120. It's The End Of The World: Understanding Eschatology (PART 1)

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If he meant that the last days of human history, the last days of life on earth, the last days before the eternal state, then

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Peter was wrong, the Bible has lied, and we need to all go find another hobby. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the podcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf.

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This is episode 120. It's the end of the world. Introduction.

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When Christians think about the end of the world, they often imagine it as the end of human history.

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But that's not right. Today, we're going to dive into that topic and we're going to see why that is wrong and how that actually causes us to have a flawed view of eschatology.

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Now, eschatology is often one of the most misunderstood disciplines in all of theology.

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Today, we are going to dive into why that there's so much misconceptions and we're going to uncover the true essence of biblical eschatology.

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Because we don't want to have a bad eschatology or a flawed eschatology. We don't want to be like the moderns who flatten out the biblical worldview so much that it tastes like paper -thin rice cakes, which no one really enjoys at all.

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Today, we want to see the Bible as it is. We want to understand what the Bible says about the world and the current age that we are living.

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And if we don't do that hard work, then we're going to miss how the Bible describes the world as occurring in two specific epochs.

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The Bible doesn't describe the world as a singular thing. It talks about two worlds. There's the world of the

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Old Testament and the Old Covenant and the old types and shadows. And then there's the world of the new.

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There's the Old Testament world where God builds hand or God causes the people to build hand -built temples and they have human priests who serve them and they participate in real festivals and feasts and they have profits and sacrifices and all of that.

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That's how God related to his people in the old world, in the old Jewish age.

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But it was always a placeholder that was preparing them for something better. That old era began, you could say, as early as Eden, where God sacrificed an animal in the temple garden for the life of his people.

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So that sort of tabernacling temple motif, that old world of of Judaic forms, it began in as far back as the

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Garden of Eden, but it climaxed at Jerusalem's temple. That was the height of the era, all before it came cataclysmically crashing in 1870.

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So you've got the beginning of the Bible starting in Eden. You've got Solomon's temple in Jerusalem, and then you've got the downfall of the

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Jerusalem temple in 1870. That whole timeline marks the period of time that we're calling the old world.

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God replaced all of those things with something far superior and far greater, which is

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Jesus Christ. What we're going to be talking about today is how Jesus brought a new world, a new age where he reigns and expands his dominion throughout the church.

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And it's in that new age where we worship in local churches and where God dwells in the hearts of his people by the power of the

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Holy Spirit. The old system was limited, and all of those limitations are now gone.

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Instead of us traveling to Jerusalem, which is what you'd have to do in the old world, we now take part in the

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Eucharist. We're baptized with the lasting sacramental waters. We're covered once and for all by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.

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We worship in the Lord's house on the Lord's day, and the Lord himself actually dwells inside of our hearts because of what

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Jesus has done. All of those old covenant elements and forms have been put away now.

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They've been replaced by something better in the new covenant that Jesus brings. When Jesus rose from the dead, he ushered in a brand new world, replacing the old world and making all things new in him.

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That's why the old temple and the sacrificial system had to be put away, because they were placeholders for Christ.

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They were types and shadows of the coming of Christ. Because Jesus is better, those things could no longer exist.

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Because those things were in competition with Jesus, well, Jesus had to put them away, put them back up on the mantle and on the shelf where they belong.

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In the first century, the old Jewish world and the new world that Christ had brought did actually, for a time period, exist side by side.

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There wasn't a clear break. When Jesus rose from the dead in 8030, all the way until 8070, which is a 40 -year period of time, these two worlds were competing against one another to see which one was going to be the one who won out.

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The temple in Jerusalem and the new creation temple in Christ, they were in direct opposition.

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This is why the Jews actually persecuted Christians, because the Christians were saying that, no,

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Jesus is the true temple, and the Jews were saying, no, our temple is the true temple.

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Because of that, because there was controversy over the sacrifice, Jesus is the true sacrifice, no, no, no, no, no, the blood of bulls and goats is, no, our festival, the

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Lord's supper, is the true festival, no, Passover is. You had all of this sort of competition between the old world and the new world, between the

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Jewish age and the Christian age, and God wanted no confusion to abound, so he put that old world down, and he brought about fully his new world that he was bringing in Christ, so that now that is the only way, the only truth, and the only path by which you can know the

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Father. You don't have to go to Jerusalem anymore to know the Father. You know the Father through the Son. You don't have to go to the temple.

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You know the Father through your relationship with the Holy Spirit and through your local church. Today, we're going to explore how

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God put away that old world, and we're going to do so by looking at it through the book of James, through the book of Jude, through 1 and 2

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Peter, and 1, 2, and 3 John, which are called the general epistles, and we're going to look at it from that lens.

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How did God put away the old world? That view is what in eschatology is called preterism.

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Preterism is what has happened in the past, and I divide eschatology, just so you know, into two distinct categories, especially when we're talking about New Testament eschatology.

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New Testament eschatology is divided into what God has already done in the past and what

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God is going to do in the future. My view is that God has fully, totally, and permanently put away the old world of Judaism.

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It is not coming back. We're not going to have red heifers. We're not going to have temples. We're not going to have a new sacrificial system with a brand new priesthood.

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That old world is gone. That's what's in the past, and that's what we're going to talk about today.

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What is in the past, preterism, and how has Jesus fully put that away?

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But because I'm not a full preterist, I don't believe that God has put everything in the past.

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I don't believe that all of the eschatological passages in the Bible are finished, so we have to talk about this again next week.

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I want to use the exact same books of the Bible that we're talking about this week. I want to look at James again, and 1 and 2 and 3

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John, 1 and 2 Peter, and Jude. I want to see how they also tell the story of the new world that Christ is bringing.

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You see, all eschatology has to do with one of these two worlds. It's either the world of the

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Old Testament or the world of the New Testament, and we're going to look at both over the next two weeks. We're going to see how that old world is put away, and that new world that Jesus has brought is going to come and come in full at AD 70, so it's going to spread.

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His dominion is going to conquer all. We live right now in that world where Jesus is reigning, his church is growing, his glory is spreading, and it's going to continue to be the case until all people come into Jesus's kingdom, which is what we've been talking about now for the last several weeks if you've been in and following along with this series.

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So today, I want us to look at the old world. I want us to look at the general epistles, and I want us to see what they say about why this old world was going to collapse, what was causing it.

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I want to look at the timing of that collapse, and I also want to look at a couple Greek words that are going to be extremely helpful for us as we continue.

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So with that, let us dive right in and see what the Bible has to say about these things.

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Part one, the reasons for the end. Reason one, the prophets foretold it.

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Now when we think about the old world of temples, priests, sacrifice, feast, all of the

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Mosaic law, when we think about that old world, the way that which men in the old world knew God, all of that, the

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Old Testament, when we think about that, we know that it ended, and it has not come back now for the last 2 ,000 years.

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But the question we have to ask ourselves is why did it end? And to get that answer, you could start as early as the

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Garden of Eden, but I want to take us back to the 6th century BC where Daniel predicted these things were going to happen.

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In Daniel 9, he says that the Jews were going to kill the anointed Messiah, and he goes on to indicate that this anointed

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Messiah was there to lead them into this new world, this new era, this new dispensation, not in that way, of faith where we know faith through the anointed

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Son of God. He says that they were going to kill their anointed Messiah, and it was going to be the beginning of the end of their old covenant world,

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Daniel 9 .26. He tells us that a new people, a new way of worshiping God is going to rise out of the ashes of Israel's demise, which means that the anointed

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Son of God is going to be bringing about a new way for people to know God, not at a temple, not with a sacrifice.

