Eschatology - The Great Tribulation

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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February 24, 2021

00:02: well on this evening, I do not have a handout for you and That is because it wouldn't be any different than the handout I gave you the last couple weeks because we've sort of been in a holding pattern in our study of the subject of preterism and I want to bring everyone up to sort of where we are at this point in this part of the lesson and And Lord willing this will be the last night that we look at the doctrine of partial or orthodox preterism and Next week we will move on to our discussion of hell Which is always something I'm sure we look forward to and then the the last the last study and not only eschatology, but in the two years of Overview of theology that we've had will be our look at heaven.
00:59: So Tonight is our last look at preterism.
01:03: Next week is hell and then the last week will be heaven so Let us again be reminded of what I mean when we talk about the doctrine of preterism preterism is a Term which simply means something that happened in the past and so the idea is when we look at the book of Revelation, there's there's four different ways that Revelation can be understood and Certainly not for right ways, but four ways that that people have tried to interpret it The first is known as futurism That's what most people are familiar with futurism is the idea that everything that's in Revelation after chapter 4 is yet to come and that is What most people that talk about in times and your how lindsey's and your guys like that? I don't know John who how lindsey is used to be on TBN and all these Christian stations and he would always be talking about the the End-times and he would be he would he would be Charting out everything for you and then John Hagee has the big charts and those guys are futurists they say everything that's the book of Revelation says after chapter 4 is going to happen in the future and We don't know when but many of them believe that it will be it will kick off with the rapture and then there will be a Tribulation period and then after the tribulation period will be the return of Christ.
02:34: And so that's futurism That's a specific type of futurism, but that is all known as futurism then you have what's known as idealism idealism simply sees Revelation as an analogy for the for the evil in the world that there's good and there's evil always in battled and they looks at Revelation less of a of a literal textbook but rather more of an analogy or an allegory and then you have What is known historicism? historicism says Revelation began to be fulfilled in the past But it is still being fulfilled today and it's looked at over a long period of time And so historicism would say that it's a long fulfillment rather than a short time and if you've ever studied Calvin and Luther and looked at the Reformers they took a historicist view.
03:28: That's why if you study the confessions that came out of the Reformation you'll realize that they believe that the Antichrist was the Pope in fact the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith Says the Antichrist is the Pope in Rome.
03:45: And so that was how they saw it from a historical perspective Preterism as I said says that the Majority of Revelation was fulfilled in the past now want to ask this question all my good Bible students and I know I was out last week.
04:03: So I'm gonna ask you a pop quiz from two weeks ago and prior What? major historical event does Preterism point the book of Revelation Toward the fall of Jerusalem.
04:22: Now the fall of Jerusalem took place when? in in the 70th year of The first century so what is simply called 8070 8070 was the fall of Jerusalem and I don't care whether or not you are a preterist if You are unfamiliar with the fall of Jerusalem Then that is not a good thing Because even if you don't believe that the fall of Jerusalem is when Revelation was fulfilled At least the fall of Jerusalem should mark itself on your historical calendar as one of those watershed moments in Biblical history So even if you've come away from this study the last several weeks Disagreeing with me on this is where Revelation was fulfilled You have to admit that the significance of this event cannot be overstated If you looking through history if I gave you just a few dates These are these are dates that I think all Christians should be aware of 80 70 83 25 80 10 58 80 15 16 All of those dates are watershed moments in or 15 17 rather The first one would have been the fall of Jerusalem the second would have been the Council of Nicaea the third one would have been the great schism where the Eastern and Western Church divided in 10 58 and In 15 17 was the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
06:01: These are moments in history that we should all know Because these are and here's a thing, you know, I've told this story before but there was a there was a picture of Lucy and Charlie Brown and Charlie Brown asked her, you know, what are you doing? I'm writing a paper on church history.
06:17: Well, how does your paper start? My pastor was born in 1925 That's when church history began was when my pastor was born.
06:24: You know, that's how people look at history You had a conversation yesterday with another pastor and we were discussing what the church believed about a particular doctrine And we were debating over whether and whether or not the church really should hold to that particular doctrine and he was like well Everybody since 15 17 everybody's held this view.
06:43: I said, yeah, but what did they believe before that? What did they what did Augustine believe about that? What did it? Irenaeus believe about that not to say that they're right.
