everything in the freshwater dies and the

Sun is is blackened and the moon is blackened and the stars fall out of the sky and it's like just like way worse than it was with the trumpets even but the first six seals was like the four horsemen of the apocalypse with the first four right and but the wrath of God doesn't actually happen until you get to that that seventh seal and there's no direct mention of God's wrath until the sixth seal is broken in Revelation 617 so according to the pre -wrath rapture theory the church will be present to experience those first six but nothing beyond that so the rapture must occur at that time so if you compare

Revelation 6 with Matthew 24 the pre -wrath rapture theorists identify the first sealed first sealed judgments with this description of the end times in Matthew 24 4 through 14 do you want to you want to read that for me

Matthew 24 Matthew 24 4 through 14 14 10 verses and Jesus answered see that no one leads you astray for many will come in my name saying

I am the Christ and they will lead many astray and you will hear wars and rumors of wars see that you are not alarmed for this must take place but the end is not yet for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places all these are but the beginning of birth pains then they will deliver you up to the tribulation and put you to death and you will be hated by all the nations for my name's sake and then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another and many false prophets will arise and many straight and because lawlessness will be increased the love of many will grow cold but the one who endures till the end will be saved and this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come so in the pre -wrath rapture view they view this whole passage as Jesus describing what

Christians will go through in those first six seals prior to the wrath of God being unleashed on the earth because again you go back to that first Thessalonians where it says we're not destined for wrath so so the view here is that you you know we suffer some persecution some of the tribulation but we are spared from the wrath of God which will be horrendous so Jesus refers to these events of these events as the beginning of birth pain pains in verse 8 in verse 29 and 30 the sign of the

Son of Man appears in the sky and it's at this time according to the pre -wrath rapture theory that the rapture occurs so that's essentially a nutshell version of pre -wrath

I have a cool like I have a cool timeline that if we have time at the end

I'll probably go through real quick that actually it's like an animated thing where you can scroll through it actually it's it's

I think it's pre -wrathrapture .com or something where it goes through this like cool little thing where you can cycle through and it talks about the timeline and sort of categorizes that timeline in like the beginning of birth pains you know the wrath of Satan or the

Antichrist followed by the rapture and the wrath of God. Let me just bring something up.

Maybe the thought with which you discuss is the seals the scroll of the Lamb is not literally open until the seventh seal is open because they sequentially open the seal maybe that's what their thought is that when you get to the seventh seal now it's the scroll of the

Lamb. Well yeah when you look through the seals right I just brought the seals slide up you've got the first four seals which are the four horsemen of the apocalypse right so you have the white horse which is conquest although it was a peaceful conquest right then you have the the red horse which is war then the war is followed by famine which is the black horse and then finally death which is the pale horse the fifth seal is the souls of the martyrs calling out for justice and then the sixth seal is essentially the earthquake and the sun turns black and so you know before there was a pause and then finally the seventh seal which is silence in heaven right and so the the view here would be that you know if a mid tribulation is they would say you know basically at the souls of the martyrs right at that fifth seal that's when the rapture happens it's like okay just right after that right is where you would get that whereas you got the trumpets which are clearly judgments right you got a hail and fire fiery mountains blazing star darkness you've got tormenting locusts you've got mounted warriors and right again giving

Paul a pause then you've got the two witnesses and then you know God reigns in heaven and then you've got the bowls of wrath which are like way worse than the trumpets even right you've got the land the bowl poured out on the sea which kills literally everything in the sea all the rivers and springs in the third bowl and so forth and so on right and you've got darkness it's poured on on the throne of the beast right so all that worship the beast are stricken and they're stricken so so much that they wish for death and can't find it right like they're in and they wish for death and can't find it and then you know seventh bowl and end game right so yeah so then we so then we we get to so that's in a nutshell now there's each one of these views we could literally spend weeks and weeks and months and months study each one of these views don't smile back there my father -in -law actually did a study and I think it lasted what a year was it a year and he gave me a lot of his materials for and it was just on the pre -wrath view and there's like probably two pages just the scripture verses with talking about that so when