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It's going to be knowing God through him, through his sacrifice, through his mediatorial work.

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It's going to be through him. Now, Malachi also prophesies the very same thing.

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He talks about the day when God himself is going to come to the temple, and he's going to come to the temple in the flesh, and the people are going to be so confused by this that they're going to turn around and kill

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God's Son. Instead of rejoicing that God, who they said lived in the temple, shows up, instead of rejoicing in that, they kill

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God. They kill his Son. And for all of those who do that, they're going to receive severe punishment from God.

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God is going to pour out his fire upon that generation, and they are going to be utterly destroyed.

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But for those who receive him, for those Jews who repent and jump off of the sinking ship called

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Judaism and come into Messiah's kingdom, they, the fire of God, will not destroy them, but will purify them.

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They are going to be saved. They are going to be brought into the new world, the new kingdom. The kingdom of new creation.

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They're going to be brought into the new, whereas all of those who rejected Christ are going to be stuck drowning in the old.

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Those are the two worlds that Malachi is highlighting, and the Jews that he prophesies are going to reject their

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Messiah, they did. They pronounced the ultimate rejection when they said that they have no king but Caesar, John 19 .15.

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They not only turned their back on Christ, but they demonstrated how godless they had become by killing him, pinning him to a cross, putting him in a grave.

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They killed their God. So in a nutshell, I know

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I just quoted two, but we could quote way more than that. I'm trying to keep this episode at a reasonable length. In a nutshell, the prophets looked forward to a day, to a time when the

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Messiah would come and he would bring about new creation, the new world, the new world where God dwells with his people again, where the people live with God and enjoy

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God, where God is writing his law on their hearts, where God is going to ransom people, forgive them of their sins.

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Though they are a scarlet, it's going to wash them white as snow. There's passages all over the Bible of this coming era of salvation that is going to happen.

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Not in temples, not with priests, not with sacrifice. That old world was there for a season and it's going to be gone and we're going to come into the world where we know

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God through Christ. The prophets are talking about it and the

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Jews missed it. That's the first reason. The prophets foretold this was going to happen and it did.

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Reason number two, the Jews rejected and killed the Messiah. Now, in addition to the prophets actually talking about this,

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John the Baptist warns the Jews that the axe is already at the root of the tree. That means that one more swing and the axe is going to knock the whole thing over and that's early in the gospels.

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That's early in the New Testament that he's telling them that these things are going to happen. He's telling them that God is ready like a judge to bring his predetermined judgment upon them and that they would do well if they would repent, that they would leap out of the sinking ship and cling to Christ as their only ark, their only life raft, their only way, their only hope,

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Matthew 3 .10, Matthew 3 .12, but they didn't. Jesus himself and along with his disciples called that generation to repent, but Jesus ultimately said that they were stiff necked.

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They were unrepentant. They were hard of heart. They were a wicked and an adulterous generation, even likened them to Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon.

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He likened them to the wandering wilderness generation who died without ever seeing the promised land,

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Matthew 12 .39 and 41 through 42. He told them right at the end of his life, he told them three successive parables where he tells them your world of the old covenant, your world is collapsing and you're going to lose it.

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And they didn't listen. For instance, in Matthew 12 or in Matthew 21, 31, he tells them that prostitutes and tax collectors are going to enter into the kingdom before them and they didn't listen.

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Then he tells them another parable in verse 43 that that God is going to take away the kingdom from them and give it to another.

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The old world is that they had where they were the chosen people where they had the temple and the priest and that old world was crashing and Jesus was going to give the keys to the kingdom, to the apostles and his church.

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They missed it. Old world is crashing and they went down with the ship. New world is coming.

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They missed the boat. Perhaps one of the scariest parables in that triage or that trio is in Matthew 22, one through 14 verse seven says that because they didn't accept his invitation to the wedding feast that the king became enraged.

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God himself became enraged and he sent his armies to set that city on fire.

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And that is exactly what happened. Jesus came and invited the Jewish people to the wedding feast.

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His disciples came and went town by town by town through the Jewish cities, inviting them into the wedding supper of the lamb.

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And they missed it. And they not only missed it, they rejected him. So he went out into the highways and byways and he brought in the

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Gentiles into his church. And what did he do? He set their city on fire.

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Matthew 22, seven says that he would, and he did. He sent his armies.

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He sent the armies of Rome because every army on earth belongs to him. And they burned the city to the ground and ended biblical

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Judaism. Do you see the point I'm making? Biblical Judaism does not exist.

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People may say, you know, the Abrahamic religions, you've got Islam and Judaism and Christianity.

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That's not true. It's not true. Modern day Judaism is not biblical

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Judaism. Modern day Judaism does not have a temple. Modern day Judaism does not have a priesthood.

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Modern day Judaism does not have a sacrificial system. Modern day Judaism does not have an operative festival calendar.

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Modern day Judaism is a rag tag thrown together and duct taped religion after God took away all of their stuff.

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You can't have Judaism in the biblical sense without a temple, without a priesthood, without a sacrificial system.

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You can't. And you don't. There is no such thing today as biblical Judaism. What you have today is manmade religion masquerading as mosaic formalism.

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That's it. God removed it from the world. He removed that old world of Judaism, clean off the ancient landscape so that it doesn't exist anymore.

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Why? Because he was making way for the kingdom of his son. Jesus foretold explicitly about the desolation of Jerusalem and its temple and God's wrath and how it was going to be poured out upon that generation.

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Matthew 23, 36, Matthew 23, 38, he predicted not one stone was going to be left upon another in that temple.

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Matthew 24, 2, he said that the Romans were going to come and break it apart bit by bit by bit.

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And that's exactly what they did. As the temple melted with the fire, gold actually melted down into the cracks of the rocks so that when they, they had to actually break the rocks apart with hammers and chisels so that they could get all of the gold.

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Not one stone was left upon another. The Roman armies turned the city of Jerusalem into a smoldering dumpster fire.

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Luke 21, 20, the horrific nature of this event was going to happen in a single generation.

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It's not, Jesus didn't say that these things are going to happen 2000 years into the future. We've got to read the Bible. Matthew 21 says the kingdom is going to be taken from them.

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It was. Matthew 22, city's going to be set on fire. It was. Matthew 23, judgment, doom is going to happen on this generation.

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It was. Then Matthew 24, 34 says that that one generation is it.

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He said, some of you are not even going to taste death before you see these things occurring. This has nothing to do with our lifetime, nothing to do with what, what, with what we're going to see in the future with the world economic form or whatever else.

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That's foolishness. These prophecies were fulfilled with undeniable exacting clarity in the lifetime of the people who saw it and of the people who said it,

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Jesus prophesied and it happened tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands.

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I think even millions of Jews were killed in the city of Jerusalem. They starved to death.

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They were killed by themselves. There was an internal civil war. There was dead bodies lying over the street.

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There was blood flowing out of the top of the temple Mount that was, that was so deep that the puddles will go up to your mid calf.

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Josephus records the terrible calamities that were happening where men were eating trash and feces, where women were roasting their babies.