06:53: But what did they believe about that? Is this doctrine a new doctrine? Or is this the doctrine that the church has understood the great thing about justification by faith is Martin Luther didn't invent it Justification by faith alone was Luther was riding on the back of Augustine a thousand years earlier.
07:14: He cited Augustine him and Calvin cited Augustine more than any other Previous theologian and of course Augustine based his on Paul so I've kind of gone off the subject But the point is history is so important and we should know why these things matter And so if nothing else if I haven't convinced you of partial preterism I hope that I've at least given you some insight into the importance of what happened in 8070 and why it should matter to us as I said The Old Covenant Officially ended with the arrival of the New Covenant and the arrival of the New Covenant is in Christ and Yet there was still a period of time where people were still functioning under the Old Covenant There were still sacrifices being made there were still animals being taken to the temple There was still a temple in Jerusalem until 8070 and it was like as if God had taken the door of the Old Testament and just closed it shut when Titus came in and Destroyed that temple as if to say no more Not going to tolerate it anymore We've given you 40 years of grace a 40 year grace period from the time of Christ's death Had a guy, you know, I post online and post my podcast I post these lessons had a guy get on and argue on our YouTube page.
08:46: And if you're watching hello, he was arguing that You're wrong That the Old Covenant ended When Christ came and I said, I'm not wrong because I've been saying that the whole time I'm not saying the Old Covenant went until 8070.
09:04: What I'm saying is 8070 was the moment when no longer could it be practiced.
09:10: I Believe it ended with Christ.
09:13: I believe the New Covenant begins with Christ But even in the book of Acts we see a transitional time Where the people did not truly understand all that Christ had come to do and there was a transitional time Where the Apostle was going and teaching this transition from the old to the new Yes, the New Covenant has come and yes that puts the Old Covenant away and it is obsolete By the way, when the New Covenant comes the Old Covenant is made obsolete Hebrews 8 13 is very clear about that People get upset but the Bible clearly says when the New Covenant came it made the Old Covenant obsolete and When that happened when Christ came there was still a time period for a 40 years one generation Was allowed to continue essentially under the under the shadow of the Old Covenant but then that Old Covenant shadow was no more So tonight we're going to answer the question what about the Great Tribulation Language becomes so common among people that when you hear a term you automatically get a Thought in your mind about what it means and when I say to you the Great Tribulation what comes to your mind? You may answer please.
10:40: No, don't let me hang.
10:41: What do you think Great Tribulation? Hell on Earth, what else? It's a good answer, but destruction anything You know what? I think about when I think Great Tribulation all those old movies About left being left behind Whether it was the Kirk Cameron, which those aren't too old.
11:05: Those are about 20 years old Joe watch the Left Behind movies When when Kirk Cameron was was, you know acting and they made the movies the Left Behind movies and the idea was Believers got taken away in the rapture And then there was this tribulation period and one of the one of the movies was even called tribulation force It was dealing, you know It was like there was a small band of ragtag Christians who are now fighting against this terrible Antichrist and they were the tribulation force, you know fighting them back against the Antichrist during the Great Tribulation most of us when we think of the word tribulation we think of some time in the future That is going to come where things are going to get really bad right before Jesus returns That's that's the idea.
11:52: And again, it's been fashioned for us by Biblical popular culture now that sounds like an oxymoron, but let me explain what I mean by biblical popular culture We have biblical truth and then we have popular culture and then we have biblical popular culture and that's where people who are teaching the Bible, but they use popular culture means such as Movies and books and the Left Behind series is a great example of that And so the Left Behind series taught us that what's going to happen is that there's going to be a tribulation I'm sorry, there's going to be a rapture which is an invisible taking away of all the Christians So one day all the Christians will be here in an instant a moment a twinkling of an eye They're all going to go away that is going to begin the process of the seven-year Tribulation and the seven-year tribulation is three and a half years of bad and Then three and a half years of really bad or we just say worse it's going to go from bad to worse and Though the the Bible doesn't say this One of the arguments in this particular position is that Sometime after the rapture there's going to be some form of a treaty made in the Middle East where the Jews will be allowed to rebuild their temple and So somewhere in here there will be a rebuilt temple that way They'll be able to start having sacrifices again, and they'll be able to fulfill what the book of Revelation says again This is classic Dispensational theology it says that this is what's going to happen and then at the end of seven years Jesus will return with his Saints that he took out with with his raptured church and that will begin a 1,000 year well, I guess one 1,000 in case you say 1,000 year A Reigning of Christ on earth what we call the Millennium, so there will be a seven-year tribulation and a 1,000 year reign of Christ Here's the thing about this What's so common about this particular statement is? I've been in many Bible studies where someone will look at me and in the midst of conversation They'll say pastor.
