Is The Great Tribulation About To Begin?

In Matthew 16, Jesus chastised the Pharisees who could interpret the appearance of the sky but failed to interpret the signs of the time in which they lived.

Who are the Pharisees of our day? This strong hold of sort of whiteness and white identity and pristineness is really part of what keeps us from making progress.

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So thank you, and thank you, and thank you. We are back again for another episode of Apologia Radio. I wanted to stay with the theme we were already on.

The last episode seemed to really bless people. I think the title of that was, it's in the feed here somewhere,

I think it was End Times Made Easy, and a lot of people were really encouraged by that and blessed by that, so I thought we would just extend it a little bit.

So to help with this episode, you may want to go later and listen to that episode.

But there's a lot of talk with all the craziness happening in the world today, all the evil, all the decay, all of the rebellion.

There's a lot of talk about end times, eschatology, the Great Tribulation, all of that.

And so if you've been part of Western Christianity, and then you know you've experienced the people warning of rapture, it's coming at any moment, even people setting dates, maybe you've been a part of the debates that have taken place amongst

Christians on are you pre -trib rapture, are you mid -trib rapture, are you post -trib rapture.

All kinds of ink has been spilled on that, all kinds of heat, and oftentimes not a lot of light has been given to that discussion.

And so we're going to talk today a bit about the Olivet Discourse and the Great Tribulation. And so that's what we're doing today.

I hope it's a blessing to all of you. I have my Bible open. I hope this is something you're doing as well.

Open your Bible, go to these references, check them out, look at them in context. And so let's just get right into it, shall we?

This will take more than one episode to do to at least make this something that's a real benefit. And so one of the things that I said in the last episode, when we talk about end times, eschatology, what's the goal of redemptive history, what does

Scripture say about that? One of the things that I emphasized is that the Apostles are not creating something new, and that's constantly reiterated in, say, the writings of the

Apostle Paul. When he's explaining the Gospel in Romans, in Romans 3, when he takes that long list in the

Catena of verses from the Old Testament, there is none good, there is none righteous, all of that, he's pulling all that stuff over from the

Old Testament. He makes the point that the Scriptures are what testify to this, and he's emphasizing that, that this story is the

Bible's story. This is not something new and unexpected, the Scriptures testify to all of this about Jesus.

And that's one of the things that Jesus said to the men on the road to Emmaus after the Resurrection, when they're walking around as a bunch of sad saps, thinking this whole thing is over, and they were mistaken about Jesus and his identity and everything that happened,

Jesus chastises them in the book of Luke, and he calls them slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken, slow of heart to believe that all of the prophets have spoken, and then

Jesus takes them through Moses and all the prophets and shows them everything that was testifying to him.

And he even goes so far, and this I find so compelling, is that he goes so far as to challenge them on they should have known that the

Messiah was going to die and rise again, because that is what the Old Testament prophesied.

I find that fascinating, because you even hear Christians today, I know of a few Christians that have said basically the

Resurrection of Jesus is either not in the Old Testament or is unexpected and all those different things, and that wasn't

Jesus' perspective. He said that the Scriptures testified to his death and resurrection. They should have known this was going to happen.

My point in saying that at the start of this is that when you talk about Christian eschatology and you get into the

Olivet Discourse and you're talking about the Great Tribulation passage, it's important for us to read those passages biblically.

Now, I know that I'll say that, and everybody says, well, Jeff, we grant that. That's exactly how we should be doing this.

We should read the Bible biblically, we should have Scripture interpret Scripture, and we're all conceding that is how we have to do this.

We can't just proof text the Bible. The challenge, though, is that you see in a lot of different areas of Christian theology that we engage in that kind of proof texting, and we should always be aware when we're doing it.

It's not to say that you can't use a text to prove a point. It's to say that proof texting is understood to be snatching something out of its context and not allowing the context to speak.

I, in particular, think that this is something that's methodological in, say, like the

NIFB movement, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist, or some IFB churches where the sermon isn't—and this isn't always the case, but you'll see oftentimes that the sermon is sort of a hodgepodge of different verses snatched from here or there that may not necessarily even be related to one another, and maybe not even in context, but you're sort of doing the

Bible that way. And this is particularly a problem when you talk about the issue of eschatology, because what people tend to do is they read the newspaper or their current circumstances, and then they go running to a

Bible to try to see if I can find a text in the Bible that sounds like what I'm seeing or what

I'm experiencing. And that's a dangerous way to handle the Bible. We should never handle the Bible in that way.