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This is the judgment that Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 prophesied was going to happen and it did because God's covenant people turned away from their

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God, that old world of idolatry, of faithlessness, of turning away from God, of desecrating the temple, of not offering the sacrifices of robbing

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God of the tithe, all of that old world unfaithfulness and idolatry was being put away so that the new world of Christ who would make his people faithful, who would write his law on their hearts could come.

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So the prophets, they foretold it, John the Baptist, he foretold it, Jesus foretold it. They warned all of them about this event, this cataclysmic event that was going to happen, and the

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Jews ignored them. They were too in love with their types and their shadows to come to him and because they killed him and rejected him, he put them away.

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Reason three, the general epistles confirm it. Now, not only do the prophets confirm this and John the

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Baptist confirms this and Jesus confirmed this, that's enough. But the general epistles, that's James, Jude, Peter and John, all of those epistles confirm the same thing.

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The coming national calamity that we saw is echoed in these books, particularly in James and first Peter.

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For instance, James criticizes the Jewish aristocracy for their unrepentance, for their wealth and their exorbitance and for killing

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God's son. This is what he says in James chapter five, verse one through six. He says, Come now, you rich weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you.

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Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth eaten.

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Your gold and your silver have rusted and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire.

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It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure.

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Behold, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields and which has been withheld by you cries out against you and the outcry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the

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Lord of Sabbath. You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure.

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You have fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and put to death the righteous man and he will not resist you.

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There's so much that we could talk about in here. James emphasizes that these are the last days. He says that you've done this in the last days.

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You fatten your hearts in the day of slaughter. You've done these evil actions in the last days, which means that we're not waiting for the last days to come 2000 years into the future.

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James is saying those last days were happening then. Those last days were happening in their lifetime.

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This has absolutely nothing to do with the end of human history. As some may suggest, people will read this and say, oh, well, that has to do with the end of history.

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No, it doesn't. This has to do with a sinful, demonically inspired

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Jewish people at that time who turned on Christ and who clung to their old covenant forms instead of him.

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They were called to flee from their sin and join Jesus. And they didn't. And calamity overtook them.

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This judgment event was not something that was said to be far off. Can you imagine if a prophet comes and says, you need to repent?

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You need to do this because judgment is coming to some people at some point in time, 2000 years in the future.

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So you better get your act together or somebody else is going to pay. That makes no sense.

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James, Jesus, John, all of them were saying to the Jews, you need to repent because judgment is about to come on you.

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It's going to result in the destruction of your country, the enslavement of your people, the end of your religious festivities, your religious institutions.

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It's not some far off and distant judgment. It's imminent and it's imminent in the first century.

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And James is pointing to the end of that old covenant order all the way back then.

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Which means that the end of that old world happened then. When we say the end of the world, we're talking about then.

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Peter does basically the same thing in his epistle. 1 Peter 2, 7 -8 says it like this.

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This precious value then is for you who believe. It's just for you who believe, but for those who disbelieve.

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The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the very cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word and to this doom, they were also appointed.

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Peter tells us that they were appointed for destruction. That the old world had an expiration date on it.

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The temple, the priesthood, the Jews who were the first chosen people, the sacrificial system, the festivals, all of that had an expiration stamp.

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They were appointed to end and because they didn't see that and because they didn't get off of that and follow

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Christ, they were going to be appointed for destruction. Because they rejected Christ, their cornerstone, the entire old covenant world was collapsing before their very eyes and they didn't have the good sense to follow

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Christ. If they wanted to survive, they had to let go of their temple, let go of their priesthood, let go of their sacrificial system and turn to Jesus who was the true and better temple, the true and better sacrifice.

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He's the true high priest. They got something better in Jesus, but they were too busy clinging to what they had and they missed it.

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Reason four, the Jews persecuted Jesus' bride. Now, Jesus didn't hold back when he warned his followers about the persecution that they were going to face from the first century

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Jews. He told them that they were going to be scourged in the synagogues, that they were going to be handed over to the pagan rulers and even killed for their faith.

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Matthew 10, 17 through 18 and Mark 13, 9. Jesus said that these persecutions were going to happen because the world hates him.

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Luke 21, 12 and that actually thought that they were going to be offering these persecutions in service to God.

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But one of the things I think is so fascinating is that Jesus says that he's deliberately sending his followers right into the heart of the persecution, right into the belly of the beast, right into the midst of the wolves, like lambs to the slaughter.

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He's doing that. Why? Because he's going to expose the Jews of their sins and he was going to abandon them to their destruction.

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Matthew 23, 34 and Luke 11, 49. After Jesus' resurrection and ascension, you would think that the hostilities would calm down, but they don't.

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The book of Acts documents the incredible intensification of the punishment that the

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Jews were leveling against the early Christians. The book of Acts talks about the relentless Jewish persecutions against the early church.

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Priests, temple guards, and Sadducees were arresting, beating, and jailing the apostles for preaching the gospel.

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Acts 4, 1 through 3, Acts 5, 17 through 18. By the way, I'm going to give you all the references so that you can look them up and make sure what

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I'm saying is true. Next, after that period of early persecution, Stephen, the early deacon was stoned to death while Paul, later called

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Saul, was watching and approving of it. Acts 7, 54 through 60. Saul, the man who was a first -class

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Pharisee before he converted, he was ravaging the early church, killing and imprisoning Christians, going from town to town to town and dragging them to their death.

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Acts 8, 1 through 3. That's one of the reasons why Paul says that he's the chief of sinners because he did such awful things.

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Now, his dramatic conversion from Saul to Paul, from hater of Christ to follower of Christ, didn't actually quell the

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Jewish persecution at all. It actually intensified it again. The Jews, after seeing that Paul was now a convert, amped up their persecution even hotter and even heavier, trying to kill

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Paul. And Paul actually had to escape out of the city of Jerusalem or out of the city of Damascus by being lowered in a basket through an opening in the wall.

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He was public enemy number one. Acts 9, 23 through 25. Herod, this is not

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Herod the Great, but it's Herod the Great's son, saw that it pleased the Jews whenever he would go on a murdering rampage and killing

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Christians. So he killed lots of Christians, which opened up this incredible era of hundreds of Christians being murdered by Herod.

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This includes the brother of Jesus, whose name is James. And we also know that Herod almost succeeded in killing

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Peter if it wasn't for the Holy Spirit, letting Peter out of jail and setting him free. Now, Peter would eventually die in Rome, but I'm just saying that at this period of time, persecutions are full throttle.

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Jewish jealousy against Christ, against his church, was continually erupting all over the place, such that Paul and Barnabas could barely preach the gospel without turning entire cities upside down.

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They beat them. They left them for dead. They pulled them by their feet and dragged them out of the city.

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They imprisoned them. All of these things were happening to the lives of the people who were preaching the gospel.

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Violent persecutions and attempts on their lives were happening almost every day. Acts 13, 45 through 50,

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Acts 14, 1 through 6 and verse 19 through 20 as well. In Thessalonica, Jews formed a mob against Paul.

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And when they heard of his success in Berea, they stirred up the crowds to beat him again.

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Acts 17, 5 through 8 and 13. In Corinth, they accused Paul before the procouncil

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Gallio. That's Acts 18, 12 through 13. In Jerusalem, they incited another crowd against Paul, leading to his arrest.

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Acts 21, 27 through 31. Forty Jews even conspired to kill him and bound themselves with an oath that they were going to ambush him or they weren't going to eat.