14:18: Are you pre trip mid trip or post trip? If you don't know what that means what that means is do you believe the rapture is going to happen before the tribulation? Do you believe that rapture is going to happen during the tribulation mid trip? Or do you believe the rapture is going to happen after the tribulation? We're going to go up and come right back down That's the question.
14:42: What does that question assume? It assumes the tribulation is is without question Right that assumption is there's got to be a tribulation you don't have a choice About whether or not there's going to be a tribulation Your only choice is whether or not we're getting taken out before it happens while it's happening or after it happens And so I usually throw a monkey wrench in the whole program Because when they ask me are you pre trip post trip or mid trip? I will say well which tribulation are you referring to and they'll say well the tribulation in Reveille tribulation and My response in a in a gracious way is it's impossible to be any of those things because I believe that already happened Now I've lost my mind, but that's the point because I believe that all of this that they're talking about actually happened here and That is really where we're going to go today is talking about what happened in 8070 and Why I believe that it is ultimately what John was referring to in his goss or in his Apocalypse the the revelation or the apocalypse of John Now let me say this before I go even further There's no way in my mind that you can describe what happened in 8070 and the years building up to it as anything other than a tribulation time There's no way to describe it any other way However, I want to say this there's also no other way to describe what's happening to many Christians today There are Christians in tribulation today there were Christians in tribulation in fact more Christians died in the 1900s for their faith specifically than any previous century all the way back to Christ That and that's not me that voice of the martyrs look it up more Christians died for confessing Jesus Christ between 1900 and 1999 than any generation any 100 year period prior two reasons why that is it's easier to kill people when you have massive amounts of guns and bombs and it's also a lot larger population We spiked into the billions very quickly and Shot we are 8 billion people now when I was a kid.
17:20: It was 6 billion think about b-b-b-billion how in confessing Christians make up about 2 billion of that 8 billion Now I'm not saying they're all believers because most of them are Roman Catholics and some of them are heretics Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses all fall under the category of confessing Christians But still 2 billion out of 8 billion is a lot so The numbers of being more killed in the last hundred years.
17:53: That's that's easy to come by could more people and it's easier to kill them But at the same time it still was the bloodiest century for Christians in in in history So looking at that when somebody asked me about tribulation, I say what about what the Chinese are facing right now? the Chinese are facing tribulation right now under communism and we go back to the time of the Reformation and There were there were people who were dying at the hands of the Roman Catholic Church There was tribulation happening then what happened to the Anabaptists as much as I disagree with some of the Anabaptist theology What happened to the early Anabaptists and it was even some of our Protestant forefathers who persecuted the Anabaptists Again, I don't agree with their theology But I also don't agree with tying them to ropes and putting them with a stone and drowning them either Yep Absolutely.
18:52: So when we discuss persecution and we discuss tribulation we have to be honest and say there's always a time of tribulation but the Bible describes this as a great tribulation a time of a time as never has been before on the earth and So we have to consider what is being referred to I do think that what happened in 80-70 can fulfill much of Revelation It doesn't mean that there are no questions though Because we always have questions about well, how does this fit in or how does that fit in last week? We discussed for I know some of you weren't here.
19:33: Well, it wasn't last week.
19:34: It's two weeks ago two weeks ago We discussed the Beast of Revelation 13.
19:39: I made the argument that I believe the Beast was Nero Nero Caesar was in no other way to describe him than a beastly man And therefore I believe He fulfills the category of the the Revelation 13 beast But one of the questions that often arises is is this if if it is true that The the events that are expounded in Revelation are pointing to the tribulation that happened in 80-70 What about all of the things that could not have happened? such as the Sun going dark or the moon turning to blood or the sky being rolled back like a scroll That couldn't have happened in 80-70.