We need to let the Bible be the ground for our interpretation of what's happening around us. And the only way for it to properly be a ground for the interpretation of what's going on around us is that we're actually letting it tell the story and saying, what is its context?

Who's the author? Who's the audience? What's a specific language being used? Why is this verse being referenced in the

New Testament? What was its original context? And that's how we're supposed to read the Bible. And so what

I said the last time in the End Times Made Easy video is that if we're going to do

Christian eschatology right, in my mind, we need to make sure we're letting the whole Bible speak, and we actually have to start with Christian eschatology back in the

Old Testament. And so what I emphasized last time was the theme throughout

Scripture, but in particular the Old Testament, the theme of the Messianic King, the kingdom of God.

And then I demonstrated that in the New Testament, the assumption is that this is just a carry -on of that theme of the kingdom of God.

And now the New Testament authors are saying that it has arrived. Jesus is on the Davidic throne.

He's ruling and reigning now. And as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, he must reign until, and he quotes

Psalm 110, one, he must reign until all of his enemies are made a footstool for his feet.

And then after that happens, the last enemy to be defeated is death. And so I made the point that Paul is just basically carrying on this redemptive story, and he's saying that that Messianic kingdom has arrived, and Jesus is in the process of doing what they expected the

Davidic king to do, and that is putting all the enemies of God under the feet of the Messiah, and then finally defeating death.

And so I made the point that we really have to begin the study of Christian eschatology into the

Old Testament and let that story run through. Now, I'm making that point right now for a particular reason.

Oftentimes, and you've seen this, when Christians will talk about the great tribulation and times, they'll go running to the book of Revelation, and that's sometimes a scary thing to do in terms of proof texting from the book of Revelation, because you've got seven -headed, ten -horned beasts and whores drinking blood and riding those beasts, and you've got just a lot of biblical symbolism and imagery there that you need to understand the

Old Testament and what that imagery means, and why is the apostle John essentially plagiarizing the entire

Old Testament? Over 400 verses in the book of Revelation, over half of them are direct quotations from Old Testament passages or allusions to Old Testament passages.

I've often said that John could be accused of plagiarism by today's standards because of what he's doing in the book of Revelation, but all that said, when

Christians today will go running to the book of Revelation and, you know, this was done even recently with the assassination attempt of President Trump, former

President Trump. People, because of his wound to his ear, people were literally running to the book of Revelation and talking about this wounding, and drawing a verse, proof texting from the book of Revelation that has literally nothing to do with that, but they did it anyways, and so Christians will tend to run to a proof text from the great tribulation passage and apply it to us today, and it's like, okay, well let's go to that passage, let's go to the

Olivet Discourse, let's see who the audience is, let's see what the specific language is, and let's see who Jesus is talking to.

Who is this promise to? But there's a danger in sort of like the hodgepodge methodology of the end times study, and just ripping verses out of the

New Testament, and trying to find some way to apply it to us today or to our future, and sort of like, it's just ripped out of the entire context of the eschaton that Scripture is teaching from Genesis to Revelation.

And so I think, actually, if you're going to do the study of the Olivet Discourse, Jesus and the

Mount of Olives, if you're going to do this study and do it right and be faithful with the text, I actually think it's important for us to go back to the

Old Testament in terms of, well, we've got one author, one story of redemption, we've got one goal of history that God is sort of pushing everything to, and God has actually prophesied what

Jesus was speaking about on the Mount of Olives in the Great Tribulation passage.

This is not something that God had mentioned before. This is actually expectation, much like the expectation of the

Messianic King. I mean, we know, we all acknowledge as Christians, that there's specific prophecy in the

Old Testament about the identity of the Messiah, of Jesus, there's specific prophecy about who he is that's coming, what he's going to accomplish, why he's doing it, where this is going to happen, when it's going to happen, all those prophecies are there and they're fulfilled and summed up in Jesus.

Well, when we get to the issue of the Great Tribulation, I argue that, well, that study has to begin in the

Old Testament, because the Old Testament actually predicted everything that Jesus was speaking about.

When you get to the Great Tribulation passage and you get to the passages even in the Book of Acts, where Peter's quoting from Joel 2, and you get to what's taking place in the

New Testament in that generation before the Temple falls, this is one unified story. They're carrying on this redemptive story and the story of the coming judgment.