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Acts 23, 12 through 15. Their madness and hatred had reached new levels.

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And Paul's writing captures the relentless hostility of the Jews. He acknowledges that the Judean Christians were suffering at the hands of their own countrymen, just as he had.

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He recounts his numerous beatings and stonings and the dangers that he faced from the Jews on every side in 2

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Corinthians 11, 24 through 26. And he tells of those things not as a badge of pride, but to acknowledge the fact that following Jesus in this time period was life -threatening and dangerous because the

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Jews, like savage dogs, like rabid dogs, were attacking everyone who called upon the name of Christ.

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Paul reflected upon his former life as a zealous Pharisee and the one who intensely persecuted the church in Philippians 3, 5 through 6,

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Galatians 1, 13 through 14. Paul is laying the landscape for us to understand that persecutions were intense and they were heavy and the church was going through massive amount of pain and suffering in those early years.

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I even say that the first century church is the most persecuted church in church history.

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The Jews were responsible per capita and per pound, if you will, for inflicting the largest and greatest persecution on Jesus's people.

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Now, this isn't just revealed to us in the epistles of Paul or in Acts. It's also revealed to us in the general epistles, which we've been examining today, which they highlight the persecutions as well.

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James encourages believers, which this is a passage that we don't often think about in this way, where he says that, you know, count it all joy when you suffer trials of various kinds.

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He's not talking about you suffering trials as in you had a flat tire. Count it all joy, brother, when you have flat tires of various kinds.

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He's not talking about that you and your Snuggie Muffin got into a little bit of an argument and now that's the trial that you're facing.

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He's talking to Jewish believers in Jesus who are being afflicted and attacked and murdered.

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Their throats are getting slit by their own countrymen. So that when he says, count it all joy, my brothers, when you experience trials of various kinds, he's talking about the

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Jewish persecution on the church and he's saying, have joy. Count it all joy when you suffer for the name of Jesus.

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This is the man who died at the hands of Herod who killed him to please the

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Jews. This is this is the man who wrote it. He warns the wealthy Jews at the time.

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They had lots of money. They were wealthy and they were persecuting the Jews. James warns them, as we've already read in chapter 5, 1 through 6 and verse 9, where he tells them that that they fatten themselves for the day of slaughter.

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He's saying that because you've attacked the bride of Christ, you really think the bridegroom is going to let you off the hook?

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No way. The bridegroom is coming for you. If you don't repent, you're doomed.

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And that is exactly what happened. Peter urges Peter himself, urges the

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Christians to face persecutions with courage, knowing that God is the one who's going to refine their faith.

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First Peter 1, 6 through 7. First Peter 4, 12 through 14. He tells them not to be not to be surprised at the fiery trials that they're going through.

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He says, don't be surprised. The Jews hate Christ. The Jews hate you. Do not be surprised when they attack you.

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That's the context for these passages. Not do not be surprised when you're living paycheck to paycheck.

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And that's the fiery trial that that you're surprised about. In a general way, cast your anxieties on him because he cares for you and he's good and he will take care of you.

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Not a hair of your head is unknown to him. He's going to, if you seek first the kingdom of God, he'll take care of your paycheck, living paycheck to paycheck, or being broke or being poor or whatever.

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That matters to God. But it's not what he's saying in these passages. He is talking to first century

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Christians who are being bludgeoned, beaten, bruised, and murdered by the

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Jews. And he's telling them to have joy. And if they can have joy as they're dying for their faith, how much more can we have joy when our air conditioner goes out or when we didn't get to eat at the nice restaurant because they didn't put down our reservation?

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Like we are so spoiled. We are so spoiled. These passages talking about people dying for their faith.

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How much more so should we be joyful when we live in such blessing? That's what

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Peter says. Jude acknowledges that these persecutions were happening. He acknowledges that false teachers were coming into the community of faith and they were perverting the gospel.

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They were persecuting believers because of this. That's Jude verse three through five. He assures the church that as they contend for the faith that these individuals who are who are persecuting and who are causing untold damage in the community that God had marked them out for destruction long ago, that God had marked out this first century cohort of Jewish persecutors in the same way that he marked out

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Sodom and Gomorrah in the same way that he marked out the false angels that left their heavenly abode and had sex with humans.

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That he's saying that in verses six through seven of the book of Jude that God knows that they're being persecuted and God is going to bring the persecutors to an utter ruin in the same way that Sodom and Gomorrah was set on fire by falling rocks and by volcanic eruptions and however it was that it happened back in those days that the same furious torrent is coming upon the first century

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Jews. And John in his epistles, he reminds Christians not to be surprised if the world hates them, not to not to be taken aback or taken off guard that the world hates them.

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The Jews hate them. And there's a lot of context in John for this. He's signaling to them that that this hatred that they have for Christians is a sign of their coming judgment.

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First John three thirteen. He says that when they hate you, they're demonstrating that they've been set apart for destruction.

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Jesus decided to destroy this old world, the old world of the Jews, the old world of Judaism, the old world of the temple.

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He decided to destroy it. And as a result of all of that, these five reasons that we've given, they're going to be destroyed.

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But there's one more reason that they're going to be destroyed. There's one more reason that they're going to be put away. There's one more reason that God is going to completely obliterate that old world.

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And it's because it was declaring a false gospel that was going to lead many people to hell out of love for people.

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God put away the old world and it's all of its compromise and all of its failure and all of its false gospel because he didn't want anything at all to compete with his glorious gospel.

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So reason five, the Jews were destroyed because they proclaimed a false gospel in the final days of the old covenant world.

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I'm talking AD 68, 69 and 70. I'm talking at the end of Judaism, at the end of the temple, at the end of all of that, at the end of that era, the

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New Testament reveals to us that there was a fierce opposition that the early

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Christians were facing. And it wasn't just physical persecution. It was, it was errant and heretical gospels that were being proclaimed in churches, leading people astray.

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And the apostles dealt with it. They didn't only deal with physical persecution, but they also dealt with a spiritual battle against the anti -Christ gospel that was being spread among their own people.

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You see that time the Jews were coming into the churches and they were trying to convince people to go back on their faith.

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They were trying to convince people. No, Jesus didn't rise from the dead. No, he didn't. No, he didn't raise from the grave.

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Like they were trying to convince them that there is no resurrection of Christ and that they needed to come back and return to Judaism.

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And the apostles call that sort of thing anathema. They call it the

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Judaizing heresy, where people are saying that Jesus didn't raise from the dead. Paul addresses this directly when he says, if Christ has not been raised from the dead people in Corinth, then our hope is that our faith is in vain.

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Why did he say that? Because there were Jews coming into the Corinthian church. There were Jews coming into the Ephesian church, into the

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Galatian church. Read that letter. There were Jews coming in trying to convince the

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Christians that they were wrong. So some Jews were killing Christians and some Jews were coming in like false teachers, false wolves and trying to pervert the

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Christian gospel. And because of that, they were going to get destroyed.

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Again, this is more than just a religious battle. It was a culmination of the cosmic struggle between the old world and the new world, between the old and the new.

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And Christ was going to reign supreme and he was going to put away the old so that his gospel would be the only gospel left.

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John, the beloved apostle, urges us about the rise of Antichrist. Let me tell you this, that we're going to get to this later at some point, whenever I talk about it.

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The Antichrist is not one person. The Antichrist is not Tony Fauci, Joe Biden.