I said at the outset this is a 101 class it's definitely a 101 class right we're just going through the very the very you know sort of topic topic topical view of this right it's very top -level but that's effectively the pre -wrath view one of the arguments that pre -wrath there's all make though versus over the pre -tribulation view is that we shouldn't one of the debates right they you should consider a pre -wrath there and a pre -tribber as brothers right they're there it's it's not apostasy that to or heresy to believe that but one of the arguments that pre -wrath there's all make is that pre tribute the pre -tribulation view sets

Christians up to believe they're spared from any and all tribulation rather than having to endure some tribulation only be to be spared from God's wrath and I think that's a reasonable argument to me because if you can see how it would shake someone's faith to believe you're going to be spared from tribulation only to have to go through it if the pre -tribulation view is incorrect versus if the pre -wrath view is incorrect and the pre -trib view is correct the pre -wrath there gets spared from it their faith is a chicken so it's a it's a good you know it's another way of thinking about the view

I'm on the fence between the pre -trib and pre -wrath I really like the the preterist view because of its optimistic you know evangelistic view but but I can't get behind reading revelation in the way that preterist re -revelation it makes a lot more sense from a pre -millennial perspective to think of all of this apocalyptic things happening in the future also it's

I think a more literal reading of revelation than it is you know for preterism where you're having to sort of stretch stretch the apocalyptic interpretation to kind of its breaking point denominations like you mentioned

R .C. Sproul and a couple of other names like do they fall into certain denominations they do they do so Presbyterians are generally amillennial a preterist you know whereas if you look at some of the other like Baptists you'll see a lot of them are pre -millennial most of them pre -tribulation but pre -tribulation is just the most popular view pre -millennial view so it tends to be but even in this church we have people who are pre -tribulation pre -millennialists and people who are pre -wrath pre -millennialists

I don't know of any preterists in our church but there are you know like R .C.

Sproul was a preterist even though a lot of Presbyterians are amillennialists all right so post -tribulation this is still a pre -millennial view but post -tribulation means the church is going to go through the entire tribulation including all of the judgments so it teaches that the rapture occurs at the end or very near the end of the tribulation and at that time the church will meet

Christ in the air and then do a u -turn and come right back down for the judgment right because the second coming happens at the end of the tribulation just before the establishment of the

Millennial Kingdom and Christ comes and and does the initial judgment before the final judgment at the end of the millennium so the church would then be raptured at the end of the tribulation and then like say hi to Jesus in the air and spin around and come right back down for that first judgment because it talks about when

Jesus comes in the second coming that there's all of the the people on the white horses you know all the Saints coming with him in that second coming so so when he comes down so this would be that the rapture and the second coming would be simultaneous it would happen exactly at the same time so according to this church to this view the church goes to the entire seven -year tribulation

Roman Catholicism Greek Orthodoxy and many Protestant denominations espouse a post -tribulation view of the rapture which is something

I learned going through the study I didn't realize that Roman Catholics and and Greek Orthodox were both post tribulation.

Matt, this is probably a what do you call those kind of questions that don't require an answer but rhetorical yeah how did they deal with the fact that we are not destined to wrath?

It's a good question. That first Thessalonians passage is is it's pretty stark

I don't know how they get past that but I know that they hold to these views again we could dive well

Catholics don't read the Bible I don't think a lot of them don't a lot of you know but if say you were to ask a

Catholic priest who does read the Bible right you're asking a Catholic priest I don't know what their answer would be it's a good question though I think eternal wrath is typically is that what it is yeah

I mean that's yes yeah I I've I've grown up not being Catholic I wish my mother -in -law was here she grew up Catholic and she probably knows the answer to that question.

Matt, you speaking of your mother -in -law which is my wife yes when she got saved she was

Catholic all her life in Catholic school but when she got saved she wrote a 19 page letter to the

Monsignor at St. Cecilia's in Pennsylvania he would not even talk to her or answer.