And so, if you were able to listen to any of my messages, my sermons on the

Great Tribulation when we did the Matthew series, you'll remember that I kept emphasizing that the

Old Testament prophesied that in the coming of the Messiah, there would be at least two things, and I emphasize that this is shown in the

Old Testament. There would be salvation through the Messianic King, and there's descriptive passages that talk about how it's going to be accomplished,

Isaiah 53. He'd be wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, a chastening for our well -being would be upon Him, and by His wounds we'd be healed.

He'd justify the many as He would bear their iniquities. He'd be pierced through for our transgressions. There's specifics there.

There's salvation. There's also the salvation promise to the world with the Messianic King, that the earth will be covered with the knowledge of God like the waters cover the sea.

You have all the promises about the nations being drawn to God, Isaiah 2. Abraham having descendants as numerous as the stars,

Genesis 49 .10, to Him shall be the obedience of the nations, Psalm 22, all the families of the earth will return to worship

Yahweh. So there's salvation promised, but it's interesting because there's passages that talk about the salvation and the purification that the

Messiah will bring, and in the same passage, it talks about judgment upon the covenant breakers that's also coming.

So what I emphasized was this. If you have the Old Testament revelation, the expectation is that when

Messiah comes, there's going to be salvation and judgment, and I think that if we're going to do this study of the

Great Tribulation rightly, we have to start the discussion farther back than the

Great Tribulation passages in Luke 21, Mark 13, and Matthew 24. We have to start it back in the

Old Testament. Otherwise, we're not going to understand what's going on, and I'll try to make hopefully a solid point to demonstrate that to you in terms of faithfulness to the

Scriptures. We start the study of the Great Tribulation and that judgment that was promised in the

Old Testament revelation, and I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about. So if you go to your Bible to Isaiah 65, and you guys all know, you've heard me say it a bunch of times, that Isaiah is by far my favorite prophet in the

Old Testament. I just absolutely love Isaiah. I cannot get enough of Isaiah.

The portraits that are painted of Messiah and his work in Isaiah are so compelling to me.

I mean, this revelation written like 700 years before Jesus that gives you these almost at times, it must have been to them, confusing portraits of the

Messiah. Like, okay, Isaiah 9, okay, so he's God. He's God and man. He's a son and a child, and yet,

El Gabor. And it talks about his kingdom and increasing with peace and justice and the zeal of the

Lord of hosts will do this. And you see the promises of the effects of that kingdom in Isaiah 2 and Isaiah 11 that the nations are drawn to God, the law of God goes forth from the people of God.

In Isaiah 42, he establishes justice in the earth. He will not grow faint or weary until he's done so, and the coastlands wait for his law.

And then it gets into this specific servant of Yahweh because Israel's called the servant of Yahweh.

And then it gets into a specific servant of Yahweh in Isaiah 53, and then it gives like this crushing, like, that's confusing.

I thought you said he was a God and man and like his kingdom is gonna grow and increase and the nations are gonna come to God and he's gonna establish justice.

And then Isaiah 53, like a confusing turn of events, it's like he's crushed and Yahweh lays on him the iniquity of us all and he's counted among the rebels and you're like, wait, that had to be like so confusing.

So that's what I mean, like the portraits there are just so compelling to me that there's all these different facets of the ministry of Jesus.

But so you get to Isaiah 65 and check this out. In Isaiah 65, verse one, it says,

I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me. I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me.

I said, here I am, here I am, to a nation that was not called by my name. I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people who walk in a way that is not good, and following their own devices, that people who provoke me know

I face continually, sacrificing in gardens and making offerings on bricks, who sit in tombs and spend the night in secret places, who eat pig's flesh and broth of tainted meat is in their vessels, who say, keep to yourself, do not come near me for I am too holy for you.

The hypocrisy there, God just detests. These are a smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all the day.

Behold, it is written before me, I will not keep silent, but I will repay. I will indeed repay into their lap both your iniquities and your father's iniquities together, says the

Lord. Because they made offerings on the mountains and insulted me on the hills, I will measure into their lap payment for their former deeds.

And this is where it starts to get interesting. Thus says the Lord, as the new wine is found in the cluster, and they say, do not destroy it for there is a blessing in it, so I will do for my servant's sake and not destroy them all.

