The Conflict in Israel (Part 4)

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the

Saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

Thank you. I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me are Michael Durham, Chris Giesler, David Kassin, Andrew Hudson, and today we are revisiting the topic or a topic that's adjacent to the current goings -on in Israel.

Are we to expect the end of the age, rapture, and all that comes with it?

And we'll let you take off of that, Michael. So it is perhaps not understood, but whenever there is unrest in the world, many times in these last few generations of Christianity and prior in other times in church history, whenever there are important dates that come up or tragedies, plagues, wars,

Christians have often asked one another, asked themselves, is this the end?

Are we near the end of time? Questions recently about the warfare going on in Israel look at the danger that the nation -state of Israel is under because of the attack of Hamas upon Israel, the hatred for Israel by so many different nations of the

Islamic Caliphate. They want to destroy Israel, to wipe Israel off the map.

All sorts of things have been said about Israel. This is not new. We back up a few years, we'll find a similar situation.

A few more years, we'll find a similar situation. We have seen throughout the last hundred, two hundred years, many times of unrest and warfare, and Christians have been writing and wondering and positing this could be the end.

And why is that? Why do Christians feel that way? Why do we get amped up and wonder if this is the end of something, the end of the church age, the end of the world?

Is there going to be a rapture? Are we going to soon disappear? Are all the Christians going to disappear soon?

Should we get ready for that because of Israel being under attack? Why do we think this way?

That's a pretty complex question. The answer is very full of history and different types of ways of interpreting the

Bible and so on, but when you go read the Bible, you might get the idea that there's a connection.

So for instance, in Luke chapter 21, we have a passage of Scripture that is paralleled in Matthew 24 and Mark 13.

There's also some material in Luke 17 that also parallels those other passages as well, but when we look at this material, we see that there might be a connection somehow, so we need to pay attention.

When we come to Luke chapter 21, Jesus observes a widow being essentially coerced out of all the last bits of her money by the temple system.

She gives her last two mites because she thinks that that's the only way for her to be right with God.

She has nothing left. How's she gonna eat? What kind of religious system robs a widow of her last two pennies?

Not a just system, not a holy one, and why was she contributing to the temple?

Because the Jews felt, hey, the more beautiful our temple is, the more pleased God is with us, and the more likely we are going to be delivered from our enemies.

They idolized the temple, as Stephen would preach in Acts 7. But, verse 5, then as some spoke of the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and donations,

Jesus said, these things which you see, the days will come in which not one stone shall be left upon another that shall not be thrown down.

You know, where is that temple today? You know, at that very place where we go on to Google Maps and go take a look, what do you see?

Dome. Dome. An Islamic shrine. That wailing wall is not the temple wall, that's the retaining wall for the mountain itself that keeps the mountain, you know, up.

It's a, it's more of a foundation, a retaining wall for the mountain, but yeah, we see the Dome of the Rock, the third holiest site in Islam.

Mm -hmm. And that has sat there on that location longer than any

Jewish temple has ever sat in the same place. Do the math in history. Now, Jesus said the temple that was sitting there, beautified temple, rebuilt during the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, but beautified during the days of Herod the

Great. So, that temple, he says, not one stone will be left upon another that shall not be thrown down.

Now, for those listening to him, they thought that would mean the end of the world. How can the temple be destroyed and planet

Earth still survive? I mean, that seriously was their point of view, their mindset. Verse 7, so they asked him, saying,

Teacher, but when will these things be? And what sign will there be when these things are about to take place? And he said,

Take heed that you not be deceived. For many will come in my name, saying, I am he. The time is drawn near. Therefore, do not go after them.

But when you hear of wars and commotions, do not be terrified. For these things must come to pass first, but the end will not come immediately.

I hope everyone's paying attention to what Jesus is saying. We tend to think that false teachers and false claims about Christ and cults and wars and rumors of wars and all kinds of bad things means that the end is immediate.

Jesus says, no, the end will not come immediately. Now, verse 10, then he said to them,

Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be great earthquakes in various places and famines and pestilences.

And there will be fearful signs and great sights and signs in heaven. But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons.

But who's he talking to? He is talking to his disciples. And these are the things that you are going to experience and you are going to see.

And synagogues are going to judge you and be thrown in prisons.

You will be brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake. But it will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony.

Who is Jesus talking to? Disciples still. Talking to his disciples. People, they said, they came to him saying, teacher, when will these things be?

That's who he's talking to. These things will happen to them. Now, that's what Jesus is saying. Jesus does not make idle promises.

Is he a good prophet? The best. The best. He tells the truth. Okay, so we know that all of this would be true of those whom he is talking to.