Yep. Just ignored it. She even said that I think she even said she wanted to talk and they just shut the door in her face they didn't they didn't want to have a discussion they didn't want to debate the

Bible she got saved having been a Catholic all her life started reading the

Bible and started saying this stuff doesn't make sense what I've been taught all my life doesn't make sense with what

I'm reading and so she went to talk to the to the priests and the Monsignors and they didn't want to have a debate with her which you know is what it is.

So the one strength of post -tribulationalism is that Jesus in his extended discourse on the end times says he will turn after the

Great Tribulation again trying to steal in all the arguments here so in Matthew 24 29 through 30 it says this is

Jesus immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light for the stars will fall from heaven and the powers of heavens will be shaken then will appear in heaven the sign of the

Son of Man and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see and they will see the

Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. So the book of Revelation also the book of Revelation with all its various prophecies men only mentions one coming of the

Lord and that occurs after the tribulation in Revelation 19 and 20 passages such as Revelation 13 7 29 also lend support to post -tribulation is um and that there are there will obviously be

Saints in the tribulation also the resurrection of the dead in Revelation 25 is called the first resurrection post -tribulationalists assert that since the first resurrection takes place after the tribulation the resurrection associated with the rapture in 1st

Thessalonians 4 16 cannot occur until then. 1st

Thessalonians 4 16 says the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command with the voice of an archangel and with the sound of a trumpet of the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Post -tribulationalists also point out that historically God's people have experienced times of intense persecution and trial therefore they say shouldn't surprise us at all that the church also experienced a great tribulation of the end time.

In relation to this the post -tribulationalists view also distinguish Satan's wrath or man's wrath from God's wrath in the book of Revelation Satan's wrath is directed against the

Saints and God allows it as a means of purifying his faithful. On the other hand

God's wrath is poured out on the Antichrist in his godless kingdom and God will protect his people from that punishment.

So that's sort of the the three or four views rather of the rapture in a pre -millennial view.

There is a another view before we get to amillennialism there's another view that I actually kind of like I don't

I'm not going to say that I espouse this view. Mike Winger who I watched one of his things on on End Times View the videos is in the is linked in the references of the document that I'll send out if you guys want to watch it.

But the he has what's called a pre -millennial progressive dispensational view and it's not progressive in the sort of political sense that we use today it's it's more of it's more of just the progression of events in in the

Bible. So it's very similar to a pre -millennial dispensational view but it incorporates preterism and it incorporates the preterist view as foreshadowing though not as the actual events of Revelation but a foreshadowing of the events of Revelation.

So just as there was lots of stuff in the Old Testament foreshadowing Christ it views a lot of what the preterists view as actually

Revelation being prophecy being fulfilled as simply foreshadowing of those things that are yet to be fulfilled.

I've heard that called like a near and a far like it's a yeah when it was written at the time there was a completion of it but then there's also a greater completion.

Yes exactly and that's exactly what it is so it's still fundamentally a pre -millennial view it's not a post -millennial preterist view still fundamentally a pre -millennial view but but again takes the the preterist views as foreshadowing.

So so the the events so you can hold to both the pre -millennial but can appreciate the preterist view as being sort of a a foreshadowing of things to come.

So it's kind of cheating I think it's a little bit cheating because you're like hey

I like the preterist view so I'm going to take these aspects as foreshadowing but I'm still going to hold to pre -millennial pre -tribulation or pre -wrath views right.

All right so that so that that's just what I wanted to mention and then we get to sort of the last view that we'll cover and that is amillennialism.

So although we talked about pre and post -millennialism and we talked about some sub views amillennialism is just kind of amillennialism.

I don't know of a lot of sub views I'm sure there might be and we could probably do some research on them but but amillennialism is kind of its own thing.

So again this is one of the three big views it's the one here at the bottom and it's probably the most different out of out of all of them.

It's a little bit close to a post -millennial view in that it holds the millennium is kind of happening now but it is a sort of spiritualized millennium.