20:31: So how can we think that? Revelation was fulfilled in 80-70.
20:36: Well, I want you to consider for a moment that the book of Revelation uses what is known as apocalyptic language an apocalyptic language is Intended to describe events in a way that is very dramatic But not always very literal and if you have your Bibles I want you to turn with me to Isaiah 13 and I want to show you how this works Isaiah 13 verse 9 behold the day of the Lord comes cruel with wrath and fierce anger to make the land of desolation and To destroy its sinners from it for the stars of the heavens and Their constellations will not give their light The Sun will be dark at its rising and the moon will not shed its light.
22:08: I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity I Will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless I will make people more rare than fine gold and mankind and the gold of Ophir Therefore I will make the heavens tremble and the earth will be shaken out of its place at The wrath of the Lord of hosts in the day of his fierce anger Now if we read just that passage You would all assume that that was referring to the end of the world Because it talks about the earth being shaken out of its place The stars no longer giving their light The Sun being dark in daytime and the moon dark But yet that's not about the end of the world that passage is about the destruction of Babylon an Event that has already taken place It is using apocalyptic Language to describe the destruction of a Nation in graphic and yet non literal terms Again, people get upset when I say not literal because they think I'm saying not real not literal does not mean the same as not real Because there really was a destruction.
23:39: There really was death and Stuff things happening there really was all these things But it wasn't as I've said this to people and they they think I'm being sarcastic I'm really not but I say do you believe that the moon will will will have hemoglobin? Because it says it's going to turn to blood So do we think? Well, it means it's going to turn red It's not what it says.
24:11: It says it will Turn to blood You see again even the literalist has to allegorize in some form or fashion and I am very quick to tell you that like the story of Adam and Eve.
24:27: I believe it's true Absolutely believe it's true.
24:30: I believe Jonah really was in that fish.
24:32: I believe it's true.
24:34: I Believe the narratives of Scripture are true, but I believe we must interpret According to the language that something is written in and the language of Revelation is the same language of Isaiah and Jeremiah and the prophets.
24:51: It's the language of the apocalyptic Literature the apocalyptic style of writing it's intended to be grand dramatic analogies People get upset when I say it's an analogy, but I do believe it's an analogy keep your Bible open to Isaiah turn to chapter 34 Go to verse 3 Isaiah 34 verse 3 their slain shall be cast out and The stench of their corpses shall rise the mountains shall flow with their blood all The host of heaven shall rot away and the skies roll up like a scroll All their hosts shall fall as leaves fall from the vine Like leaves falling from a fig tree For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens Behold it descends for judgment upon Edom upon the people.
26:11: I have devoted to destruction Sounds like the end of the world Sounds like the return of Christ, but verse 5 tells us what it's about It's about the destruction of Edom an event that has already taken place So here we have two examples both from Isaiah Where he uses almost in fact, this language is the same as Revelation because the whole sky is rolling up as a scroll That's the language of John in Revelation.
26:41: We know that So we look to Isaiah.
26:45: What is that? What is the old the old reformers taught us you interpret scripture with? Scripture right the analogy of scriptorium the analogy of scripture or the analogy of faith Which means if it says it in one place You find other places that agree with it and you you you interpret scripture with scripture So here we have Isaiah talking about the destruction of Babylon.
27:09: He uses a very specific Apocalyptic language we see the same writer Isaiah talking about the destruction of Edom He uses very specific apocalyptic language John is Just I believe describing the destruction of Jerusalem in the same apocalyptic language Skies will be rolled up like a scroll Mountains will be filled with blood to the bridle of a horse.
27:40: There will be blood in the valley.
27:47: I With the Lord now, he was a died-in-the-wool Dispensationalist this was his Position I took eschatology one two and three with him and he was so dedicated to this position and he taught us I remember very specifically how deep that blood is going to be where it's up to the bridle of those horses and He took that as that's what it's going to be There's going to be a valley filled with blood to the bridle of the horses and that's the literal understanding of that text now could it be Sure.
28:24: I mean God flooded the world with water.
28:27: He can certainly flood a a valley with blood But I hope that I'm showing you at least for a moment That this language is intended to give dramatic pictures of real Events There really was a destruction of Babylon, but who destroyed Babylon? Medo-persians Remember, this is just a little history goes from the Babylonians.