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Joe Biden can't even talk his way out of a paper bag. The Antichrist is not

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Klaus Schwab. The Antichrist is not a person. The Antichrist is a thing.

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John says that there's many Antichrists, that the spirit of Antichrist was alive and well in the first century.

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What is it? It's the one who comes in and says that Christ has not been raised from the dead.

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That's the Antichrist. The Jews of the first century who were saying

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Christ has not been raised from the dead. They were the Antichrist. They were the deceivers who were once a part of the covenant community, and now they were denying the very foundation of the

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Christian gospel by rejecting the father and by rejecting the spirit and by rejecting the son.

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Their false teachings threatened to sever believers from the very promises of eternal life.

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First John 2, 18 through 19, 22 through 23, and John exposed it.

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It is anti -Christian. He exposed these false prophets, which were all

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Jewish. He exposed them as embodying the spirit of the Antichrist, which they did, and he exposed them for leading many people astray with their old doctrines that denied the supremacy, the lordship, and the resurrection of Christ.

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First John 4, 1 through 3, second John 1, 7. Jude himself echoes this urgency when he compares false teachers,

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Jewish false teachers in the first century to the infamous rebels that we see littered all throughout biblical church history.

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He reminds the faithful that those who oppose God and who oppose Jesus's resurrection will be destroyed in the end,

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Jude 5 and 7. These false teachers are like hidden reefs. You know what a hidden reef is?

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When you're sailing your boat in the channel or in the bay, and you're coming, and you're looking down, and you're trying to navigate, and you're trying to make sure that you don't hit any reefs so that you don't rip open the bottom side of the boat, and there's a hidden one that you can't see, and it totally rips your boat apart, and your boat is destroyed.

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He's saying these Jews who are telling you that Jesus didn't raise from the dead are like hidden reefs, and they will shipwreck your faith.

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They are like clouds without water. You're looking at your crops, and you're saying, everything is withered. Everything is falling apart around me.

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I need rain, God. And you look at these clouds, and you're so excited, and they come, and they have no rain. That's what the

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Jews are. They have a gospel that has no life, a gospel that has no water.

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They're fruitless trees. That's how we know they're Jews, because they're fruitless trees, the same people who offered

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Jesus leaves but no fruit when he came into the city of Jerusalem riding on a donkey, the same temple that offered him no fruit when it was supposed to be a vineyard for the living

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God, the same people who were typecast in the parable of or in the lived out parable of the cursing of the fig tree.

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These Jews who brought their Jesus -hating gospel were fruitless trees, and they were leading others in the congregation of the faithful to ruin, and Jude calls them out,

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Jude 10 through 13. And Jude encourages the church to contend for the true gospel of Christ, to announce it, to herald it, and to cast out from among them those who were bringing any other gospel than the one that they were bringing, and that God himself is going to deal with those deceivers in due time,

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Jude 17 through 19. Peter's second epistle intensifies this warning, describing false prophets as insidious and corrupt.

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They're like destructive beasts bringing destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who redeemed them, sealing their own doom, 2

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Peter 2, 1 through 3. Peter portrays them as brazen and arrogant, enticing unstable souls into their seductive promises and immorality, 2

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Peter 2, 10 through 22. He prophesies that in the last days, he says, in the last days, these scoffers are going to follow their own desires, and they're going to deny the imminent judgment that was coming upon them, 2

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Peter 3, 3 through 7. Peter is not talking about an hour day. He's talking about these Jews that were perverting the church, and he says that in these last days, meaning that those last days were back then.

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What we have to understand is what is he talking about? Is he talking about the old world, the last days of the

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Jewish kingdom, the last days of the temple, the last days of the prophets, the last days of the priest?

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Is he talking about that, or is he talking about the last days of human history? And when we understand these two worlds are at play, then we can understand that he's clearly talking about the old

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Jewish age. It was coming to an end. Jesus was destroying the old

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Jewish religion. He was destroying that old Jewish world where men and women would have to know

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God through tabernacles and through temples because Jesus had something so much better in store for the people of God that you get to know

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God through him, that you worship God through him, that you pray directly to God instead of needing to go to a priest because Christ is our high priest.

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That's the message of the prophets. That's the message of John the Baptist. That's the message of Jesus who warned them to flee from the wrath that was to come.

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That's the message that caused him to kill Jesus, kill his followers. They killed them and persecuted his bride, which warranted destruction.

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And then on top of that, they went and infiltrated Christian churches and they brought a worthless vain gospel that would not save anyone.

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For all of those reasons, their old world was collapsing so that the new world that Jesus was bringing would come.

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Now, before we continue, because I want to talk about the timing of this, because our Disney friends are going to say things like, how do you know that these things happen in the first century?

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Well, I could just as easily say that they happen at the end of history. Why are we going to take your word?

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Because I'm going to prove it to you. I'm going to show you that these passages are most definitely happening in the first century by the simple words that they use.

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But before we do that, I also want to talk about two other words, just to give you more detail, because I want you to be equipped.

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I want to talk about the meaning of the word world and the meaning of the word age, because these two concepts are very important for us to understand before we continue.

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So part two, the meaning of world and age. One of the biggest mistakes in modern eschatology is the obsession with futurism, like a homeless man searching for his next crack rock.

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Many dispensationalists are addicted to every passage in the Bible, having some sort of panic and pessimism and future fulfillment involved.

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They read every passage as if it was talking about the end of the world, the end of human history, the end of all things.

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And that is not what the Bible teaches. They're addicted to that kind of mentality because that's not what it says.

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For instance, let us look at the Greek New Testament term. I own, I own, which means age.

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It refers not to the end of the human era where people are living on earth.

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It refers to the end of the Jewish age. For instance, Jesus says that he's going to give them signs about the end of the

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Jewish age. He's talking about the collapse of the temple in Matthew 24. His disciples come up to him and ask him three questions.

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Jesus, tell us when the temple is going to be destroyed. Tell us when these things are going to happen and tell us about the end of the age.

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And he does. He says false prophets are going to come. That's a sign that the Jewish age is collapsing. The temple is going to be destroyed.

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That's another sign. Famines and earthquakes are going to happen. That's another sign. And as you go through Matthew 24 and you see that all of that is going to happen in a single generation,

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Jesus is saying that the end of the Jewish age has come. It's happening in our lifetime.

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If you're living in the first century, it's not the end of human history. It's the end of the

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Jewish age in a similar way. First Corinthians 10, 11, Paul says that the end of the ages has come.

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He says that the end of the ages has come. What is he talking about? He's talking about the end of the

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Jewish age. He's talking about the dawning of the new covenant age. He's saying that that is what has exploded upon the world.

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Hebrews 9, 26 says Christ appeared at the end of the ages to put away sin by his sacrifice.

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He's Christ does not appear at the end of world history to put away sin by his sacrifice.

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That happened already. He put away sin by his sacrifice at Calvary, which means that at Calvary, he came at the end of the ages.

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He came at the end of the Jewish age. We're not waiting for the end of human history.

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We're waiting. Jesus came already at the end of the Jewish age, and he put that old age away.

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These verses show that the word I own, and there's more, there's plenty more. We could go through more, but I do, like I said,

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I want to keep this somewhat brief. These verses show that the word I own often signifies the end of the

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Jewish age and not the end of human history. Let me give you another

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Greek term, the term for world. In our language, in English, world is world.

