153. Answering Objections with Gary Demar

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf, an interview with Gary DeMar.

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Well, hello, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast.

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My name is Kendall, and I'm so excited for today because, as you know, we've been in a series called

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Revelation, and we decided in typical, I guess, broadcast fashion not to go directly at it, but to do an introduction to it.

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In the introduction to Revelation and what we've been arguing this entire time is the Olivet Discourse.

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It's the sort of primer, if you will, that will help us understand

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Revelation when we get into it. We've been looking at Matthew 24 now for 16 episodes, and we've been looking at it at a fairly complex and fairly detailed level so that we can understand these things.

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Today, I'm so excited because before we jump into the book of Revelation, I wanted to have an episode where we answer objections.

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If you've looked at all in our comment thread where I've been called everything from a witch and warlock and a heretic and everything else, there's a lot of people who disagree with what we've been sharing.

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I thought, why not do one episode completely dedicated to answering objections?

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When I thought about that, I thought about no one better to have on the show than Gary DeMar.

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Gary, brother, thank you so much and welcome to the show. Gary DeMar It's good to be back. Good to be alive.

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Tom Hanks Amen. The first time you were here was almost a year ago, or maybe even just right at a year ago.

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The show, the broadcast was not even really a thing yet. We had less than 500 subscribers.

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We had almost no videos on our YouTube channel, and at that point, you graciously accepted the invite from this

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North Carolinian that moved to Boston, and you said that you would be on the show. By the Lord's grace, brother, that video is the most watched video on our channel still to this day.

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It's really cool to have you back now a year later when the show is quadrupled or even five times the size that it was.

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To have you back now, it's a real honor. Gary DeMar Well, good to—my wife said, who are you talking to with today?

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I said, I get these requests from all over the country, and I don't know the people generally who are interviewing me, but I try to take every opportunity

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I can to deal with this topic and other topics that I deal with as well. With new media, what's available with all of this,

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I think it's helpful to talk about these things, just lay it all out there and let people think about it and talk about it and do their own research and study on it.

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I think that's the most important point. Tom Hanks Amen. It's a really good point that you're making there because the reason the

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Reformation was what the Reformation was is that they utilized the printing press, and it's not all of it. Obviously, there was more, but this idea of using the technology that's available, that's how

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I found your videos. That's how I found your Last Days Madness book and American Vision, David Chilton.

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I found all of these things because you said yes to invitations, you said yes to doing things on YouTube, and you put that information out there, and it really deeply impacted me.

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I pray the Lord would do the same thing with our episode today and episodes in the future and all of that.

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With that, though, just in case someone's never met you, has not been acquainted with your work, tell us who you are, where you're at, what you're working on, and just orient us to what

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I've been excited and feasting on for 10 years. Oh, wow.

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I became a Christian in 1973, my senior year in college. I providentially ended up moving down to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

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I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and ended up just a few blocks from Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, where D.

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James Kennedy was the pastor. He was a real worldview guy. He was a really sharp, great preacher, teacher, and that's where I kind of got my feet wet in terms of Christian worldview.

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While eschatology is something I talk a lot about for various reasons, a real interest is in how the

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Bible applies to every area of life, and I really got that from Dr. Kennedy. I ended up going to Reform Theological Seminary in 1974, graduated from there in 1979, moved to the

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Atlanta area, got married two years before that in 77. I've been here in the

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Atlanta area since 1979. I taught school for a couple of years, and I started working at American Vision, and the first product

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I created was God in Government. This was 1982, so that was right at kind of the midpoint of the

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Reagan administration, and it was really kind of the first time that Christians had gotten involved in politics as an actual voting bloc.

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Jimmy Carter was a born -again Christian, and you think back on that, I don't know how old you are, but 1980, you're looking at, what, 45 years ago.

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Maybe a lot of people watching and listening to this, maybe not even born then or too young to even understand what had been going on, and so I wanted to make it clear that when the

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Bible talks about government, it's not talking solely about politics, and so I said God was the governor of all things, and He established family government, church government, civil government, and underlying that was self -government.

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And so that's how I got involved in this, but when I went out to speak on the topic, and invariably someone would come up and say, why are we bothering with this?

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Remember, this is 1980 -something, so why bother with this? Because Jesus is coming soon.

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All the signs are out there that Jesus is coming soon. Here we are talking about the

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Christian's relationship to worldview issues and politics and all that sort of thing, and so I felt

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I needed to really deal with the eschatology issue, and that's really how I got involved in that side of things.

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So I didn't do it just as an academic exercise. I did it because it became a stumbling block for lots of people, because in the 1980s,

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Hal Lindsay had written his book 1970, The Late Great Planet Earth, and essentially made the prediction that all things were going to come to an end before 1988.

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And so it was extremely important to really nail down this eschatological belief system that anything

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I'm going to talk about today and have talked about, there's really nothing new about it. I've packaged it a little differently, and brought it up to date, but there's nothing new.

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This isn't an innovation of mine or anybody else. Maybe the way I present it is a little different.

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Maybe my take on certain passages may be a little different. But if you study the history of prophecy, there's always been this strain of prophecy—actually, two strains.

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One is, we're living in the last days. You can go all the way through history for that. And there's another group that says,

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God has put us in this world, and we're supposed to apply God's Word to every area of life. And while they didn't really speak specifically to eschatological matters like we do—pre -mill, aumil, post -mill, pre -trib—those categories just didn't exist.

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And so today, we've categorized so many different things, and we all kind of fall into that specific category.

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And you grow up with that, and it's never been challenged, and you think that is the biblical view.