Okay, verse 14, therefore settle in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to contradict or resist.

You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends. And they will put some of you to death and you will be hated by all for my name's sake.

But not a hair of your head will be lost but by your patience possess your souls. Now, verse 20, but when you see

Jerusalem surrounded by armies, know then that its desolation is near.

So earlier said immediate, that it won't be immediate, and then here he's talking about a nearness.

Yes. But looking specifically for armies surrounding Jerusalem. That's right. Now, here's a word to Jesus -loving,

Bible -believing Christians. We read the words of Christ, you know, sometimes we feel like we're in the same room with him or we're sitting there listening to him teach us and you hear

Jesus speaking and you're saying, yes teacher, oh Lord tell me more. But remember, he was saying this to his disciples in that time about something that would happen in their near future.

We've got to remember what Jesus was saying and who was actually there. And it wasn't, it's not

Jesus pointing at us and saying you. He was saying that to his disciples in that time.

Verse 20 says, but when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near. Who's he talking to?

He's not talking to us. Now, is it troubling when we see armies, when we see insurgents, when we see violence, when we see destruction and people advancing, armies advancing against Jerusalem or perhaps another city somewhere?

Oh, it's very disturbing to our hearts. Like, oh, I don't want to see that. I don't want to see that happening. But when

Jesus was talking here, he was talking to his disciples about what they were going to see. And so he was saying, know that its desolation is near.

Now, Christians will sometimes just hear that one verse and they're gonna think to themselves, oh my, here we are, here's the end.

But what was Jesus saying to his original audience? Verse 21, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

Now, just for context's sake, when we read this very same teaching out of Matthew 24 and Mark 13,

Jesus calls this the Great Tribulation. And he says, the armies that surround Jerusalem, that is the abomination of desolation.

And many times people get worked up about those fancy words, but he explains it here in Luke. Which is interesting, because in Matthew, he's writing to the

Jews, so he uses that Jewish terminology, the desolation. And Luke is writing to Gentiles, so he just spells it out, armies surrounding...

They don't know the inside lingo. Yeah. So it's spelled out clearly. That's a call back to Daniel, right? It is. The abomination of desolation, as spoken of by Daniel the prophet, let the reader understand.

He's like, hey guys, I'm referring to something, you know what this is. What was the abomination of desolation?

You know, it's spoken of by Daniel the prophet. It was an army. And then Luke just sort of says it, well, plainly.

Says it plainly. Well, see, but you know, those who knew the inside Jewish baseball of the prophecies, right, even the wink was still there, hey, let the reader understand.

Remember what Daniel said? It says explained here in Luke. And so how does one escape from the Great Tribulation?

Well, let's read. Those who were in Judea flee to the mountains. Well, there you go. That's how you get out of it.

Let those who are in the midst of her depart, and let not those who are in the country enter her, which would be the temptation to run to Judea, to run to Jerusalem, which was a fortified city in times of duress.

But Jesus is saying, do not go to Jerusalem. That is not going to be a safe place for you. Verse 22, for these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.

Days of vengeance. Jerusalem is going to be destroyed, apparently. The temple is going to be destroyed, apparently.

And these are days of vengeance. So who's taking vengeance? God is taking vengeance.

On who? Jerusalem and Judea. He's destroying the temple. Why would he do that? Because he said he would in Deuteronomy chapters 28 and 29, if his people broke covenant with him, then he would take vengeance on them.

And he did so down to the last measure that he promised that he would. He always keeps his promises.

Verse 23, but woe to those who are pregnant and to those who were nursing babies in those days. Well, why is that? It's really hard to run on foot, right?

Nursing babies and being pregnant, it's no problem when you can get on a bus or a subway or a plane.

But in those days, that was a problem. For there will be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people, and they will fall by the edge of the sword and be led away captive into all nations.

And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. And that indeed happened in AD 70 when the

Romans overran Jerusalem and controlled the whole area. Now, the following passage in this very same chapter is where a lot of folks will say, but none of that could possibly be about the past.

Because the following language talks about things that could not have possibly happened yet. So this all must be future.

So even though it was Jesus saying to his disciples, you will see these things, certainly it must be something else.

However, let's read the text. Verse 25, and there will be signs in the sun and the moon and in the stars and on the earth, distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring, men's hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

A similar language in Matthew 24 and Mark 13 is even stronger, talking about simply the failure of the sun and moon and stars.

Falling from the sky. It may not... Blackened. Yes, exactly. Darkened. And it may not sound comforting, but it is comforting to know as Bible readers that such things have taken place many times over.