28:56: They were the ones who took Jerusalem captive and They were overthrown by the Medes and the Persians And that was the ones who set them back to be able to go back to start building under Nehemiah and It was the other one the other book Ezra Ezra Nehemiah that was under the Medes and the Persians Then after that, who was it? Alexander the Great the Greeks So the Greeks overthrew the Medes and the Persians and after the Medes and the Persians who overthrew them The Romans right and how do we see we see that in Daniel Daniel tells us that remember the head of gold That's you.
29:34: No, maybe can Ezra you are the head of gold and then the chest and arms of silver that is the Medes and the Persians and the legs of of iron or I forget but it goes down and it's the that's Alexander and then the feet that was the Romans the Romans who would trod over and Destroy all of them that came before Yep Happened under the Romans Yes Sure, yeah, so there's a thousand-year reign.
30:30: Absolutely.
30:31: Yeah Yeah, absolutely there's a big controversy about that Well, that's the that's the big argument Because I you know, I told you I get messages from people Church folks y'all rarely send me anything and I guess I should be thankful Because I I don't get constant, you know Negativity, but I do get a lot of negativity from outside, you know, because we post everything I mean thousands of Teachings and lessons online and so I get letters from people and one of the things I got was it was a long thing About how wrong I was on the dating of Revelation.
31:22: How dare I believe Revelation was written before 80 70 But I've been consistent the whole time I've said if I'm wrong about that then everything about preterism is wrong at least from the perspective of being fulfilled if it wasn't written And I believe 68 67 68 if Revelation was written after 80 70 then I'm wrong But I don't think there's enough evidence to conclude that it's my contention and it has always been my contention I say always it's been my contention for a long time that the entire Bible was completed At the fall before the fall of Jerusalem that would include even the first second third letter of John which would probably have been the last things written was John's three letters and That would be if there was anything that came after 80 70, I think those books possibly But even then I think that we have we have evidence to believe there were that all of it was before 87 So All right something else I want to share with y'all tonight.
32:19: I want to I want to read to you from two historians One you probably have heard of how many of you have heard the name Josephus or Josephus depending on how you say it Just Josephus was a Jewish leader.
32:34: He was a He was captured and he sought to try to be a mediator Between the Jews and the Romans during the battles that led up to the destruction of Jerusalem He was a an eyewitness to what occurred and he wrote in his histories Many about many of the events that happened in I've already read a couple weeks ago I read about the the destruction of the temple.
32:59: He has a he has a specific outline of what happened a soldier took a Torch jumped on the back of another soldier and they ran in and he threw the torch up through the window and it landed and caught Fire and the people cried as the temple burned The people couldn't believe they knew they had lost when the temple was destroyed.
33:19: They knew the battle was over they knew they had lost and This was after months of being trapped inside the walls of Jerusalem having gone through a period of Starvation having gone through a period where there was there was they couldn't leave Because they were surrounded and when we talk about Jesus said that when you see your enemy surrounding you You know run to the hills and many Christians did many Christians avoided that because they had heeded the words of Christ and they knew that that Jesus was talking about this event and So It was a horrible situation.
33:57: Well, this is Josephus talking about Things that were seen during the destruction of Jerusalem things that were think things that we would call visions or signs now Did these things really happen? I don't know.
34:15: They're not in Scripture, but this is taken from two historians We're going to read one from Josephus.
34:21: We'll read one from Tacitus So two historians who were alive at the time who wrote about events that happened and I just want you to hear these Speaking of signs Josephus said this he said beside these signs a few days after that feast on the 1 and 20th day of the month of Artemisius a Certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared.
34:45: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable were it not related by those who saw it and were not the Events that followed it of so considerable in nature as to deserve such signals for before sunset Chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running among the clouds and surrounding of cities Moreover at that feast which we call Pentecost as the priests were going by night into the intercourt of the temple as Their custom was to perform their sacred ministrations They said that in the first place they felt a quaking and Heard a great noise and after that they heard the sound as if it were a great multitude saying let us remove hence So the idea that Josephus is saying here is that people were actually as it were seeing visions in the sky Visions of soldiers visions in battle and it reminds us of the Old Testament Remember the Old Testament when God allowed Certain people to see beyond the natural and see into the supernatural Remember the one who is like there was a there was a whole army and It was it wasn't an army.