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And I just take issue with so much that's out there today that says it's orthodox. Chris Right.

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Yeah, and that's probably a good transition to what we're talking about today, because I decided before we started a

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Revelation series—I decided this 10 years ago, before I even had a podcast—that if I'm going to do a series on Revelation, if I'm ever going to teach as a pastor on Revelation, then

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I need to understand other passages first. I can't go there and think with the hubris that I'm going to figure out the hardest book in the

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Bible, which is really a book that's pointing to all the rest of the Bible. So I need to know the

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Bible. I need to know Daniel. I need to know Matthew 24. I need to know Zechariah. I need to know Ezekiel and Isaiah.

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So I've been on this journey for a while of trying to understand biblical eschatology independent of Revelation, because so much of what

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I was taught has just been just wrong. I very deeply appreciate how you've centraled so much of your teaching on Matthew 24, because in my mind, it seems to be exactly what

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Revelation is describing, but in language, actually, that's quite easier for us to understand, for the most part, except for some parts of it that are apocalyptic.

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Would you agree with that? David Look, you've got Matthew, Mark, and Luke. You've got three

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Gospels that deal with similar parallels. Matthew, also chapter 10, chapter 16,

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Luke 17, Luke 19, Luke 21, Mark 13. So there's a great deal of material there that you can figure out what's going on, and then once you get that figured out, what

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Jesus is talking about, that eliminates some aspects of popular prophecy.

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So when you get to the book of Revelation, look, let's keep in mind here, some of the best commentators, John Calvin, Martin Luther, who wrote commentaries on many, many books of the

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Bible, Calvin especially, did not do a commentary on the book of Revelation.

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And you really do have to know the rest of the Bible to do this. Moses Stewart, for example, wrote a commentary on Hebrews, wrote a commentary on Daniel before he decided he was going to write his commentary on Revelation.

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Revelation is a very, very difficult book, but if you pay attention to certain elements in the book of Revelation, you may not be able to figure out everything in there, but at least you can narrow down the time frame of it, and that's very important.

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And you do the same thing with Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21. Right. Now, it seems to me as we jump into this, and this has been sort of a thing that I keep coming back to over and over and over again, is that the reason that this issue exists right now is hermeneutical, more than anything.

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It's the dispensational, the premillennial type, are reading, whether they know it or not, they're reading into the

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Bible, their own context, their current events, all that. And really, the work of exegesis that many faithful premillennials do in other passages, they're not applying to Matthew 24, because if they consistently applied what does the original author intend to say to the original audience, then they wouldn't have these problems.

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But would you agree that a lot of this really is downstream of hermeneutics? Pete Yeah, hermeneutics is really the science and art of interpretation.

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We do hermeneutics with everything. Any conversation we have with somebody, we are involved in hermeneutics, trying to figure out what the person is saying.

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When you don't know, you're not really aware of what someone has just said, you ask questions about it.

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Define that term. What do you mean by that? Where'd you get your information? Who were you talking to?

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Who told you this? We do this all the time. And we need to do the same thing about the

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Bible. The Bible was written in a particular historical context. There were actually people to whom

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Jesus was speaking when you get to the Olivet Discourse. There were people there. He's not just talking to the wind, he's talking to people.

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So audience relevance becomes extremely important. And then if you look at Matthew's gospel in particular, you really can't just dive into Matthew 24.

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You have to begin where the Olivet Discourse begins.

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And the beginning of the Olivet Discourse was in the 21st chapter.

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So you go all the way back to the 21st chapter, you find out that Jesus was at the Mount of Olives, or in that area.

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So chapters 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25 are one big historical audience context.

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That's very important. You just can't pull a verse out of Matthew 24 and say, you know, the abomination of desolation.

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Obviously that hasn't happened yet, someone will say. Well, so you look at Matthew 24 verse 15, and you say, well, wait a minute, there were at least 14 verses before that.

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And there are, you know, 20 verses, 28 or 9 verses after that.

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And then there were these chapters before that, what questions were asked, what precipitated the question.

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All of that has to be taken into account. And unfortunately, most people don't do that, because they've heard what other people have said about these various verses.

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And those people come across as very authoritative and knowledgeable, and they believe those.

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And then it's part of a whole system. And on the basis of that system, I believe that that system has been, you know, forced on the text of Scripture.

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And you don't have to be a Bible scholar to do what I do at a very specific level.

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Just what does the text say? To whom is Jesus speaking? Are there any time elements involved?

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And are there any examples of where you can compare Scripture with Scripture? And, you know, keep in mind that the

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Bible is literature, that you have to, you know, look if there are other places in Scripture where the same concepts are used, look at those, see if something is clear, more clear than others.

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But most young Christians aren't trained to do that.

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They're dependent upon what others have said about a passage or about a particular view. Petey Yeah. I guess maybe our first objection that we should bring up then in light of that is that the assumption that's baked in is that these things must be future, therefore they are future.

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It's sort of circular thinking, right? In Matthew 21 through 25, which is this block of material that you're referencing, what would you say to someone who says, well, eschatology is about the future, so therefore it can't be first century.

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What evidences in Matthew 21, 22, 23 would you point to to say, no, actually, that's not what the text means.

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Very much is intended to be a first century fulfillment. David Well, I would start by saying, I would say to the person, you're absolutely right.

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It was about the future. Yes, it was about the future. Jesus wasn't describing something that was in the past.

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He was talking about something that was going to take place. So, yeah, you could agree with them and say, I agree completely with you.

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This is about the future. Now, the question is, how far in the future is it talking about? So, now you're asking the question about, okay, how far in the future is it?