In the Old Testament, when we read about the fall of Egypt and Edom and Assyria and Babylon and even the fall of Jerusalem and Judea in 586

BC, in every single one of those instances, the Old Testament uses language that says the sun failed, the moon failed, the stars failed, all sorts of bad things happened.

And it is a metaphor to describe power outage, power down, things have failed.

I mean you have to be able to, and if you have a reference Bible or even just a Bible app, you can look up those terms.

The sun, moon, and stars, the sun turning to blood, all of these things falling. You can read about this

Isaiah 12, Isaiah 14, these actual world empires that existed in history, and this is the language that God uses for the fall of these pagan nations.

He has also used it of Israel, but Jesus is applying this language that was used to the fall of these empires on Jerusalem itself.

This is not the first time this has happened. The sun and moon and stars falling apparently has happened many times in history, and it has always been associated with the fall of a political power.

That's correct. It reminds me of Joseph's dream when he said, I saw the sun, the moon, and the stars bowing down, and his brothers took that to mean, oh authorities.

That's authority figures and this language seems to be similar to that. And they knew that sun, moon, and stars are good metaphors for governing authorities because that's the way

God said it in Genesis 1, that they set seasons and times and they govern the day and the night.

Do they ever represent spiritual authorities as well? Yes, we see that. It's a very effective metaphor to talk about governing authorities and recognizing that any governing authority on earth is not to be understood only materialistically, but is always connected to spiritual forces.

Right, it's not just straight politic. Never ever. Go ahead, please. I was gonna ask, so these are metaphors.

We want to believe the Bible, what the Bible has to say. It is true, but then the

Bible is talking metaphorically in the past. Is there a reason why when we get to this, we need to take it literal?

Yes, we say it's true, but is there a reason we should shift it to start thinking it's talking about literal sun, literal moon, literal stars?

One thing about Jesus, how he uses the Bible, right? How does he teach the

Bible? How does he speak the Bible? How does he refer to the Bible, right? Jesus is using biblical language to describe a judgment that was promised by God would come to pass.

So I think he's being very biblical in his language, and so we should just track with how he's using the

Bible to explain what's about to happen to those who would understand this language. They had this biblical language in their background as well.

So he's communicating clearly, all we have to do is interpret his words according to the

Bible. So let the Bible interpret the Bible would be the best course. Right, good. Another expression, another metaphor for judgment is clouds, that God would come in clouds.

There's a description of God coming in judgment in the book of Amos, and he comes on the clouds and mountains melt under his approach, and you know everything, you lose all sense of the landscape, you can't see the stars anymore, the mountains are all gone, everything is topsy -turvy.

What a great way to express the chaos and confusion of judgment.

And so throughout the Old Testament we have the language of clouds in connection with judgment. And so verse 27 of Luke 21 says, then they will see the

Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. In other words, who is in charge of all this judgment?

Who is the one who brings this judgment upon Jerusalem and Judea? He who treads the winepress.

He who treads the winepress. He is the king whom they crucified, and he said to the high priest, you will see the

Son of Man coming in glory. He didn't say that lightly, he said you're going to see the sign that the

Son of Man is in heaven, that indeed he reigns from the right hand of God, you're gonna see that when the judgment comes.

There's a particular way of reading that verse, because ordinarily how I see it referred to is, you will see the sign of the

Son of Man in heaven. As in, you will see some kind of sign, they're gonna see Jesus coming back, they're gonna see a sign in heaven.

Mm -hmm. And that's not exactly how you said that. You said you will see the sign that the Son of Man is in heaven.

Right. And in this case, when you look at the original language, you might be able to apply that really great meme, punctuation saves lives.

Let's eat, grandma. Yes, exactly. So in that case, when you read the original, it matters where you put the punctuation when you translate it.

Let's just put it that way. Real quick, because you mentioned the clouds, and we talked about that him talking to the high priest, and they said, you will see the

Son of Man. In Revelation 1 -7, behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even they who pierced him.

Yes. Which seems to be a reference to those that crucified him. So is Jesus really saying that there's this great judgment, power change kind of judgment, in which

Jerusalem and the temple are being destroyed, and we're to think of this destruction in such great terms that it accords with the destruction of empires of old, where sun, moon, and stars fail, and God comes in clouds.

Well, what does he say? Well, verse 29, then he spoke to them a parable. Look at the fig tree and all the trees.

When they are already budding, you see and know for yourselves that summer is now near. So also, when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near.

Now again, Bible believing, Jesus loving Christians, when you begin to see chaos in the world, you may take this passage and appropriate it for yourself, and say, oh, things are all bad right now, but the worse they get, the more clear it is to me that everything is about to get real good, real fast.