So it holds that the millennium is happening now but it's happening in heaven not on earth. That Jesus is reigning in heaven in his millennial kingdom and the

Saints are reigning with him. It is a spiritual reign not a physical reign and the millennium is not a literal thousand years clearly because it's been 2000.

That Satan is currently bound again they borrow from I think the post -millennial view that the definition of Satan being bound is that Satan cannot prevent the gospel from going forth and so it's the gospel is going out to all the nations.

This is unlike the sort of preterist views of the post -millennial views this is a pessimistic view more like the premillennial views.

So premillennialism world's gonna get worse worse and worse until finally there's a tribulation whichever your view is on the rapture the rapture happens

God comes back right Jesus comes back. Post -millennialism was you know world's gonna get better better and better world's gonna be one for Christ Christ is gonna come back.

This amillennial view holds that the world is going to continue to get worse and worse and worse so it's pessimistic like premillennial even though it borrows from post millennial with the millennium being now.

So the the tribulation that happens though with amillennialism the tribulation is sort of figurative it the tribulation happens at the end of this figurative millennium followed by the second coming of Christ.

This kind of forces you to have an idealistic or spiritualist view of Revelation so they're they're taking this as sort of again apocalyptic language nothing literal it's they review

Revelation as not being prophetic necessarily it's not prophesying of things or predicting things that are in the future but it's more like parables right it's it's it's the kind of things that will happen prior to the coming of Christ.

So these are the types of things that are going to happen to us before Christ comes back. So amillennialist view of Revelation is that it's just really filled with apocalyptic language and it's figurative.

This makes Revelation super flexible right because it can be applicable to all kinds of things right there's since it's not really prophetic things so when you're talking about you know everything in the sea dying and stuff that well that's just that's figurative language it's not doesn't mean that actually all living creatures in the sea will die.

So it's really just Revelations a book of symbolism right and not prophecy. It doesn't really provide any real explanations to why there are specific prophecies though so it talks specifically about 144 ,000

Jews that are you know maybe 12 ,000 from each of the the tribes that are going to come down they're not going to be able to be harmed they're going to win an innumerable multitude of people to Christ right like there's very specific prophecies that are in Revelation and it doesn't really amillennialism doesn't really account for those being being as specific as they are.

So it can lead to eisegesis it can lead to you being able to develop your own theology and read that into the book.

That's a big fancy word for reading your worldview into they talk about exegesis versus eisegesis.

Eisegesis is I take my worldview and I read it into the text. Exegesis is I look at the text and get my worldview out of it right and that you know since it's very flexible and since it's sort of symbolic you can kind of twist bend it around whatever you know theology you want to bend it around.

Did you say that's more Roman Catholicism? No their view is post -tribulation premillennialism.

Amillennialism is more the Presbyterian a lot of Presbyterians are amillennialism some of them are preterists.

Jacob who's down at RBC there's a lot of Presbyterians down there and some of them are preterists some of them are amillennialism and they're trying to convert him.

He's at a Bible college I'd like to have lots of debates about the Bible go figure and so yeah so you'll find that certain denominations hold to these views.

Baptists and even like E3 you'll see a lot of premillennialists.

You know you've got other churches that'll hold to post -war views some Presbyterians and so forth.

The thing about it is again this stuff is not set in stone with the exception of the one heretical view any you know any of these views have theologians that have argued for them well.

There's a video called a night of eschatology that I watched a couple of years ago which really got me kind of excited about learning about eschatology.

It is it is it was years ago that it happened but it was moderated by John Piper but he had three other people one representing premillennialism, one postmillennialism, one amillennialism.

I don't remember their names except for Doug Wilson who was the postmillennialist in there and I thought it was a fantastic like an hour and a half long it was a fantastic debate of these guys kind of going back and forth with their views and arguing for it was very you know conciliatory it wasn't heated or anything like that but I thought it was a really good introduction because I didn't really you know it's not you know this isn't something that I took a lot of time to study back in the day right it was just kind of one of those

I don't really know what's going to happen I like the pre -trib pre -millennial view because it means

I don't have to go through through the tribulation so I'm going to stick with that a lot of people I know have that view so you know it's the future whatever happens happens.