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And there you have to ask some questions regarding how, I'll give you a good example of this. Matthew chapter 20, 21.

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Let's see here. Remember, there are multiple audiences here. Remember, Jesus cleanses the temple.

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He curses the fig tree. That's a story in and of itself, cursing the fig tree.

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Then, you know, say to this mountain, be cast into the sea. Man, what is that all about?

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Then his authority is challenged and his parable of the two sons. And then this is an interesting point in Matthew chapter 21, verse 42.

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So, Jesus said to them, and this is the religious leaders, did you never read in the scriptures? So, this is chapter 21, verse 42.

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The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief cornerstone. This came about from the

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Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore, I say to you.

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Now, there you go, right there, you. Who's the you here? It's not talking about some future generation.

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It's talking about those who were right there in his audience. Truly, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and be given to a nation producing the fruit of it.

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Now, you don't even have to know what that means, but you do have to know and acknowledge that Jesus has a particular group in mind here.

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And that's verse 44. And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.

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In verse 45, now when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, now remember, parables, there are numerous parables that precede this.

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And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they understood that he was speaking about them.

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I'm talking about some future generation. He was talking about what was going to happen to them.

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And look at the response in verse 46. And when they sought to seize him, they became afraid of the multitudes because they held him to be a prophet.

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If Jesus was describing something that was going to take place in the distant future, why would they be trying to seize

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Jesus? What was the problem here? Because Jesus had essentially said, you know, they're going to be ground into dust metaphorically here.

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And you can just keep on reading through and you see the same thing.

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You've got to pay attention to the audience to whom Jesus is speaking and what's he saying to them. And a lot of prophecy writers will get around this by saying, yeah, that's true.

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Jesus was applying that to them. But there's a secondary fulfillment of that that's going to take place in the distant future.

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And then my question is, where does it say that? And so not only do you have to determine what's in a text, but you have to determine what's not in the text.

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There's nothing in the text that intimates that this is going to be done again. This is why you have throughout history people misunderstanding

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Bible prophecy because they're taking passages that have already been fulfilled, claiming they are yet to be fulfilled, and then every generation comes along and they prove to be wrong.

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But another generation grows up not being aware of what previous generations have done.

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And they think, oh, look what we found something new. Like today, Gaza. Gaza's in the news. It's anything going on in the world today,

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Middle East, Gaza is in the news. People say, oh, I'm going to go to the Bible and I'm going to see what the

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Bible says about Gaza. So they back go to the Old Testament. They look up Gaza. I think Gaza probably appears like 20 times.

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So you have to assume that the Gaza in the Old Testament is the

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Gaza in today. Now the New Testament does refer to Gaza once, but it has nothing to do with eschatology.

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It's just that Gaza was a thing back in Jesus' day during the book of Acts.

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So you go back to the Old Testament. Every time Gaza is mentioned in the Old Testament, it was a fulfillment back then.

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There isn't another fulfillment with Gaza in the future. When the Old Testament talks about Jerusalem, it's talking about physical

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Jerusalem. And in Jesus' day, it was talking about physical Jerusalem. But then you get to read the

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Galatians in Galatians chapter 4 and it talks about, you know, Jerusalem above. That's our mother.

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And you got Hebrews chapter 12, it talks about Zion and Jerusalem above as well.

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So you have to take all this stuff into consideration. So first century Jerusalem was a physical entity that Jesus said was going to be judged before that generation passed away.

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But Jerusalem itself was not going to be done away with. It's just it has a status that's different.

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And that status is, it's a heavenly Jerusalem. It's not the Jerusalem that's in Israel physically.

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It's Jerusalem that's above. The physical Jerusalem back in Jesus' day, as Paul was writing, it was in bondage.

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It was in bondage because it rejected Jesus as the promised Messiah. Tom Hanks Yeah, that leads me to another objection.

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I get this a lot, actually. This can't be true, what you're saying, Kendall and Gary, because Jesus has to reign physically in Jerusalem on the throne of his father,

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David. That's a big dispensational objection that we're waiting for a physical reign of Jesus in Jerusalem and what we're saying can't be true because that hasn't happened yet.

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What would you say to that in light of even what Paul says? Gary Barnes Well, there's nothing in the New Testament that says anything about Jesus reigning on earth from Jerusalem.

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Revelation 20, that's their chapter, Revelation 20.

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Revelation 20 doesn't say anything about Jesus reigning on David's throne during that 1 ,000 years with a rebuilt temple and animal sacrifices again.

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And so the burden of proof is on them. The burden of proof isn't on me to prove something. I don't have to prove that that isn't going to happen.

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They have to prove that it is going to happen. But the book of Acts says that Jesus was, in fact, sitting on David's throne.

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Look, Jesus is the greater David. King David was the minor player in all this.

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He was the type. Jesus is the anti -type. Jesus is the fulfillment of it all. But I could even make a case that Jesus right now is standing on earth.

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Heaven is his throne and earth is his footstool. So, Jesus right now is standing on earth.

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His feet are on the earth. Heaven is his throne, earth is his footstool. So, yes.

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And you say, well, that's not literal. Yes, it is literal. It's not physical. But Jesus is not, it's not going to happen.

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There's nothing in the New Testament that says anything that Jesus is going to come and reign on the earth from Jerusalem.

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It just doesn't say anything like that. And I don't know, Christians are just, here's what really gets me.

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If you ask the typical dispensationalist, they say, well, who is ruling now? And they'll say, oh,

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Satan. Satan's ruling the earth right now. I say, oh, really? So, where is his physical throne?

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If you're saying that Satan can rule on the earth right now, where is his physical throne?