Okay, but who is Jesus talking to? Those who are observing all these things with their own eyes, in their own time.

To emphasize that, verse 32, Jesus says, assuredly I say to you, this generation, and it's very clear in the original, it means this generation.

He's talking about the people who are all around him, will by no means pass away. Generation in the

Bible, about 40 years. This generation will by no means pass away till all things take place.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away. So, I mean, this word, this word generation, if you look at it, the cross reference in Matthew, it's

Ginnea. It is the same word that's used, Matthew 1, 14 generations, 14 generations, 14 generations.

It's that word. It's not race, which would be Ginos. It's a period of time.

It's a word that was used over and over in that book, and you have no reason to think that it would be changing definitions.

I like that you were using, or that you kind of prefaced that a lot of people see these things in the world, and they use them as confirmations for their faith, or vindications for their faith, because is this not exactly what he's telling them, that these things being fulfilled are going to be vindications of their faith?

They're going to be confirmations of their faith? Indication that he is exactly who he said he was going to do. He's talking to the

Jews that he was judging, as well. Exactly. So, to those who might read this differently, that's exactly what this was meant for, but in a different reading, we would say.

Yeah, he's pastoring them because he knows this is going to be a very difficult time for them, and he does not want them to waver when all these things are going, they're gonna be very disturbed and upset.

He wants them to have confidence that this is exactly the way it's supposed to happen. All right now, brother, what about verse 35?

What does that mean about the whole earth? Now, surely, surely, what you're talking about happened to the land in your way of talking about it.

What about the idea that this is supposed to happen to the whole earth, those who will be overtaken in it? Mm -hmm.

Yeah, so the term, the word in the original for earth can be translated either land or earth, and it depends upon the context, and depends upon the the translators expectations of what the text means.

So, when earlier we read that Jesus says, you know, if you want to escape this great tribulation then leave

Judea, I think that gives us the context, you know, if you leave Judea and go to the mountains, you're fine. I think that clarifies what he means by the use of that term.

Additionally, it's good to remember that the impact of the Roman Jewish Civil War did, in fact, impact all of the known earth at that time in the same way that it would be talked about at the beginning of the

Gospel of Luke, wherein Caesar decided to tax the whole earth, did not include the

Chinese or the Native Americans, exactly, they didn't get taxed by it. But that expression does refer to the whole

Roman Empire, and that civil war between the Jews and the Romans did impact the entire Empire in a very negative way.

Well, yeah, I mean, the term world, I mean, you have Cosmos and Oikomene, I mean, so it's a different, you know,

Oikomene was the known world at the time. So this teaching of Jesus in which he is declaring the end of the

Old Covenant, okay, if there's no temple, no Jerusalem, no priests, no sacrifices, the whole thing comes to a shuddering end, according to the curses that we read in Deuteronomy, which, by the way, conclude by saying,

God's saying to Israel, I'm going to send you back as slaves to Egypt, but no one will want to buy you.

That actually happened in AD 70, when Jews were sent to Egypt as slaves after being conquered by the

Roman Empire, and they were sent down to Egypt to be sold as slaves, and nobody wanted to buy them, because the economy was wrecked in the world, and there was too many slaves on the market.

So God's Word is true, He always keeps His promises. But when Jesus teaches this, and talks about the judgment on the stewards of the

Old Covenant, who had broken the Old Covenant, the end of the Old Covenant, as Hebrews says, is obsolete and ready to pass away.

Jesus had many parables in which he said the unfaithful son would be judged, but the other son would be honored.

The wicked tenants of the vineyard would be destroyed, kingdom given to another group.

Those who were originally invited to the wedding feast would be destroyed, and their city burned with fire, and then others from the highways and hedges would be brought in to the kingdom.

Jesus had many, many parables to explain this before he got to his specifics in Luke 21, or Matthew 24, or Mark 13.

But that teaching of Jesus resonated so strongly with his followers. I mean, after all, he said, he said, you're not going to finish going to the cities of Israel before the

Son of Man comes. And he didn't mean come to end all of history with a resurrection, he meant come in judgment against Jerusalem.

Again, that is the metaphor throughout Scripture when God comes, very often that means he comes in judgment.

So that expectation of the end of the age, the end of the Old Covenant, this massive judgment that was about to take place, hung like a cloud over everything that the early

Church said and did. What kind of expressions do we find in the

New Testament? Were the apostles, were the early followers of Christ, were aware of this?

How did they talk? How did they write? How did they live? They used the term end times. They did.

The last days, final hour. Yes, us upon whom the end of the ages has come.