I will bring forth offspring from Jacob and from Judah, possessors of the mountains. My chosen shall possess it and my servants shall dwell there.

Sharon shall become a pastor for flocks in the Valley of Achor, a place for herds to lie down for my people who have sought me.

But watch this, here it is. But you who forsake the Lord, who forget my holy mountain, who set a table for fortune and fill cups of mixed wine for destiny,

I will destiny you to the sword and all of you shall bow down to the slaughter. Because when I called you, you did not answer.

When I spoke, you did not listen. But you did what was evil in my eyes and chose what

I did not delight in. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry.

Behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty. Behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be put to shame.

Behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of heart, but you shall cry out for pain of heart and shall wail for breaking of spirit.

You shall leave your name to my chosen for a curse, and the

Lord God will put you to death, but his servants he will call by another name."

And so there's this expectation that God is going to judge these professing people of God who are provoking

God continually and he says, I will repay. And there's this expectation that I'm going to destine you to the sword, you're going to die.

My servants will eat, you'll be hungry. My servants will drink, but you're going to be thirsty. And so God's promising, you have people who profess to know

God, and he's going to punish them. He's destining them for the sword, he's going to destroy them. And he promises that he will give his people, the wording here is, he says, you shall leave your name to my chosen for a curse, and the

Lord God will put you to death. So there's this promise that God has people he's going to bless and protect and love and feed, and he's going to judge these people who provoke him continuously, and he will repay them.

And so the expectation is that judgment is coming, and there's this description of a new people that I find to be very interesting, and we can go, hopefully, at some point we'll get into, it switches immediately to verse 17 to 65,

For behold, I created new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. We can talk about that a little bit later,

I've done a whole sermon on that, maybe you guys can go check it out, Jeff Durbin, New Heavens, New Earth. Now, my point is, if you go to the

Old Testament, and you go to this very messianic book, this messianic prophecy book, the expectation is, uh -oh, something is coming where the professing covenant people of God are going to be destroyed by God, and there's going to be a new thing, a new thing that God does where He actually cares for His chosen ones, and He destroys these people who continually provoke

Him to His face. Now, that's important to recognize because you see so much in the

New Testament revelation, this expectation, this any moment expectation, this impending judgment that is coming upon the covenant -breaking

Jews of Jesus' day. Now, remember, Jesus is a Jew, His first followers were

Jews, the Bible is written primarily by Jews, and so the Christian faith is the truly

Jewish faith, but there is a distinction made in the New Testament between those who say that God is their

Father, and really their Father is the devil, those who say they know

God, or as Jesus puts it in Revelation chapter 3, where Jesus says,

I'll make those who say they are Jews and are not, they lie, they're a synagogue of Satan. That's how

Jesus puts it. So, you can say you're Jewish all you want, but the truth of the matter is in the New Testament it's very, very clear that only those who are of the faith of Abraham are truly heirs of Abraham, and those who are circumcised in the heart.

So, being outwardly Jewish is not what makes you Jewish, but being inwardly circumcised in the heart. So, the

New Testament makes that distinction that there's impending judgment, it's coming soon, it's going to be upon the covenant -breaking people of God, they're about to be judged,

Jesus warns, gives the seven woes in Matthew chapter 23, right before the Great Tribulation passage is the passage of the seven woes of the

Messiah to the covenant -breaking Jews of God. That's all there. And it's interesting because if you read

Matthew, the most Jewish, technically, of the

Gospels, like just seeped in the Old Testament and the Old Testament worldview,

Old Testament thought, if you read that, you see that from like the start of Matthew, Matthew 3, when

John the Baptist enters in, the first thing he's saying is, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and then he is speaking to the leadership, right there, we're going to get to it later, he speaks to them and he warns them that his winnowing fork is in his hand, the axe is already laid at the root of the trees.

In other words, it's coming, the judgment of God is coming upon you, and like Matthew just kick -starts that whole thing, the whole

Gospel with that eager expectation that you're about to be judged, and then

Jesus says, your house is left to you desolate, all the blood of the righteous is going to be upon this generation, and I think that that actually is the context of Matthew 24,

Luke 21, Mark 13, but we're going to get to that. So, as you further explore the

Old Testament, and we're not going to tap this out today by any means, as you further explore the

Old Testament and say, get to Joel, not a large book in terms of the books of the prophets in the

Old Testament, very short, you can get through it in almost no time. I'm going to read to you something from Joel 2, okay, and in Joel 2, this is what's said in verse 28, and it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.