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Where is he physically? If you're going to maintain that he's reigning down here, where's his throne?

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Where's his physicality? You see, people don't really think this stuff through. They've heard this stuff said over and over again, that there are no verses that actually support their view.

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Jesus is the greater David. I don't want to even say that. Jesus was always, always the focus of redemptive history.

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David, the son of Jesse, was never the focus of redemptive history.

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He was simply in the seed line for the coming of the Messiah, who was Jesus himself. Right.

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Yeah, I would even go like what you said before about saying, I totally agree with you.

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I've even done this. I've said, I totally agree with you. Jesus is going to reign from David's throne in Jerusalem, like 2 Samuel says.

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But Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem, is where he's ruling. He's not ruling from the old Jerusalem, and the old

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Jerusalem is not necessarily rebuilt. In Revelation, the new Jerusalem comes down, and that's where God dwells with man.

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That's the church, where God and man are now dwelling together again, where he is our

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God, and we are his people in this new Jerusalem. John even calls, in Revelation 21, the bride, which is language of the church.

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So, Jesus is ruling the church. Amen. He's ruling Jerusalem. Yeah. Galatians 4 says, but the

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Jerusalem above is free. She is our mother. So, now what they want to do, they want to make the

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Jerusalem on earth, which is in bondage. So, if you go back to the

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Jerusalem that's on earth, it's in bondage. Now they need a temple.

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Now they need circumcision reestablished. Now you need animal sacrifices again. And I'm thinking, what did

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Jesus come to do? And why postpone that?

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See, that's another thing that always troubled me. Why would Jesus stop the prophecy clock and then wait and wait, so far almost 2 ,000 years, take the church off the earth so God can deal with Israel again, and then let loose

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Satan so Satan can take over someone called the Antichrist, where two -thirds of the

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Jews living in Israel are going to be slaughtered? What is all that? And then people say, oh, I've never heard that before.

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Friends, if you're a dispensational premillennialist, you believe in a pre -Trib rapture, that is your view.

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This idea that you guys are the ones who really support Israel, according to your view, after the rapture takes place, the

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Antichrist is supposed to reign for three and a half years, bring peace and so forth.

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Then he's going to break his covenant with Israel, and then he's going to slaughter two -thirds of the Jews based upon Zechariah chapter 13 verses 8 and 9.

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And I asked Dr. Michael Brown, I did a Dr. Brown, so God waits 2 ,000 years to finally deal with his people of Israel and embrace his people of Israel.

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You hold to the view that the Antichrist is going to destroy, it's going to kill two -thirds of them. And I think, how is that anything like your view?

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And I remember debating Tommy Ice about this, and he said, well, Gary, yeah, that's true, that's all going to happen, but billions of more people around the world are going to be killed as well.

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And I'm thinking, that's your answer? That's your answer that billions of people are going to be killed? So people haven't thought this through because no one's really put the questions to them, and they don't know what questions to ask.

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And that's part of the problem that they face. Right. It seems to me, this is just an aside, but the true and better Adam should be successful where Adam failed and not lead to another worldwide destruction event like the first Adam.

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But nonetheless. Yeah, it really is kind of bizarre. People will talk about, well, the temple's going to be rebuilt.

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And I said, where in the New Testament does it say anything about a temple being rebuilt? And even those people who advocate a rebuilt temple will admit that there's no verse in the

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New Testament that says anything about rebuilding the temple, or any need to have the temple rebuilt.

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Why would we go back to the Old Covenant sacrifices? Have they not read the Book of Hebrews? Book of Hebrews dismisses all that.

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It was all temporary. It was about to pass away, Hebrews 8, chapter 8, verse 13.

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It was in the process of passing away. We're finally with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple torn down, just like Jesus said it would be torn down.

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That's the end of it. Jesus is the temple. Go back to John chapter 2. Jesus is the temple. He's the

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Lamb of God. He's everything that the temple and the Old Covenant system stood for.

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Jesus was the fulfillment of it all. Petey Yeah, He's the priest. He's the true feast. He's the true… David Everything, yes.

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That's the Book of Hebrews. Petey Amen. This does lead to sort of another objection that I get all the time, and I know you've gotten it over the years as well, that dispensational say, we read the

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Bible literally. You don't read the Bible literally. What would you say to that objection? David Well, first of all, what's the definition of literal?

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The word literal is from the Latin literal. That means you interpret something according to its literature.

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And dispensationalists interpret the Bible according to the literature, in many cases.

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When someone says interpret the Bible literally, and I ask the question.

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I've seen commentaries that will say, this is a commentary on the Book of Revelation. This is the most literal interpretation of the

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Book of Revelation. I said, all right, so you're saying that in Revelation chapter 12, there's a giant woman so big that she's going to be able to stand on the moon.

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She'll have a crown of 12 stars around her head, and she will be draped with the sun.

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Now, I believe that's literal. That is, I understand the literature that's being used there, because we know from the

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Old Testament that sun, moon, and stars is a description of Old Covenant Israel.

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This was in Genesis chapter 37. Joseph's dream talks about sun, moon, 11 stars bowing down.

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And so that language is taken from the Old Testament, which was not the sun, moon, and stars did not literally bow down.

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But sun, moon, and stars language in scripture is often used to describe nations.

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So the sun goes dark, the moon goes dark, the stars fall. You've got in Genesis chapter 6, you've got a third of the stars.

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I think it's just six. It talks about a third of the stars are going to be thrown down to the earth. Well, wait a minute. If one star even got close to the earth,

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I mean, the sun is a star. It's 93 million miles away. You bring it just a little bit closer to the

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United Planet Earth, it's going to be destroyed, because now you've got a third of the stars being thrown down to earth in the sixth chapter.