Brethren, beloved, it is the last hour. These are the last days.

Is this, I'm thinking of Acts, when they were selling their land. Mm -hmm.

Like that would enable them to leave Judea. I think of Ananias and Sapphira and you've got different people selling their land.

That would explain why they were doing. There's no need to hold on to land in Judea and Jerusalem when you know what's going to happen there, for sure.

But you do have like language, for instance, Paul advising and saying, you know, hey look, because of the present distress maybe you ought not get married.

Maybe it might be nice just everyone just kind of, you know, stick with what they're doing, get done what we can get done because of the present distress coming upon us.

Because of all these things are about to happen. But if you do get married, you're not sinning. But just know it's going to be more difficult, you know.

That language is near at hand. Yes. And then John, opening Revelation says,

I'm a fellow partaker of the great tribulation. That's right. So all throughout the New Testament we are given this expectation.

The riders are all on the edge of their seats. The big thing is about to happen and they're calling it the end times, the last days, the last hour.

What are they talking about? They believe Jesus. They believed their Lord Jesus of Nazareth, who is the

Christ, the Son of the living God, who said all these things will take place within this generation. And they believed him.

Now many liberal scholars who criticize the Bible point at Jesus's words and the plain meaning of what he said.

And the plain meaning of the Apostles who believe what he said. And they said the same thing. And they point at those things and say, look, by your own standards, oh

Christian, Jesus is a false prophet. By your own standards, the Apostles got it wrong.

Now what? Is some of that wrapped around the idea of his coming?

Because when we talk about you will not go through before the Son of Man returns. So are you saying it's done, it's all over, he's already come, what's left?

Right. So what we have in the Scripture is anticipation of the end of the Old Covenant, which was near.

And the promise that Jesus Christ would reign at the right hand of the Father to all of his enemies are placed as a footstool for his feet.

And then he would return and raise the dead. Promises of John chapter 5, promises of Matthew 25, the promises of Romans 8, that he would raise the dead and that the righteous and the unrighteous would be sorted before him like goats on the left and sheep on the right.

And that all men will be judged and all things will be settled. And guess what? True to form, a judgment involves clouds and trumpets and all kinds of imagery that other judgments throughout

Scripture also have. But just because we have imagery of judgment doesn't mean it's only talking about one event ever.

We have to read the context to see what it is that is being talked about. So you could say there there had been multiple appearances of judgment in the

Old Testament, on Jerusalem in 70 AD, and I know a lot of people use the term second coming, but maybe more clearly, we're still awaiting his final coming.

So the writers of the New Testament were awaiting the the judgment coming of Christ upon Jerusalem to end the

Old Covenant as he said would occur. They were also anticipating at the same time the fact that he would return to raise the dead.

Those two events were not the same thing. And I think a lot of people can get confused about that by not letting the context speak for itself about which one that is.

Because most people who would read, you know, Luke 21 and Mark 13 and Matthew 24, said this is referring to the second and final coming of Christ where he returns bodily as the

Book of Acts says that he ascended bodily, he returns bodily, raises the dead.

They conflate these, don't allow the context to say no, this is a local judgment for a specific purpose that ends the temple system and the

Jewish nation as a whole, puts an end to the Old Covenant so that the kingdom, which is spiritual, it starts to grow throughout the entire world.

And there is an end point to that which is clearly described in 1st

Corinthians 15, where he puts all of his enemies under his feet. And at that point, raised the dead, judges the world, enters the eternal state.

That is a very different event than a local judgment which destroyed a city and ended a temple system and ended a covenant relationship, you know, a true divorce.

Then, you know, the entire world being raised from the dead and the Book of Life opened up and you have your your resurrections.

That's a very different event. Yes, so I think one of the reasons why when you read

Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, Luke 17, and so on, many of the reasons why

Christians look at that and they say, oh, well that has to be the end of everything, is that they read about the sun, moon, and stars failing and all sorts of disasters happening in this seemingly global scale.

But the language there is the same language we have throughout the Bible to describe local judgments.

When I walk outside, the moon and stars are still there. Yes, but the local judgments all together as you read them and as they become more and more important throughout the history of the

Scripture, each one of those anticipates the fact that there will come a day. Every judgment, every judgment is a sifting of people into two categories and that anticipates the last judgment, the great day of judgment, which is a sifting of everything into two categories.

Indeed, the language of judgment that has been expressed time and again throughout the history that the

Bible records, that same language of judgment is used to describe the final return of Christ, and so that same language is there.

So you can understand why it might be a little confusing and why these things can get conflated. Sure. But when

Jesus says all these things will happen within this generation, he's not being confusing. He is clarifying.