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I could talk about the world and mean planet earth, but I could also talk about in my world.

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In my world, I eat biscuits and gravy, and you're like, but what does that mean?

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What just means in my way of doing things, I eat biscuits and gravy.

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You may, in your world, do something different. See how English uses the same word, but its context matters so much.

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You could also say that that person on the street looks like they're behaving worldly.

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What does that mean? Are they dressed up like a big planet and they're so big and fat that they're round like an earth and that they're being worldly like the world?

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No, it means that they're acting in ways that are not in accordance with God and his word.

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So we use the word world to mean many different things. The Greeks actually have three words for world.

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They have cosmos, which is usually referring to the planet earth. They have the word oikomene, which means the inhabited world, or better yet to say the world of Rome.

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And then they have the word gay or Gaia, which means the actual physical dirt, the earth.

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You pick up the earth in your hand and you plant your crops in the earth and the ground.

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So those three words typically are what's used for world. Now, in Matthew 24, 14,

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Jesus says that the gospel is going to be preached in the whole world and dispensationalists will be like, well, that's not happened yet.

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The gospel has not been preached in this little remote island or that little remote nation or in this

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Muslim country. And they'll say, see, the end has not come. And you ask yourself the question, well, what word for world is being used there?

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Is it, is it cosmos or is it oikomene? Oikomene means the inhabited world.

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It means the Roman empire. Everyone at that time used the word oikomene, which meant the dwelling place or the dwelling house.

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They use that term to refer to the civilized world of the Romans.

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And in that sense, that actually did happen in the first century in Matthew 24, Jesus says the gospel is going to be preached and all of the

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Roman empire. That's what that word means. And then the end, what end the end of the Jewish age was going to come.

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It's religious structures. We're going to be destroyed. It's physical structures are going to be destroyed. Paul confirms that in Colossians one 23, the gospel had been preached to every creature under heaven before the temple was sacked.

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That's what he means. That's what Jesus means. When he says the gospel is going to be preached in all the world oikomene, we have to know which word for world we're talking about.

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For instance, in revelation and revelation one, I think it's verse six. I'm doing this off the cuff here.

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It says that, that all we're going to see him that when he returns and it's like all the people on earth is, is what we think.

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But the world, the word there for world is not all the people on earth. This is all the people of the land.

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What does that mean? All the tribes of the land is actually what it says there in revelation one.

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What does that mean? Well, the only nation that I know of in the ancient world that had their allotment based off of tribal allotments was the

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Jews and the prophecy actually of all of them seeing the one that they pierced comes from Zachariah.

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So it's the Jews who are going to see the one that they pierced. All the Jews who live upon the land, the word there for world.

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It's not cosmos, which usually means the planet. It's not oikomene, which usually means the

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Roman empire. It's the word Gaia, which means land. All the Jews who are living on the land will see the one they've pierced.

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You need to know which word for world you're talking about, or you're going to get into a dispensational fervor and say that the whole world hasn't seen

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Jesus return yet. It says that he's going to come with the clouds and every single one is going to see him. That's not what that passage means, but you have to understand these things in order to see that.

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That's why we're talking about it. Hebrews chapter one, verse six speaks about Jesus first coming as bringing the first born into the world oikomene.

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That means that the firstborn son of God came into Caesar's territory. Caesar was the one who's the son of the gods.

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The real son of God has come into Caesar's territory, highlighting that Christ is going to be the one who brings order to the world.

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He's the one who was born. He's the one who's going to topple the Roman empire, and he did. Revelation three, 10 mentions testing that is going to be coming upon the whole world or oikomene.

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It doesn't say that testing is going to be coming upon Malaysia. It doesn't say that testing is going to be coming on Antarctica and on Chile and on some

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Eskimos up in the Arctic tundra. It says that the testing is going to come upon the oikomene, the

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Roman world where significant change in the spiritual and religious landscape of the civilized world was going to be coming as a result of Christ.

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And that is exactly what happened in history. With 12 people,

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Christians grew until they toppled the Roman world. It's exactly what happened, and it makes so much more sense when you understand which word for world we're talking about.

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John 3, 16 says that for God so loved the world. He doesn't use Gaia to say that God so loved the people of the land, the

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Jews. He doesn't use oikomene, God so loved the Romans. He says God so loved the cosmos, all the people,

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Jews and Gentiles. The word for world matters in what it means.

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The word for world matters on who we're talking about, and you need to understand what that is so that you understand if it's talking about all humanity or the ones who are underneath the covenant system in Judah, or if it's the ones who are in the

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Roman empire, these things really matter. All of these terms are usually translated as world in English, and that's just wrong.

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And if we understand the way that they're supposed to be interpreted, we'll actually see the Bible in the way that it's supposed to be seen, which

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I think supports a preterist understanding of eschatology. Now, by understanding these terms in their historical and scriptural context, we get a coherent vision of what is happening in the

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Bible, and we see how the Jewish age is coming to an end.

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This perspective that I'm talking about, this two -world perspective clarifies difficult passages, and it helps you and I see what so many are confused by, and it helps us understand exactly what each passage is referring to.

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And I think once we do that, we'll stop fearing, stop being upset and frustrated, and we'll actually have clarity and joy and optimism from knowing what the

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Bible says. So, with that out of the way, I did want to take a brief moment to talk about those two words, aion and the words for world.

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I wanted to talk about that because they're super important. Now, with that out of the way, we need to also understand the timing of the end of the world.

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When does the end of the world happen? It depends on which world you're talking about. Are you talking about the world of the

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Jews, the temples, the priesthood, the prophets, the priests, the kings, that old world?

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Are you talking about our world? And when that ends, well, we need to understand what we're talking about.

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And I'm talking about when does that old world end? The New Testament speaks about it, and that's what we're going to explore in part three.

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Part three, the timing of the end. Now, as I mentioned a moment ago, if we interpret every eschatological passage in the

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New Testament as if it's referring to the end of human history, we are going to be sorely confused. And we're going to end up wondering, why did

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Paul say that the end of ages has come and now we're 2 ,000 years later? Why did James say that they fattened themselves in the day of slaughter?

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Man, that's a long day of slaughter if we're still 2 ,000 years late on that. This clarifies so much so that we're not confused.

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But if we do that, we do end up distorting the Bible and creating so much confusion. The Bible doesn't speak of the end of the age or the end of the world in distant futuristic terms like the disbees like to claim.

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Instead, all those passages that they've been referencing are describing the end of the

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Jewish age, the end of the old covenant world, the end of the temples and the sacrifice and the priesthood and all of that.

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And when it talks about those things, it doesn't say, it does not say that these things are going to happen in the distant future.

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Every time that it talks about these things, it says words like quickly, soon, and within the lifetime of the first century audience.

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For instance, I'm just going to give a couple of these. There's plenty of them. By the way, the book of Revelation starts in chapter one and it says things that must soon take place.

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Behold, I'm coming quickly. I mean, if you believe that Revelation was written in the first century and applies to something that happens in the 21st, 22nd, 23rd century, then you are, you don't understand how language works.

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I'm sorry to be so blunt, but if it says these things are concerning things which must soon take place, behold,

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I'm coming quickly. Well, the books about things which must soon take place because Jesus is coming quickly.

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When's he coming quickly? In reference to when the book was written, when was the book written before the temple was destroyed in 80, 70.