Even on the male and female servants in those days, I will pour out my spirit. Now, this is important because this is specifically the passage that the

Apostle Peter refers to, Joel chapter 2, at Pentecost, when all these amazing signs and wonders are taking place, and they took place throughout that entire generation of those first Christians before the destruction of Jerusalem.

You see so much of these amazing sign gifts of the

Spirit of God taking place. There were healings that were taking place. There was speaking in other languages.

There was tongues. There was all that stuff taking place, and Peter actually says at Pentecost, this is that which was spoken of by the prophet

Joel. So, he specifically points to this amazing outpouring of the Spirit of God and all these gifts now in action.

He specifically points to it and says, this is what Joel was telling us about. Now, what

I think most of us, if we're honest, and I'm in this boat too, when I was first reading Acts and reading through the

New Testament over and over and over again, I wouldn't hardly ever really, I mean,

I did on occasion, but I wouldn't really go back to the reference from the Old Testament to go explore it and to read above and below it and really try to understand what's the context of that passage, why is it being quoted.

You sort of just take it for granted that this is inspired revelation, the apostle's quoting from it, and so he's got it right.

That's what that was referring to. But if you are reading Acts and Peter says this, what you're seeing right now with the outpouring of the

Spirit of God and all these gifts is that which is spoken of by Joel the prophet, and you go to Joel and you just keep reading, you'll see something interesting, and that is after he says in verse 29 of 2, even on the male and female servants, in those days

I will pour out my Spirit. Okay, Peter acknowledged that. He said these are those days. That's what you're seeing right now.

But notice what it says right after. And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke.

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

Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape as the

Lord has said and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls. Now, I'd love to continue going on there, but what are you noticing immediately?

The Old Testament has the expectation of, as I argued, you're going to see in a moment here even more, salvation and judgment, salvation for the world, all the nations coming to God, messianic redemption, atonement, all that, but also judgment, judgment's coming on the covenant people of God.

They're going to be judged. People who provoke God to His face, He will repay. And in Joel 2, which

Peter says, what you're seeing is Joel 2, the outpouring of the Spirit of God, Joel immediately goes into after the outpouring of the

Spirit of God that this is what's taking place. I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke.

The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the awesome day of the Lord comes.

So what do you see here is that there's a specific link between the outpouring of the

Spirit of God and then God's fiery judgment. The judgment is right next to the outpouring of the

Spirit of God. And so really, what the Jews who are listening should have done is go and roll that scroll and see where the story is because this outpouring of the

Spirit is followed by judgment. Now, you have to note, and we're going to get into this as we get into the Great Jubilation passage and unpack it, that we have to recognize the language the

Bible uses. God uses dramatic, prophetic hyperbole when

He is speaking in the Old Testament. When specific judgments are coming, He will talk about the stars falling from heaven, the sun being darkened, and He'll do that when

He's talking about judging a pagan nation. And it didn't literally happen. The stars didn't literally fall from the sky.

So when Jesus quotes from that in Matthew 24, the stars falling from the heavens, that's been said before.

Jesus is literally quoting Isaiah. And it wasn't literal. It was dramatic, prophetic hyperbole.

It's, in a sense, think about somebody who is, use the word trash -talking somebody.

Like, I'm going to drop the world on your head. I'm going to turn your world upside down.

Does anybody understand that to be like, well, literally? Like, you're going to, you're going to float out to space, pick up the earth, and smash it on my head?

You're going to, you're going to turn the world upside down? You're going to flip it upside down? Everyone knows what we're saying.

I'm going to destroy your world. I'm going to unravel everything. And so, you see that a lot in the

Old Testament. We could spend a whole episode on the kind of language that God uses to describe His fiery judgment.

And so, when you see that in Joel, that's what God has done before when He talks about judging nations or judging a people, is

He uses that kind of dramatic language to get across the point. But was it literal when

God said it to Babylon or to Egypt? Was it literal that the stars fell from the heavens? No.

But were they literally destroyed? Yep. Yep. Was their world turned upside down? Yep.

And that's just the way that God speaks? That's exactly how He speaks. So, people are talking about like blood moons and sun being darkened and all the rest.

It's like, well, hold on a second. That's language that God has used before and it wasn't necessarily literal.