I'm talking about a local temporal judgment and when he talks about other things, when he talks about the last day of judgment, he talks about it in different terms.

And our goal as Christians is to rightly understand the Scriptures and try to be as clear as Christ is about which is which.

So you can understand how people are going to hear the news about Israel and be concerned.

These are people today looking at the news in Israel today. Yes, and they read their

Bible and they see phrases in the Scripture that say, hey, when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, when there's all these wars going on, you get ready because here's the end.

Or you read in the Scriptures in the epistles that the Apostles are writing and they're saying, oh, we have such difficult times right now and evil is so thick and there are false teachers everywhere and these are the end times, these are the last days.

And we want to immediately accommodate those Scriptures to our personal experiences.

What's happened to me right now, cults have used this in the last, as you said, in the last hundred years, one that's kind of close to home,

Wacos and Branch Davidians, use this very language. We're the new Jerusalem, we're being surrounded by armies, the end is coming.

Yeah, and so we see that we need to be careful that we don't make the Bible about us when the

Bible is about Christ. And let's pay attention to what he was saying in his own time and what he promises about our future and make sure that we're trying to clarify the differences.

So we do have a hope that Christ will return. We do have a hope that he reigns.

We do have a hope that he wins and we win with him. We do have a hope that we will be caught up together with him in the air and that we will always be with him.

All of that is biblical language that we can hold to and rejoice in, but it doesn't have to do directly with how the political state of Israel happens to be doing at the moment.

What Jesus says to preface in that, that there will be the false teachers or false messiahs that are showing up beforehand, it reminds me of the phrase buy the rumor, sell the news.

It's like news traders. And I think we see a very similar outcome today with people who have bought the rumor and sell the news, who have either books or products out there that they that they're grifting a lot of this and pushing a lot of this content upon genuine believers.

It sells. Yeah, and that's what I think, I mean, how Lindsay sold the news for years. And we need to warn against that as well as Jesus has, but it's in a different way and in a different reading of the text.

Yeah, you had brought up false teachers, Jesus mentioning there will be false teachers. And Michael, you had mentioned all of that, that lesson that Jesus taught was answering concerns of the disciples because they asked him a question and he didn't just ignore their question and start talking about us today.

He was concerned about their concerns and he was answering their question and he brings up the false teachers.

Maybe as a comfort to some of our listeners and they're like, okay, we see false teachers, we see wars, we see things like that.

If Jesus was talking to them and that was fulfilled in 70 AD, like what's kind of going on?

In 2nd Timothy, he specifically mentions last days and Paul, a pastor to Timothy, trying to meet some of his concerns, it says, but know this, that in the last days perilous times will come.

And people automatically, last days, perilous times have come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents.

And it goes through all of this list of bad things and we see that throughout history, not just now.

But in the end of this section, he's talking to Timothy, he says this, down in verse 7, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Now as Janus and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth. Men of corrupt minds, disapproved, concerning the faith.

But they will progress no further, for their folly is manifest to all as theirs was also.

And we take the phrase, things will go from bad to worse, that's also in Timothy. And then here it says, but in the last days there will be these types of people.

But Paul tells Timothy, they will not persist, they will not prevail.

That's not the end state of things. You be hopeful. And then he calls

Timothy to faithfulness, which I think is, you know, our concern is, the world's fallen apart, what do we do?

Okay, read what Jesus said, his concerns to the disciples, he's answering their questions, now remain faithful.

Faithful to what? His word. We want to be, you know, we're trying to be consistent if we can, but there are, you referenced last days, is that the very last days of the

Old Covenant? Is the very last days of existence, you know, existence on earth? You know, so if you have only one definition of end times or age or any of those things,

I'm gonna add to that the Great Commission at the very end of Matthew, and when they saw him they worshipped, some doubted.

Jesus came and said to them, all authority on heaven and earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.

That doesn't stop with the destruction of the temple. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you, and behold, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age.

So the command to go and make disciples hasn't ended with the temple and Jesus is still walks among his people even to the end of the age or aeon.

So gotta use the local context. Jesus uses different terms, talking about the end of all things versus the end of this local judgment on this covenant for a specific purpose.

So to conflate them, you know, makes the Scriptures confusing, but keeping these things in their immediate grammatical context

I think is very clarifying. Yes. It really helps you, and it's protective. You're not going to use these verses to read the news and go, oh no, you can even if he's talking about, you know, these last days of the old covenant in your verse in Timothy, it still applies.

It still applies now. Well because Paul even said, he mentions last days and then he says that the false teachers have risen among you, talking to Timothy and tying it to the last days.