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The book ends also with saying these things must happen soon. So you've got the beginning and the end of Revelation saying that everything in this book is about things which must happen in the first century.

01:00:04

And yet we struggle so much to say, oh, these things couldn't have happened in the first century because these things must represent helicopters and the mark of the beast must be a computer chip.

01:00:14

And oh my goodness, we've brought so much confusion and misery upon eschatology because we just don't read basic words.

01:00:23

James, and it was, we're not talking about revelation today. We'll get into that another time. James in his epistle warns the rich oppressors that misery is coming upon them.

01:00:32

Not 2000 years later. He says it's coming because the Lord is near. Near doesn't mean far.

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Close doesn't mean distant. Soon doesn't mean a long time. Do you get my point?

01:00:48

Like, how do we read words like the Lord is near and think that the Lord is far? How do we read like words like the

01:00:54

Lord is right at the door? James five, one through two and verses eight through nine and think that he's not right at the door.

01:01:01

We read passages like he's right at the door. He's getting ready to return. And we say, no, he's not.

01:01:06

He's far away. What kind of sense does that make? That's nonsense. All of the texts that we're looking at talk about urgency and impending judgment that's going to happen in their lifetime, not ours.

01:01:22

That's going to come upon that old covenant world. Peter echoes this kind of urgency when he says that the end of all things is near.

01:01:31

I'm sorry. I'm laughing. I really am. The end of all things is near. That does.

01:01:37

That does not mean that the end of all things is going to happen in 1988 or in 2040.

01:01:43

The end of all things is near to who it's near to Peter. Peter is the one who said it.

01:01:48

The end of all things is near. What's he talking about? He's telling me the end of the old covenant age. He's not talking about the end of human history in first Peter four seven.

01:01:57

He's talking about the end of the old covenant Judaism. He's emphasizing that judgment is going to begin with God's household first through their persecutions and trials because imminent judgment and, and wrath is going to be coming upon Jerusalem.

01:02:13

That's first Peter four 17. Peter also addresses the scoffers of the last days.

01:02:20

He's not talking about our day. Peter's talking about the men that he saw in his time period, who he said were scoffers.

01:02:28

And he said that they were scoffing in the last days, which means that the last days were already happening.

01:02:34

When Peter was writing, if Peter says the scoffers who are right in front of him were scoffing in the last day, he meant he was living in the last day.

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Last day of what? Last day of the world. Well, if he meant that then the Bible is wrong.

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If he meant that the last days of human history, the last days of life on earth, the last days before the eternal state, then

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Peter was wrong. The Bible has lied and we need to all go find another hobby. That's not what

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Peter means. He means that it, the scoffers, the Jewish scoffers, instead of those who, who are like trees planted by living waters, these are standing and sitting in the seat of scoffers.

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These Jews who've turned their back on Christ, they've risen up in the last days, the last days of what?

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The last days of the Jewish world, the last days of that world where you need to know

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God through temples, the last days of that world where you need to know God through priest and sacrifice and feast and all of that.

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That's what's coming to an end. And Peter says, one of the evidences of that is that these scoffers have infected the local church and he assures the faithful in those churches that judgment is inevitable.

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And he, and he points back to the flood that Noah prophesied about in the book of Genesis.

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He does this in second Peter three, one through seven. And what I think is so good here and so fascinating here is that just as the flood came upon the exact generation that Noah was prophesying against Peter's prophecy,

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Peter's preaching was in reference to the generation, then not now imagine

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Noah saying you all the whole world, you've all turned against God. 2000 years from now,

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I'm going to bring a flood or God's going to bring a flood and it's going to really, really mess with you. Like this doesn't make any sense.

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And the same way Peter is not looking at the people who are defying God and telling lies in the church.

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He's not looking at them and saying, I'm warning you, if you don't stop now, judgment's going to come 2000 years later.

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That makes no sense. He's warning false prophets in his day that a flood is coming on them swiftly.

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Second Peter two, one through three, he says the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, not like a three toed sloth asleep on a tree.

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He says that the old covenant order and the establishment of all of those things are coming to an end.

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Second Peter three, eight through 10, this judgment is not going to come upon us 2000 years later.

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It's coming on them. Let's go a couple more. John, his epistle reinforces this truth as well.

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He identifies the presence of many antichrists. We've already talked about that. And he says that the reason they've showed up is because this is the last hour.

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Can you imagine how long an hour must be if we're waiting, still waiting on the antichrist to come today.

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He says that these antichrists have come. That means it's the last hour. And then we're like this.

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Wait a minute. When is the antichrist coming? Is he coming in our day? That means the last hour is 2000 years.

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That is not what that means. The last hour is the last hour of the old covenant age.

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First John two, 18. If John meant human history, then he had the most ridiculous vantage point of time ever imagined.

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He's saying in his day at his time, it was the last hour because these Jewish antichrist had come and they were perverting the church and God was going to deal with them.

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That is exactly what he said. And that's what makes perfect sense. Jude in his book prophesied that judgment was coming against Jerusalem and he invoked

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Enoch's ancient warning against the ungodly in verses 14 through 15. And he tells them that it's coming urgently.

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It's coming on that people, not a people 2000 years from now. Do you get my point? All of these writings are saying the same thing.

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They're not saying that the judgment is far away. They're saying that it's going to happen soon, that it's near, that it's close, that it's at hand, that is right at the door.

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Why do we doubt that this judgment actually happened in that time period that that old world collapsed so that the new world

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Jesus was bringing would come? I think we've proved it, but if you still don't believe me,

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I don't know what else to say. We've shared enough verses now for you to get it. Maybe it's just hardness of heart.

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Part four, the church's response to the end. The first century church took the prophecies of all of this, and they did not sit down together and say,

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I'm glad these things don't apply to us. All these things that Peter and Paul and James and John and Jesus and John the

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Baptist said, so thankful that these things don't apply to our generation. I'm glad that people in America in the year 2024,

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I'm glad it applies to them. That is that is silly. They did not do that.

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They didn't see these warnings as irrelevant to their own lives. Sometime in the distant future, they lived with urgency and with purpose, knowing that the old covenant was coming to an end and that they had to live differently.

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James urges believers to be patient in these trials and to strengthen their hearts because the coming of the

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Lord is near. What does that mean? It doesn't mean a rapture. It doesn't mean that eternal state.

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It means the Lord was coming in judgment against Jerusalem, and they need to be ready. James five, seven through ten.

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That urgency drove them to live with integrity and to rely on God and to avoid fleeting worldly pleasures and ambitions.

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James four, 13 through 15. They were living seriously about their faith because they understood the words applied to them.

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Peter and his epistles reminds them that the prophets and the angels long to see their day, the day they were living in.

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First Peter one, 10 through 12. And he called them because of that to live with holiness, knowing that the old heavens were passing away and that the new world was coming by fire.

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Second Peter three, 11 through 13. That fire was going to burn all that rebelled against Jesus, but it was going to purify like gold all who loved him.

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It was going to make them holy. This calling Peter talks about is not an impractical, irrelevant truth that applies to some people somewhere, but not us.

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It's a call that's practical and that was urging those particular believers to be diligent and to live with peace and to pay close attention to Paul's teaching and all to the rest of scripture because these things were for them.

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Second Peter three, 14 through 18. Jude encouraged the church to strengthen their faith in these dark times to pray in the

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Holy Spirit as they were being killed and persecuted by the Jews to stay in God's love while they waited for Jesus's mercy through judgment.