It was judgment language that God uses. And look, you can argue with it all you like.

It was Jesus quoting from Isaiah when He talks about the sun being darkened and the stars falling from the heavens.

And that did not literally happen, but they were literally destroyed. And so, my point is, is if you are, if we are, going to handle the

Great Tribulation passage rightly, we have to say, let Scripture interpret Scripture and actually do that.

And enter into, say, the Gospel according to Matthew, already armed with the expectation of all those prophecies that God said were going to take place in the life and ministry of the

Messiah. And so, you can see from Isaiah 65, that promise of judgment upon the covenant breaking people.

You see the Joel chapter 2, the passage that's quoted from the Apostle Peter at Pentecost, it is the outpouring of the

Spirit of God, and it is looming judgment. And wouldn't you know it?

That is what you see throughout the New Testament revelation, is this eager expectation of this soon -coming judgment.

And it's a specific people that it's promised to. Now, I'll give you one more for today, a little shorter show for today.

I know, I know, we normally do some extended shows on this, but I have twins to get back home to.

And that's just the way that it is. That's just what my life is right now, is trying to juggle ministry and family and two little girls that are doing wonderful, by the way, and End Abortion Now stuff and all that.

So, I'm doing my best, and we will fill this out. But here's one that I find so fascinating.

Of all that we've done so far, this, probably my favorite, right here. This was probably my favorite.

So, Malachi, how much time have you spent there? In Malachi.

Be honest. I think most Christians are honest, they're like, well, not a lot. Maybe even not a lot in the

Old Testament, period. And that's not good. That is not good. But Malachi is, you'll recognize it.

For sure, you're going to recognize this. If you've read a New Testament, you know this verse. In Malachi 3, it says,

Behold, I sent my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the

Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. And the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the

Lord of hosts. That is, did you catch that? That is so stinking awesome.

Seriously. I have to confess that I read that so many times, and I missed a critical detail that is pretty awesome.

It's pretty awesome. It's right there. It should jump out at you, but I'm just, I think it points just too dumb, and I need people to explain things to me.

But the passage says, Behold, I sent my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And we go,

Jesus said that that was John the Baptist. That's the messenger. He's preparing the way before Jesus.

Jesus said that that right there is John the Baptist. And so we all sort of go, great, there's the fulfillment, the messenger before Jesus comes.

But look what it says. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.

And the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says Yahweh of hosts.

Did you catch it yet? Messenger comes, Messiah comes.

And it says, the Lord whom you seek will come to his temple. And so that's why I just find so amazing is that John the

Baptist comes in, and he comes in, and he precedes

Jesus. And then Jesus comes. And then in the New Testament, Jesus actually comes to his temple. The Lord whom you seek will come to his temple, his temple, his temple.

It's God himself coming to his own temple. But it is first John the

Baptist, the messenger prepares the way. And then it is Jesus who comes to his temple.

But watch, here we go. But who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the

Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

Okay, so there's what I was emphasizing, that you've got the messenger comes first,

Jesus comes next, the Lord whom you seek comes to his temple, and then it says this, it tells us this amazing description of the coming of the

Messiah is going to be to purify the people of God, that they would bring forth offerings in righteousness, and they will be pleasing to God.

And so that's what I meant by salvation. There's another example of it. Messenger, Jesus, salvation, atonement, purification, that's embedded there, right?

But look what it said right after. It says, then I will draw near to you for judgment.

I'll be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker and his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the

Lord of hosts. So those are pretty specific, like law of God, Torah violations.

And I do find it fascinating that as you read the woes, the seven woes that Jesus gives in Matthew 23 before he goes into the temple being destroyed, and all these things are going to take place in your generation before you all die, in those seven woes is those kind of indictments, those indictments about their violation of the law of God.

But that's what it says. It says that the messenger comes, Jesus comes, comes to his temple, which by the way is powerful.

I've already said that, but I think it's amazing. He comes to his temple, and then he departs from the temple.

In Matthew's gospel, he comes to indict the covenant breakers, and then he goes to the

Mount of Olives, he leaves, and then he sits on the Mount of Olives, which is by the way precisely what took place in the

Old Testament before the destruction of the temple, as Yahweh's glory left the temple and rested on the Mount of Olives. You've got to see all that.