Sure. All right, so we have the end of the Old Covenant. So emphatically, when did the

Old Covenant end? Right, so, you know, the end of the Old Covenant is anticipated by all of the writers of the

New Testament. As they say, we are at the end of the age, the judgment is about to fall, and everything in the

New Testament was written before AD 70. So with the completion of the prophetic clock that Daniel gives us in Daniel chapter 9, we have the fulfillment of all of the judgment, the sealing up of prophecy, everything is brought to a nice and fitting end as far as the

Old Covenant is concerned. Why? Because it's obsolete, ready to pass away because the New Covenant has come. So we see with the destruction of biblical

Judaism in AD 70, it has never returned. Every facet of how God related to Israel and how

God made that Old Covenant with Israel and every expression that we have it, was done and gone in AD 70.

It has never returned, and the promises that we have, since they're fulfilled in Christ, is that it will never return.

And all the admonitions in Scripture from Colossians to Hebrews to Galatians and so on, is for Jews to trust in Christ and his fulfillment of all of God's promises, and not to look elsewhere.

So I think that's pretty definitive, that the Old Covenant is done, it served its purpose, God is glorified in trading all of those shadows for the substance, and Christ has all the glory.

So in that sense, our hope is in Christ, as all Christians, our hope is in Christ, and even though we have this modern state of Israel today, born out of all manner of different factors, we cannot read the

Bible by the latest news. We do, in our interpretations of the

Bible, will die with every news cycle. That is the definition of being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.

If your interpretation of the Bible changes with every news cycle, you've got a problem. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

He is the light by which we are to read the Scripture. So there you go, there's the immediate implication.

If the Old Covenant is done and has passed away because the new has come, and we see in history the emphatic, definitive,

Christ has said, this is judged, this is done, the new has come, and he is the one who has brought it, then there is nothing else that we should be expecting, anticipating, as far as Old Covenant language goes regarding this land and this people.

That has been fulfilled in the person and work of Christ. Yeah, so I think in a future episode we need to explore the ramifications of that New Covenant and for all peoples.

Amen. Well, I think that about wraps it up for our discussion on this subject, this particular spot of the subject, but we'll move on to what we recommend this week and we'll be quick about it this time.

Yeah, I would probably recommend reading the Olivet Discourse Made Simple by Kenneth Gentry.

It'll take you right through leaning heavily on Matthew, but also bringing along Luke and Mark, taking you passage by passage through the

Olivet Discourse and that lays it out pretty helpfully, and just using the plain meaning of the biblical text, interpreting the

Bible with the Bible, it's very clarifying and helpful. Amen. Chris? This past Sunday you talked about tyrants and all of this about the kingdom, who's the king,

Christ is king, king of kings, Lord of lords, but there are lesser magistrates, deacons, servants, right, the civil magistrate is a deacon,

Romans 13, and there's a book that I came across given some, you know, past year's battles with what does

Romans 13 mean, things like that. It's called The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates, A Proper Resistance to Tyranny and Repudiation of Unlimited Obedience to Civil Government.

It's by Matthew Trehuela and it was very helpful on going through what does

Romans 13 mean, is it an unlimited obedience, just do what the government says because they're the government, or is there a higher power, maybe a king over the kings, and it was very helpful.

Amen. David? I came across a very short work, it's one of my favorite websites is modernjism .com,

and you can just spend an entire afternoon just looking through all the things that you wish you had time to read.

This short work is by Thomas Boston. Thomas Boston is a Scottish theologian, he died, he was born in the mid -1600s, died in the mid -1700s, and his work is

Useful Directions for Reading and Searching the Scriptures, and it's just a list of nine points, it's a single page long, but this is the one that really caught my number three.

Engage in comparative study, scrutinizing the more enigmatic verses alongside those that offer greater clarity.

This practice is an outstanding means to decipher the intended meaning of scriptures. The marginal notes found in some

Bibles can also be of great service in their endeavor. Be ever mindful of Christ, for he is the focal point to which the

Old Testament scriptures allude in his genealogies, typologies, and sacrificial rites, just as the

New Testament scriptures do. And how many times have we said use scripture to interpret scripture, use more clear passages to interpret less clear passages, we use the

New Testament to interpret the Old in the light of Christ. Thomas Boston beat us to the punch by a couple hundred years.

Oh boy, good stuff. Andrew? Shocker of all shocks, I was reading some of the

Patristic writings, I was actually reading Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians, and I was reading it trying to like maybe in parallel with the

Epistle, Paul's Epistle obviously, yeah, and just being struck by, you know, obvious consistency by one of John's disciples, and being very grateful that we have these are very early writings preserved for us.