36:01: It was angels and So again, did this happen? I don't know but I know this is something Josephus makes this point in the writing He said it would be thought of as a fable if so many people hadn't had seen it It would be thought a myth if so many people hadn't relayed that they had seen it Tacitus says this Prodigies had occurred But their expiation by the offering of victims or solemn vows is held to be unlawful by a nation Which is the slave of superstition and the enemy of true beliefs in? the sky appeared a vision of armies in conflict of glittering armor a Sudden lightning flash from the clouds lit up the temple the doors of the holy place Abruptly opened a superhuman voice was heard to declare that the gods were leaving it and in the same instance Came the rushing tumult of their departure few people placed a sinister Interpretation upon this the majority were convinced that the ancient scriptures of their priests alluded to the present as the very time when the Orient would triumph and from Judea would go forth men destined to rule the world again What do we see is a comparative thing? They both believed they saw things in the sky both said they heard a voice Did these things happen I don't know But I know there were a lot of people who said they happened and so we go back to the question.
37:31: What happened in 8070 What happened in 8070? was the end of the system That was intended to point to Jesus Christ the entire Old Testament system from the Smallest animals that were sacrificed in the daily sacrifices to the once a year sacrifice, which was made on Yom Kippur Every single one of those sacrifices made in the temple were designed to point toward one event the coming sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ and once Jesus came and That event was finished Then the temple served no more purpose so therefore the argument that this event is the closing of the Old Covenant and Ultimately what John was pointing to in his revelation, I think can stand up to scrutiny But I am the first to say I Don't know for sure When it comes to the question of do I think there could still be a tribulation yet to come I want to remind you of a principle that we find in Scripture and it is the principle of the already and the not yet there are several times in Scripture where something will have an already and Then a not yet fulfillment a Good example of this is in the book of Daniel The book of Daniel talks about the desolation or the abomination of desolation which would take place in the temple Well, the first time the abomination of desolation happened I believe was in the intertestamental period under a man named Antiochus Epiphanes he went into the temple he set up a statue to Zeus and it created the Battle of the Maccabees whereby Ultimately the Maccabees came and reclaimed the temple and took off the head of the statue and reclaimed the temple for God But Daniel told us that was going to happen.
39:41: He says when you see the abomination of desolation set up and It did there was a literally in the temple a statue of a false God But later Jesus said that's going to happen again He says when you see the abomination of desolation set up in the temple Know that the time has come So there was an immediate fulfillment but there was also a later more Graphic and I would say more powerful fulfillment So could it be and I think it could be that what happened in Jerusalem in 80 70 was what John was pointing to? But yet there could still be a great tribulation for us to face Possibly And I'll finish with this thought if you remember the story of the Millennium Revelation chapter 20 it says Satan will be bound For a thousand years What did we say? We think the thousand years is the time of Christ to the time of his return? But what does the Revelation chapter 20 say will happen right before the return Satan will be loosed So could that be a future tribulation yet to come? Could there still be something on the apocalyptic calendar that we have to look forward to? Yes, it's very possible That's what I'm saying there could be another but I think that what happened in 80 70 if nothing else is a picture of What could come and the terrors and the horrors that led to that great event Could come yet again So I don't mean to leave you with a down note But just because we believe in a preteristic understanding of Revelation doesn't mean that we deny that there could be a future tribulation We don't know But I will say this if there is If we face it We stand firm We trust that Christ will not Will not allow his people to be put to shame and ultimately we'll have the victory in him Even if we have to go to the gallows Even if we have to go to the guillotine Even if we have to go to the firing squad We go knowing that our future as much as our past is Bound up and ultimately protected in him Any questions a lot to think about let's pray Father I thank you for this time Thank you for what I hope has been a fruitful study And Lord next week as we look to what happens after Christ returns and The eternal state of the wicked and then Lord in two weeks the eternal state of the righteous Lord help us to understand how Even in those difficult subjects there's great truth that we can hold to Pray that the tonight's lesson has been useful Fruitful and what all would ultimately lead us To a better understanding of your word in Christ's name.