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So in the sixth chapter, the earth is obliterated. But in chapter 13, supposedly, we're going to have embedded microchips in us to control us.

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But wait, we just destroyed the earth back in chapter 6. And then I think in chapter 12, again, we have more stars being thrown down to the earth.

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Then you got dragons. And so they're not interpreting the

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Bible literally like they claim to be. Nobody, even Hal Lindsay, I remember Hal Lindsay even said, we don't interpret the

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Bible in a consistently literal way in terms of how people think of the word literal.

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I mean, he was the guy who said, someone had said, but maybe the locusts, that was Cobra helicopters.

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Well, it's obvious that wasn't being literal. So to me, that's just a ruse. No one really interprets the

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Bible absolutely literal in every single instance. And look,

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I'm not saying that you can just, from that perspective, make the Bible say anything you want it to say.

30:51

This is why you have to pay close attention to other parts of the Bible where similar language is used to see how it's used in these other places.

30:59

And that's a very important consideration. Right. To your point, I've often said that for a people who read the

31:06

Bible literally, I see an awful lot of two -eyed and two -handed dispensationalists. As a man, I've said, there's not a single man

31:12

I know who hasn't struggled with lust at one point. So why do you have both of your eyes? Why haven't you gouged them out yet? Yeah.

31:18

Yes. And it's a pretty naive thing to say to people. They haven't really thought it through.

31:24

And it's like someone who says, I believe everything is relative, except for the statement I just made that everything is relative.

31:32

And in morality, as long as you don't hurt someone, it's okay to do it.

31:38

And I would say, where'd you get that idea? You're an evolutionist, survival of the fittest, nature red in tooth and claw,

31:45

DNA neither knows nor cares. I mean, do you know your own system well enough to be able to say stuff like that?

31:51

Something doesn't hurt someone else. Well, we got here according to the evolutionary model by hurting other entities on the way up, rape and killing and savagery and so forth, if you're going to follow the evolutionary model.

32:06

People just haven't really thought through their operating assumptions. I thought too, your answer about according to the literature, something that's been really helpful for me to think through, because I don't read the

32:16

Wall Street Journal in the same way that I would read Thoreau or Shakespeare. And I certainly don't read a law book in the same way that I would read the

32:23

Iliad or the Odyssey. We intuitively understand that certain categories of literature come with rules and different ways to interpret them.

32:33

And maybe part of the issue is that we don't really have much apocalyptic literature in the modern

32:39

American canon. We don't really know much about what it is. I mean, I've made the joke that Toby Keith's song,

32:47

Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue is good apocalyptic literature, because it's talking about Uncle Sam. We don't believe there's actually a real

32:53

Uncle Sam. And we don't believe there's a real statue. There is a real statue, but we don't believe she's shaking her fist.

33:00

All those things are apocalyptic. But I think part of it is we just don't understand the rules of the apocalyptic genre and how to really deal with them.

33:07

And that's the pastor's fault and the seminarian's fault. Yeah. There's a funny comedian.

33:13

He's from Finland. I don't know if you've ever seen the guy. And he loves language and learning

33:18

English. And he goes through all these examples of English words.

33:24

And the same word used in 12 different contexts means something different.

33:35

But it's the same word. And anybody who is an American and grew up with that language, although they're hearing that same word, but in a little different context, knows exactly what that word means in that context.

33:49

And why would we think that that's any different when you read the Bible? And this is an interesting point that when the

33:57

Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek, something called the

34:03

Septuagint, there were different translations. And one particular translation of the

34:11

Hebrew Old Testament that was translated into Greek was a literal word for word translation.

34:19

And that just doesn't work. There's not always an equivalence. A single word is not necessarily equivalent to some other language.

34:29

And this is why you'll often find in translations, there'll be some notes telling you, well, this is a metaphor.

34:37

This really means this, like the sixth hour of the day. And say, okay, so what's the sixth hour of the day?

34:43

Is it six o 'clock in the morning? But in biblical terms, the sixth hour of the day may be related to maybe noon because the first hour of the day is actually six o 'clock in the morning.

34:54

So you have to know these kinds of things in order to interpret the Bible literally in terms of the literature of the time and other aspects to that.

35:02

Darrell Bock Yeah. And honestly, most of these objections that I've got written down that I wanted to ask you about are going to be downstream of that point, reading the

35:09

Bible literally. So the first official one that I have on my list is, is Matthew 2430 about a future bodily return of Christ?

35:17

And what they will say is they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.

35:22

And they say, clearly, that's not happened yet. Jesus has not come on the clouds. He's not surfboarded from heaven down to earth.

35:30

Every eye has not seen this in the whole world. What would you say to that Matthew 2430 objection?

35:38

John Mackevicius I guess the question is, what is Jesus quoting? Jesus is quoting something.

35:46

Let's look at Matthew 26, Matthew 26, 64.

35:53

I wish I had my other glasses here to read this thing. So Jesus is in front of Caiaphas.

36:00

There are false witnesses that were brought in in verse 62 of Matthew chapter 26.

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And the high priest stood up and said to him, Do you make no answer? What is it that these men are testifying against you?

36:15

But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God, that you tell us whether you are the

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Christ, the Son of God. And Jesus said to him, now the you there is plural.

36:30

There's a you there. Well, the first you is singular, I believe. You have said it yourself.