Same thing, now Yahweh is doing it right there in the incarnation. It's stinking awesome. I'm losing my place because I'm just,

I think it's so amazing the consistency of the story and the imagery and the glory, all that there.

But messenger, Jesus comes to his temple, purification for the people of God, and then specific judgment upon those who violate the

Torah and the law word of God. And then that's the expectation.

So Malachi though, it ends interestingly. Malachi ends in chapter 4, it says, for behold the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all the evil doers will be stubble.

The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that will leave them neither root nor branch.

But for you who fear my name, the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall and you shall tread down the wicked for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when

I act, says the Lord of hosts. Now listen to the warning. Remember the law of my servant

Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel, behold,

I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers as I come and strike the land with the decree of utter destruction.

That right there, those two sections from Malachi. In our

Bibles, Malachi is the last work of the Old Testament before the empty page and then

Matthew, right? And so there's that threat. Elijah the prophet comes, the messenger comes, then the

Messiah is coming. It's going to be purification and it's going to be judgment. And it's interesting because that's where we're left with, that's what we're left with, but there's a warning there that the day is coming where God's going to act and he's going to judge and then he says specifically this.

Listen closely. Verse four of chapter four. Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all

Israel. Jesus said that John the Baptist was that Elijah the prophet. He came in the same manner, nature of Elijah the prophet, calling people to repentance, all of that.

And then there's going to be the great and awesome day of the Lord. Now, turn the page, Matthew's gospel,

Matthew three, John the Baptist shows up. Jesus says John the Baptist is that messenger. John the Baptist is the

Elijah and it says this in chapter three, verse one. In those days,

John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the

Lord, make his path straight. Now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist and his food was locust and wild honey.

Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about him, about the Jordan were coming, were going out to him and they were baptized by him in the river

Jordan confessing their sins. Now watch. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, you brood of vipers who warned you to flee from the wrath to come.

And there's, it's interesting the word mellow there. The wrath to come is about to come. It could be actually translated that way as well.

The wrath about to come. Bear fruit in keeping with repentance and do not presume to say to yourselves, we have

Abraham as our father. For I tell you that God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

Even now they act as laid to the root of the trees. It's already there. The teeth of the ax are right there in the tree.

And it says, every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Not good, not good.

His winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his weed into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Well, if you've been reading your Old Testament and you've got this eager expectation of the Messianic kingdom and what's to come, you're like, huh, what

John the Baptist is saying, the messenger, Elijah, before the Lord comes to his temple and the great and awesome day of the

Lord, what he's saying is exactly what the Old Testament said. Isaiah 65, Joel 2,

Malachi 3, the end of Malachi is precisely the expectation. Okay, messenger's coming.

Okay, the Messiah is right after him. John the Baptist is saying the same thing that Joel said. John the

Baptist is saying the same thing that Malachi said. There's no surprises here. God's gonna bring his judgment and there's gonna be purification, salvation, and judgment and John the

Baptist is just warning of exactly what Malachi warned of, that there's gonna be judgment coming and so he's warning them.

It's about to come. The ax is laid at the root of the trees. The wooden fork is in his hand. Repent. And he's talking specifically to the

Jewish leadership of that day, the covenant -breaking Jewish leadership that professed one thing with their mouths but inwardly they were full of dead men's bones and so my argument on the whole question of the

Great Tribulation and pre -trib, mid -trib, post -trib, all that, I'm actually gonna argue that the

Great Tribulation promised in Matthew 24, Luke 21, Mark 13, if you read the text and let it speak, it's speaking to that generation.

Jesus is not a false prophet. He promised that judgment before they all died over and over again and there was the eager expectation of this soon -coming judgment upon that generation.

Matthew's gospel opens up with the messenger, Elijah, doing what you expected him to do and that's call people to repentance and warning them of this soon -coming judgment, the great and awesome day of the

Lord and so that's what I think we have to start with to say, if we're gonna have any understanding of what

Matthew's gospel is talking about or Luke's gospel or Mark's gospel in terms of the Great Tribulation and the Olivet Discourse, we've gotta read the

Bible biblically. Read it biblically. Let the Bible tell the story and not just go running to passages and say, well look, there's, what is it, yesterday,

Iran launched like 180 missiles at Israel and you go, oh look, wars and rumors of wars, famine, pestilence, plagues, you can even, this is happening.