Are the views so like historically like so if we look back a thousand years one of them might have made more sense at the time based on what was revealed?

What you find if you actually look back is that the the post -millennial view is not one of the early views the early views of the early church fathers was a pre -millennial regardless of the timing of the

Rapture it was a pre -millennial view they viewed revelation as being prophecy of things to come so it was you know preterism

I might have actually talked about this when we went through preterism last week but it's something that or actually no it was it was covenant theology that I was thinking of that didn't come around until I think it was like the 1800s so so yeah so that is

Amillennialism so again we've done a surface level view of each of the eschatological the six eschatological views and three main millennial views that are primarily held by by Christians again emphasize that this is not something we should primarily divide over it is something that regardless of which of the five views with the exception of one heretical view that you subscribe to you could be right the it's not something we should divide over but it is important it is something we should study it is something we should debate debate the only thing that we know for certain is that the

Lord is coming back and maybe soon any other questions yeah just a comment it's still on YouTube a night of eschatology yeah yeah it's a it's a good watch

I think I might have had it in my references as well even though I didn't use it primarily for the study for this it was one something that influenced me from from back and I just I like to include everything for for all of you to you know at your leisure so I'll have

I have references to in the word document that I'll send out to everybody have references to all of the articles all of the videos and so forth that I that I used in preparation for this again the goal of this was to do a surface level view not to do an in -depth view or unless you guys want to spend months doing eschatological views we could certainly come back and do that later but we have a lot of other topics that we want to get to in the apologetics series anything else and Matt just one thing usually you know you're familiar with Jake Dwight Pentecost right

Dwight Pentecost outlines laws for interpretation specifically eschatology and Bible interpretation he says the law of first reference the first reference you come to in the

Bible usually sets the pattern for what that event means and he says the law first reference regarding the tribulation is from Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse 30 when you see these things happen in the last days come upon Israel in the latter days you will return to the

Lord your God and hear his voice so he's saying there when you come to the tribulation in the last days it's referring specifically to Israel and the purpose of the tribulation was meant for Israel to bring them back to God and that is one of the pre -tribulation arguments that I that I talked about earlier that that really when you think the church is mentioned in the very early parts of Revelation but it's not there's a whole section in the middle where it's not mentioned until Christ comes back and so that's one of the big arguments for pre -tribulation views is that there's this absence of talking about the church they're talking about Israel which again goes back to the difficulty that we have with things like Covenant theology where it talks about the church replacing

Israel right which again could lend you to start thinking about you know some of these other views but the issue there is that when it says very specific things like you know 12 ,000 you know 12 ,000 from each tribe of Israel right like that I argue with people and I say okay let's say we're all part of the 144 ,000

I don't know if any of you are from Jewish descent I am I know that I'm not which tribe am I a part of right am

I part of Judah I don't know like I don't know how you how you reconcile that because there are places where it talks about the church and there are places where it talks about Israel and so I always go back to if it says

Israel I think it means Israel and when it says the church it means the church it's not as if it used

Israel and in some contexts it was talking about the church and in others it was talking about and it never used the church or vice versa right it uses both and so I have to I have to believe that that was intentional and that when it's talking about the church it would say the church when it talks about Israel it would say

Israel anything else before we wrap up all right

Phil do you mind closing this out we just thank you

Jesus that you are coming back Lord we thank you we just give you praise and glory we glorify your name

Lord we look forward to your coming we say come quickly Lord Jesus God and we just ask that you would be with us as we leave here be with us in our in our daily lives or God and just draw us closer to you into your word and into prayer

Lord God so that we are ready for you when we come back and Lord help us to evangelize the lost

Lord and and just carry out your call for those who you just predestined from before the beginnings of the foundations of the earth

Lord God just use us to in a mighty way to to draw them into your kingdom