36:35

Nevertheless, I tell you it's plural. Hereafter, actually, it's the literal, the literal translation of this is, from now on, you shall not see the

36:47

Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on. Yeah, from now on, you shall see the

36:54

Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest tore his robe, saying,

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He has blasphemed. What further need do we have of witnesses? Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy.

37:08

So Jesus is saying this was something that they themselves, from now on, you shall see this.

37:15

The you refers to them are going to see this. Now, in what way are they going to see it?

37:21

That's the question. And that's when you go and you look back at Matthew 24, verse 30, it says, actually, the way this should be read, it says that the sign, the sign, the sign of the

37:35

Son of Man is the fact that he is in heaven. And so, and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, not the sky.

37:44

And then all the tribes of the land will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

37:52

So what is, where did Jesus get this from? And why did Caiaphas said that he was blaspheming?

38:00

Because Jesus is quoting Matthew chapter 7, verse 13, says,

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I kept looking at the night visions. Behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a

38:11

Son of Man was coming, and he came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.

38:17

The old Greek says here, and he came as the Ancient of Days. But so Jesus is quoting this particular passage, who, behold, with the clouds of heaven.

38:27

So Jesus is describing himself as being this Son of Man. And a lot of commentators say here that this was a vindication of Jesus of who he was.

38:39

He took his seat at the right hand of the Father. That's where he was. That's where he was ruling from.

38:45

And that language is not unusual, because here you have

38:50

Isaiah chapter 19. If this were ever a physical second coming passage rooted in the

39:00

Old Testament, this would be it. Isaiah chapter 19, it says, the oracle concerning Egypt.

39:07

So this is something that is in our past. Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and is about to come to Egypt.

39:17

The idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence, and the hearts of the

39:22

Egyptians will melt within them. If you read any commentary, in fact, a dispensational commentary, they'll say this is typical judgment -coming language.

39:36

And so you've got the Isaiah 19 passage, you've got the Daniel chapter 7 verse 13 passage, you've got

39:43

Matthew 26, 64 passage. It's obvious that Jesus is, in fact, describing his vindication first in his judgment coming against Jerusalem.

39:54

And then as a result of that, that's an acknowledgement that he is, in fact, who he said he was, and he is now sitting at the right hand of the

40:01

Father, which, in fact, he was. You can see that in Acts chapter 7 when Stephen was executed there, he says that Jesus is standing.

40:09

So again, and then you're stuck with verse 34 where it says, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.

40:17

Well, that's after verse 30. So if Matthew 24 verse 34, this generation refers to that generation, verse 30 has to have been fulfilled.

40:30

Revelation 1, 7, every eye will see him as, and this is interesting if you get

40:38

Ken Gentry's commentary on the book of Revelation. Ken spends 20 pages on that one verse, and shows different ways to interpret that passage.

40:50

But again, if you look at the passage, and you consider the other places where it talks about the coming of Jesus, behold he's coming with the clouds, just like you find in Isaiah 19 and Daniel chapter 7, behold he's coming with the clouds.

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In fact, this is actually a quotation from the Old Testament.

41:10

In fact, the cross -reference here is Daniel 7, 13, which we already read, behold he's coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him.

41:23

Well, wait a minute, there he's talking about very similar to what Caiaphas, you know, from now on you will see, and Jesus, Caiaphas was involved in having

41:31

Jesus crucified. Those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the land will mourn over him, even so, amen.

41:42

And so, it talks about the tribes. We don't talk about tribes today. This is obviously a reference to the tribes of Israel will mourn because they, in effect, crucified the

41:52

Lord of Glory, and everything Jesus said was going to happen to them before the generation passed away, did indeed happen.

41:59

The temple was destroyed, not one stone was left upon another. Tom Bilyeu Gary, they might say though, but my

42:05

Bible says all the eyes of all the people in the world are going to see it. Like, you know, what does that mean?

42:12

It must be CNN, right? Gary Hartley Yeah, I don't know how that would happen, but I guess with God, all things are possible.

42:19

So, you look at Revelation 3 .10, they'll often bring this one up. Because you have kept the word of my perseverance,

42:27

I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world to test those who dwell upon the earth.

42:35

And they'll say, see, there it is right there. This is going to come upon the whole world to test those who dwell upon the earth.

42:43

I hate to pull the Greek card here, or play the Greek card, but I'm going to play the Greek card.

42:48

Because you have kept the word of my perseverance. So, notice the audience here. This is the Super Bowl contender is being addressed here, the

42:56

Church of Philadelphia, coming up this weekend. It's not talking about that Philadelphia, it's talking about the

43:01

Church of Philadelphia that existed in Asia Minor in the first century. Because you have kept the word of my perseverance, speaking to the

43:09

Church of Philadelphia, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come.

43:18

So, the Greek word there is mellow, which means about to. So, this is about to happen.

43:24

If this hasn't happened yet, then about to doesn't mean about to. This is 2 ,000 years who dwell upon.

43:32

The Greek word here is oikoumeni. This is the same Greek word that's used in Matthew 24 -14 about the gospel being preached in the whole oikoumeni.

43:42

And it's also the same Greek word that's used in Luke 2 -1 that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole oikoumeni be taxed.

43:51

So, it's not talking about the whole wide world here. And then dwell upon the land. As far as I know in the

43:58

New Testament and the Old Testament, there aren't two different words for earth and land.

44:04

The Greek word ge or geis, depending on the context, can mean soil, it can be land, it can mean dirt, it can be earth.

44:14

It can mean multiple different things depending on the context. The same with errets in the Hebrew and the

44:20

Old Testament. I think if you go to, it's interesting, you go to Genesis chapter 41.