People will see like the hurricane that just hit and let's all pray for the people who were impacted by that and it's a horrible tragedy but people will see the hurricane that just hit the southeastern coast and will start just immediately just pulling

Bible verses and using that somehow to say, well that must mean that we're about to get into the

Great Tribulation and be raptured. It's like, this has happened over and over and over again. In the last 50 years this has happened over and over and over again and it happened 200 years ago over and over and over again.

People were using these Bible verses to try to explain what's happening around them but I want to argue, let's read the

Bible biblically and let's let the Bible tell the story not what we hope it is, not what we hope it is because we can hope all we want a certain future in terms of Christian eschatology but if the

Bible doesn't teach that, it's not happening. It's not happening. It's worse than a pipe dream because we're lying about what

God is going to do in history ultimately. We're contradicting His Word. So now that we've laid that down, when we do this again, and I'm going to do my best to do it very, very soon,

I'm going to get into the New Testament actually just extending that story and explaining it from the

Old Testament of that expectation of salvation and judgment. Messiah comes and there's going to be judgment upon the people of God, the covenant -breaking people of God.

And so that's a good way to start this discussion. I hope this is a benefit to you guys. I wanted to tell you all thank you so much for praying for us as a ministry.

So much is happening right now. I can't reveal everything at the moment, but I'll just tell you right now, if you've been praying for end abortion now and you've even been giving financially,

I want to tell you thank you so, so, so much for that. I just got back from a meeting with legislators in Kentucky and Ohio.

We have stuff happening across the country right now. The guys were recently in North Dakota. Let's just say that please keep praying for end abortion now and the bills of equal protection that are being put in by us and by others that we're all supporting each other.

Be in prayer for that. God's doing amazing things. If you can, please give financially at endabortionnow .com.

It's a ministry doing a lot of damage and working to establish justice for the pre -born. And it's a very small ministry.

It's just our church and we need financial help to do the work that we're doing. So please, endabortionnow .com. Please give there.

I want to point everybody to what I'm wearing in my arm right now. Go look up health benefits of NAD.

Health benefits of NAD. It'll blow your mind. It's pretty awesome. This is something that God put into our bodies that you have an abundance of when you are young and it starts to diminish as you get older.

It's used in so many biological processes in your body. You've heard me say before that if you went without NAD in your system for 30 seconds, you'd be dead.

It is vital for your system. As you get older, you lose a lot of it and you're not making as much of it.

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It's hard to plod through. And the guys over at IonLayer .com I -O -N

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The amount of NAD you're getting in a single patch is amazing. It's obscene, maybe.

But you're getting a bunch of it and the cost is just so much less. So, if you wanted to invest in your own health and wellness and longevity,

I do it. I absolutely love these guys. And so, I'm talking about it with you because I do it anyways.

And they have a way to bless you and bless us. IonLayer .com Type in APOLOGIA in all caps in the coupon code.

You'll get a discount and they'll support the work of the ministry at Apologia Studios. And so, I highly recommend it.

It's just been a blessing to my life. And so, go there. Do that. Please continue to pray for us. Don't forget, we're getting an app for Apologia All Access very soon.

I will be announcing after I meet with the team to find out how much longer we have to go on that.

I'm very excited about it. It's going to be an orderly way to utilize everything that's there at ApologiaStudios .com

and All Access. I'm grateful for the opportunity to present that to everybody. Hopefully it comes very, very soon.

Sign up for All Access. Be a part of this ministry with us. I'd love to share with you guys a million stories that I've heard over just the last two months of lives being changed, people being saved, coming to Christ, out of cults and other various groups, churches being transformed through the theological mission of Apologia Church and Apologia Studios.

Blessed to be able to be a part of this. Humbled. I don't deserve this. And I'm just grateful to be a part of what

God is doing here. So I want to thank you guys all again for doing this ministry with me. I'll catch you next week right here on Apologia Radio.

This is the Academy. I am Eli Ayala of Revealed Apologetics and I will be bringing a six -part series on Presuppositional Apologetics.

What is this called? The Apologia Academy? It's just called The Academy. Okay. What's up, everybody?

My name is Pastor Jeff Durbin and you're watching Collision Today. I'm going to be interacting with an atheist on TikTok.

So here we go. Unsupervised and unhinged. Welcome back to Cultish the

Aftermath. Hey, everybody.

Welcome back to another episode of Ask Me Anything. You are watching Apologia Radio's after show exclusively for all access.