In fact, there was actually a question that my wife had asked about those who have been put out of the congregation based on some type of unrepentant sin under church discipline, and this

Epistle talked about is treating them as though they're still members, praying for them, beckoning for them to repent, and it's a good reminder of the love that's shared among the brothers, that it does not cease whenever someone is under church discipline, but rather our prayers for them and beckoning them to submit and to repent is still a large part of being part of the body of Christ.

There's a quite a push, movement, pull, whatever you want to call it, for young men to right now generalize, especially in our circles, to spread one's knowledge far and wide in order to be ready for what is to come around the corner if the days be dark and the future unknowable or very shaky, but recently

I've been thinking on the benefits of specialization in a market economy and how the Lord creates men to both be general in knowledge, but also specialization in talent and skill and workmanship, and to use a specialization within the market in order to economize with one another, and I think the church is one of the places that we can see that in one of the most glorious ways, so my recommendation is to consider your specialization, consider how it might help the body, how it might also just help the general market, and a lot of times hopefully that general market is going to be made up of people who are of the body all the time, and that's what we're looking for as we are

Christians in the market, acting as Christians in the market, we hope to be maybe discipling others in the market as well, so consider your specialization.

Michael, what are we thankful for this week? I am thankful for the way that Christ built his church. I was reading a book on the history of dispensationalism and there were comments made by G.

Campbell Morgan and C .I. Schofield about when the rapture comes it's going to be in the great white centers of Europe and America.

Why did they say that? Because, not because they were inherently racist, it's because they saw that that's where the majority

Christian world was, so they figured when the rapture came and they expected it at any moment, that those getting sucked up into heaven would be a whole bunch of white

Europeans. I am so thankful that on over a hundred years from their time, great centers of Christianity are not monolithic.

I'm thankful for the way Christ built his church. I'm thankful for all the churches in South Korea, all the churches in China, the churches in Iran, the churches in Indonesia.

I'm thankful for missionaries that I've met that have talked about the growth of the gospel in Saudi Arabia.

I'm thankful for churches sending missionaries from Venezuela to North Africa to evangelize the

Muslims. I'm thankful for the way Christ builds his church. He's doing a wonderful job and I want to give him praise for that.

Amen, Chris. I am thankful for the richness of Scripture. I'll never be able to go deep enough.

The deeper I go, the more I'm like, there's so much more and the richness of the language.

A little while back we finished studying Revelation and you brought up God making a painting and he's taking all these colors, these metaphors from the

Old Testament and just mixing them together and the consistency of it.

It's one story from beginning to end, different authors, but it's saying the same thing in different ways and it's just so rich and it's beautiful to me and I'm grateful for that.

Amen, David. I am thankful for my in -laws, specifically my mother -in -law and her heart.

I got a birthday card from her. My birthday was several months ago and she didn't realize that she,

I'm sure I talked with her or texted or something, but she wanted to make sure that I got my birthday card and she wrote in it and so did my my dad, but I'm very thankful for Betsy.

I'm very thankful for her heart. She is just a foundation in that family and no matter where people are in the world or in the country, they can always come to their house and they are welcomed, they are safe, and they are very well fed.

So I am very thankful for my mother -in -law and her heart. Amen, Andrew. I'm thankful to God for my one flesh, my wife, who a work of the

Spirit began in her in a way that has affected the entire household. I commented on previous episodes about just the work of the

Spirit. Unless the Lord builds the house, we who try to build it, it's in vain. It's remarkable how many times in our own human efforts we may strive to change this, we may try strive to change that.

There's some deficiency or I'd rather do better at this, but when the Spirit becomes active and conforms you to the image of His Son, there's no going back.

It's just it's a breath of fresh air when it happens. So I thank God for that.

It has affected the entire household, and to God be the glory. Amen. I'm thankful to God for His active and consistent and continual control over history and His sovereign will even over the smallest of things, including insurance agencies and their ways, because I feel the natural pull, as I've seen others dealing with those things, to rage as well.

These men and women, a lot of times they're the ones raging, and the pull of the flesh is to rage against back. And that's what we see throughout history, is a continual pull toward violence towards one another, a temptation of the flesh to continue on that cycle.

But Christ breaks it. Christ rules over it, and He continually reminds us of that in our daily walkings, in our daily doings in life, and those reminders are so welcome in my life, because if those reminders were not there, the depths of my depravity would know no bounds.

And yet He holds me, and He withholds my pulls towards these temptations, and I'm so very thankful that He holds it all in His hands and not mine.

And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners, and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Having Not Read.