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Jude one, 20 through 21. He reassured them that God could keep them from stumbling and was going to present them blameless and joyful in the day of Christ.

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Jude one, 24 through 25. That verse is talking about the end of the world. That verse is talking about the end of human history because if they are faithful, then he will keep them from stumbling.

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If they believe in Jesus, he'll keep them from falling and he will present them blameless before his glory.

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When he brings the new heavens and the new earth together again, when he makes all things new, when he has finished purifying the new world that he brought in Christ, he's filled it full of followers.

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He's made it holy. He's made it. He's made everyone on earth a Christian. When those things happen and he returns and he puts the final enemy that he's going to put down, which is death.

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And he brings us into the eternal state where we have fellowship with Jesus on a physical newly created world forever and ever.

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When he does that, that's what Jude is talking about. But while they suffered in the first century, they needed to suffer with hope.

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John and his epistle calls believers to remain faithful in the first century, even when they were going through all of these diverse fears and persecutions.

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And he emphasized the reason that they can do that is because Christ has won the victory over evil, that even though they persecute you, even though they hurt you, even though they maim you and beat you, that you can have joy and faith because Christ has overcome the world.

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That's John, but it's also 1 John 3, 8 and 1 John 4, 17. And he urged them to hold fast to the truth and to support faithful teachers and to cast out of their midst, those, those, uh, rascally

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Jews that were telling them that Christ had not been raised and that they were to live their lives in accordance with righteousness all their days.

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The early church grew in faith and it grew in holiness and it grew in love because they knew these things applied to them.

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They were being prepared to spread the gospel far and wide to conquer nations for Jesus.

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And their greatest enemy in the first century was the old world that like a rabid dog was having trouble dying.

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It was slobbering and it was staggering. And Jesus came like old yeller. Sorry if that's a bad memory for you.

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And he put it down that period, this 40 year period we're talking about where both worlds were existing simultaneously is unique, unrepeatable.

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And Jesus is putting down one and bringing more and rising the other one up.

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And then we, this is the world we're living in. Now the world where Jesus reigns, we don't live in a world of temples.

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We don't live in a world of sacrifices. We live in a world of Christ where he has all authority in heaven and on earth, where he is the true

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King over all the nations where he has made us a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Those truths apply to us in our world, a better world than the world of types and shadows, prophets, priests, and Kings, and all of that.

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He is our true prophet, priest, and King. And he's made us into a new people to live with him in a new world.

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God was calling his people to unwavering commitment to the truth, passionate dedication to their mission.

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And he's calling us to the exact same things today. Peter and his epistles reassured them that, that, uh, with examples, actually past judgments, and he said,

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God was going to be just, he was going to bring justice. So he told them to remember the justice of the Lord. Remember that the

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Lord's delay a day in the mind of the Lord is like a thousand to others or a thousand days are like a day.

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He's reminding them that the Lord is faithful and that he is going to bring about justice on their enemies.

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His delay was because he was patient, not because he was negligent. He reminds them that judgment is going to come on that generation, just like it did on the

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Noah's flood. Second, Peter two, four through nine, second, Peter three, 14 through 16. Jude echoes this.

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He affirms God's power. He affirms that God is going to preserve those people through trials. He's going to present them blameless verse 24 through 25.

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The early church embraced their mission with courage, with dedication, with tenacity and with truth.

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They knew these things were theirs, that they were the ones who were triumphing over that evil and that they were the ones who would see the old world put away and vindicated by the new world that is coming.

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First Peter five, 10, they were ready to spread the gospel to all nations, confident in the power and the purposes of God, just as we should be to day.

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The end of that old world has already come.

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And all the passages that deal with that are not about our future, but it was about their imminent future that now has already occurred.

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I hope that makes sense. Conclusion. So as we wrap up today, how do we respond to what we've learned?

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Well, I will tell you that you should not get out your end times books and start looking for the signs of the times and start trying to get your rapture gear ready.

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Don't do that. How should we think about the end of the Jewish world and the end of the Jewish age and the age that we now live in?

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Well, the first thing I think we should do is we should be grateful. We should be grateful that Jesus has spared us from the tumultuous times that the very first church lived through the beatings, the plunderings, the imprisonments, the beheadings, the being crucified upside down.

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We should be grateful that God has put us in a time period where Jesus has been victorious for 2000 years.

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We should be grateful that we live in the victory of Christ. We should be grateful that we live in a nation where there are so many churches still to this day.

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Yeah, we're going through a bleak season. But have you ever considered what it was like for Paul and for Peter and for those first century disciples who were killed and fed to lions?

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Be grateful that you don't live in that time. Be grateful that the old world of the

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Jewish resistance was put down. And now the only power on earth that matters is

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Christ and Christ alone. You live in the cleanup project of Jesus where he's making the world into his dominion, where he's bringing his reign all over the earth.

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You live in that world. Rejoice in that. Be thankful for that. That's the first thing. The second thing

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I think is that we should be humble. The same thing that happened to Israel could happen to us. We could get so prideful in our churches and the way that we do things like they did with their temple and with their sacrificial system that we could totally miss

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Christ. Let their example of falling headlong into ruin help us stay faithful and be obedient to God.

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Let us be humble and never believe that we're somehow better than them. If God cut out the natural branches and brought us wild olive branches in, can't he much more cut us out if we abandon

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Christ? Let us be humble. That's number two. Number three, I think we need to be diligent. We need to be diligent because if that old world has already ended and all those passages that scare people are already finished.

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Every one of them are talking about the old Jewish world. Then we have nothing but confidence and that we can build that eschatology is not the doctrine of fear mongering and panic porn, but it is the doctrine of the victory of the church because that's all that's left.

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We talked about this last week in the book of Hebrews that Christ is currently right now shaking the world and the only thing that can't be shaken is the church, which means the church will stand until the end.

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Brothers and sisters, be diligent. Work hard. Don't fall into this. Everything is futurism sort of heresy.

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Don't fall into doom and gloom, chicken little crying because you think the sky is always falling. Remember that the end of the world, which

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Jesus is speaking about has already happened and now he's brought a kingdom that's going to never end its rise, its triumph, its dominion, its fruitfulness, its multiplication, and its glory will continue to spread.

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And if you know that, then find your place in that build in that be hopeful in that work in that start businesses in that raise up godly children in that have faithful marriages in that do everything you can to the glory and honor of Christ, knowing that your labor is not in vain.

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And with that have great joy because Christ has counted you worthy to be a part of his gospel and to be a part of building his kingdom.

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So believe that trust in that. And next week, next week, we'll cover the case for the new world that Jesus is bringing.

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We talked about it a little bit today because I can't just bombard you with all the negativity and all the collapsing and crashing of the old world.

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But I wanted to show it to you. Next week, we're going to take these same books, James, Jude, first and second,

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Peter, first, second, third, John. And we're going to see now the other side of eschatology. If eschatology were a coin, there's two sides.

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There's the head and there's the tail. The tail is the downfall of that old world. That's called preterism, the things that have already happened in the past.

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The other side, the head, it's post -millennialism, the things that are still to happen in the future. And all that, every bit of that is glorious and optimistic.

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And we're going to look at that next week. But until next time, God richly bless you.

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Thank you for watching this show. We'll see you again next time on the podcast. Now get out of here.