44:29

I never can remember. Yeah, this is a good little test for you to go to Genesis chapter 41 and start reading at verse 53 and go to chapter 42 verse 7, and the word errets is used throughout.

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And sometimes it means land, sometimes it means earth, and sometimes it means ground.

44:56

So, here you have the Hebrew word errets used throughout, but the context, different contexts here, errets is being translated in different ways.

45:05

And so, it's the same thing when you get to the book of Revelation chapter 13. So, that's chapter 3 verse 10, but look at verse 11.

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I'm coming quickly. Hold fast what you have in order that no one will take your crown.

45:20

So, Jesus is telling the church in Philadelphia, something is going to be happening, but you're not going to experience it, but it's going to happen quickly.

45:31

If it hasn't happened yet, then quickly doesn't mean quickly, soon doesn't mean soon, near doesn't mean near. So, again, a lot of people look at individual passages and don't look at the whole context of what the

45:41

Bible says about those things. Do you think too that the translators share in the blame, some of the blame of this?

45:48

Because I remember just a plain reading of the English text in the NASB, 1995, looks like that the whole world is in view.

45:57

But like you're saying, oikomene is the Roman world, the civilized Roman world, in the same way we would talk about the

46:03

Western world. We're not talking about a different planet. And ge, being the land, the tribes of the land, not the tribes of the world, like you said, the world doesn't account itself by tribal allotments like the

46:14

Jews did. Do you think that some of this is just that the average Christian who's reading this is beholden to a translation committee who had a dispensational impulse, maybe?

46:26

Yeah, and you can't blame it all on dispensationalists because you get to Matthew 24, verse 3, and if you do this in the

46:38

King James, as he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, tell us when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming in the end of the world?

46:48

King James says world here, but the Greek word is aeon. It's not cosmos. And so, but most modern translations have, in fact, have end of the age.

46:59

They get it right. But yeah, I think so. I think it is. I think you see this with the Greek word mellow, which is oftentimes untranslated, which means about to.

47:09

And I think it's, I think one of the reasons they say, well, it just means certainty. And I said, why can't it mean be certainly about to happen?

47:18

Well, I put that word in there. Why not? In fact, in Revelation 3 .10, it is translated about to take place.

47:27

So, you've got that. The oikumene, some translations still translate Luke 2 .1

47:33

as world rather than inhabited earth or the Roman empire. Sometimes you'll have a note.

47:38

I just never understood that. It just makes no sense. Right. Because Caesar was like, yeah, Rome would have loved to have taxed the whole wide world, but they didn't.

47:48

They can only tax the oikumene. And the word oikumene has a

47:54

Greek word house in it, oikos. And so, I've translated kind of the political boundary of some entity.

48:03

And so, in terms of that, it'd be the Roman empire. And so, yeah, you have to pay attention to those things and some translations.

48:09

This is why we offer Robert Young's concise and critical translation or commentary on the

48:16

New Testament. He did the Old Testament too, but we reprinted the one on the New Testament.

48:22

And if you get that, and you can order that from American Vision, he points out all of these little details coming directly from the

48:30

Greek. Robert Young was a masterful student of the Bible. He's one of the guys that did the

48:36

Young's Concordance. He got Strong's Concordance, Young's Concordance, Cruden's Concordance.

48:41

And so, he put that concordance together, plus he put this commentary, this concise commentary, where if you read that, you will get the actual literal wording of it.

48:54

I'll give you something else, not related to eschatology, but if you go to Exodus chapter 21, it says here, let's see.

49:05

And if men have a quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone or with his fist, and he does not die, but remains in bed, he gets up and walks and so forth.

49:15

And verse 22, it says, and if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet that there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband shall pay and may demand of him and he shall pay as the judges decide.

49:34

But notice what I read here. She has a miscarriage, but that's not the original

49:41

Hebrew. The original Hebrew is it says, so that her children come out. It makes a huge, huge difference.

49:49

And one of the worst things here is, let's see if I can find it.

49:57

So, the translators, the New American Standard, I think that King James says, I think so, so that her fruit comes out.

50:04

But the translators, New American Standard, she has a miscarriage.

50:10

It has a little note. So, if you go over into the margin, it says verse 22, literally.

50:18

So, it's telling you, literally, her children come out. And I'm thinking, why not put that in the text so that her children come out?

50:27

It's a huge difference. And so, people who say, hey, the Bible talks about, you know, these men struggle, there's a pregnant woman there, she delivers something prematurely, and it says it's a miscarriage.

50:38

Well, that's not what it says. It says, so that her children come out. It doesn't say that her child comes out, it says her children come out, which means it covers all the cases.

50:47

She has one child to two or three. And so, yeah, I think translations are a little, when it comes to eschatology, they have a lot to be desired in many cases.

50:59

The ESV still doesn't get some things right dealing with translation issues when it comes to prophecy.

51:06

And generally, Crossway Books is kind of a pre -mill publishing house.

51:12

So, you can kind of expect that. And then I think John MacArthur, I think the Legacy Bible, which is the latest translation of the

51:20

New American Standard, that translation is put together by a lot of John MacArthur's people.

51:26

And there may be some others involved in it. I don't know if James White is involved in it, but you're going to get biases. They're going to try to take the best way to position a particular text in order to keep their position protected from questions regarding, wait a minute,

51:40

I didn't know that's what it said, and I need to take a second look at this, especially on eschatology. Right. One issue of this is, you said earlier, you alluded to this about the gospel being preached in the whole world, and there's no way on earth, they say, that the gospel could have been preached in Thailand and Chile and Newfoundland by the first century.

52:00

So, what gives there? Well, again, Matthew 24, you know, 14 does not use the word cosmos.

52:07

But by the way, even if it did use cosmos, it would not necessarily not mean that it wasn't fulfilled before that generation passed away.

52:17

But the Greek word that's used there is oikoumene. So, I always tell people, let's go back to Luke 2 .1. Luke 2 .1

52:23

says that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole oikoumene be taxed. And so, we would say, however far that Rome could tax is as far as the gospel had to go before that generation passed away.

52:37

Did the gospel go throughout the whole oikoumene before that generation passed away?

52:43

And I would ask the question, what would be the only thing to convince you that the gospel had, in fact, been preached throughout that whole

52:51

Roman Empire before that generation passed away? And a lot of people look at me mystified, like, well,

52:57

I don't know. And I said, well, the only way I would be convinced is if the Bible had said the gospel had been preached throughout the whole world before that generation passed away.

53:07

So, all you have to do is go to Romans chapter 1. Let's see here.

53:13

Romans 1 verse 8. First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.

53:25

And there the word cosmos is used. So, that takes care of that if the cosmos had been used by Jesus.

53:32

But he uses oikoumene. Then you go to Colossians 1 .6. It says, let's see, verse 5.

53:43

Because of the hope laid up for you in heaven of which you previously heard in the word of truth the gospel, which has come to you, meaning the

53:54

Colossians, just as in all the world, and also it is constantly bearing fruit.

54:01

So, here where Paul writes that the gospel had gone out to the whole world, so much so where Paul could say, verse 23, if you continue in the faith firmly established, steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which

54:22

I, Paul, was made a minister. I mean, look, let the Bible speak for itself.

54:28

Jesus said this was going to take place before that generation passed away, oikoumene, throughout the

54:34

Roman Empire. In fact, if you go to Acts 11 .28, there was a famine throughout the whole oikoumene.

54:41

Colossians says the gospel had been preached to every creature under heaven. It's obviously a hyperbole which the

54:48

Bible uses. It's a figure of speech. I think what Paul is saying here is the gospel had, in fact, been preached to everyone.

54:58

The gospel had gone out to all the nations, even. If you look at Romans chapter 16, the gospel had been preached to all the nations.

55:06

So, according to the Bible, what Jesus said took place just like he said it would before that generation passed away.

55:15

Amen. Here's another one, and we're right at an hour, so you tell me how much time we've got.

55:21

I've got more, but so far I think we've done a great job, so let me know when we need to cut it sort of short.

55:27

Well, I'll just tell people, you know, this is very brief of what we're doing here, but I've written Prophecy Wars. Well, actually,

55:34

Last Day's Madness and Wars and Rumors of Wars, where I go into detail with all of these questions with footnotes and cross -references and so forth.

55:43

I highly recommend those. Wars and Rumors of Wars, Last Day's Madness, you can get those at AmericanVision .org.

55:49

Yeah, along with a bunch of other wonderful resources. Oh, yeah. We've got tons of stuff. Let's see, maybe two more, if that's okay.

56:00

They say the Great Tribulation could not have possibly happened because it says nothing like this has ever happened on earth nor will ever happen again, and it's going to be so bad that there's just no way that the downfall of a couple buildings and the burning of a temple in 80 -70 could even remotely mean what that means.

56:24

And obviously, there's historical stuff, but what would you say? Well, again, we're back to verse 34.

56:30

This generation will not pass away until all these take place. And then, again, if you take a verse out of its context and you don't read what took place before that verse, then you missed the import of this.

56:47

But if you look at Matthew 24, I mean, that particular verse is verse 21, so let's look and see what we find before verse 21, verse 15.

56:59

Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation... Now, there's an audience reference there. He's talking about them.

57:06

You don't even have to know what the abomination of desolation is, but you do know that Jesus is describing something they would see, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet standing in the holy place.

57:18

Let the reader understand, which remember now, this Matthew 24, Jesus is predicting that the be destroyed, not one stone was going to be left upon another.

57:26

So, the temple was still standing when Jesus gave this particular prophecy, and we know the temple was destroyed, not one stone was left upon another by in AD 70, which is about 40 years later.

57:40

Now, look at verse 16. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

57:47

Let him who is on his housetop not go down to get the things out that are in the house, and let him who is in the field not turn back to get his cloak, but woe to those who are with child, and to those who nurse babes in those days, but pray that your flight may not be in the winter or on a

58:04

Sabbath. Okay, this can be escaped on foot. All you have to do is just,

58:11

I mean... Apache helicopters can't... Yeah, get off of your flat roofs. I don't know the last time we were up on our roofs, and this is obvious.

58:21

This is talking about conditions of that day. The Sabbath was still operating. If this is a worldwide tribulation, what would the

58:30

Sabbath have to do with any of this? It has nothing. It doesn't operate anymore. Cloaks?

58:36

Don't go to get your cloak out? What is that? This is obviously describing events of that particular period of time to that audience and the conditions of that time.

58:48

So when you get to, for there will be a great tribulation such as not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall, you have to ask yourself the question, why would this be such a monstrous tribulation?

59:02

Because the event was covenantally earth -shattering. I mean, the very system of their religion was literally, literally torn down, stone by stone, the animal sacrificial system.

59:18

And by the way, keep in mind, the temple was being rebuilt at this time and was finally finished around maybe

59:25

AD 63. And so when you get to 2 Peter chapter 3, when people say, hey, where's the promise of his coming?

59:33

Things are just the way they've always been. And Jesus made this prediction back there that all this bad stuff was going to happen.

59:38

And here we are, the temple's more glorious than it was. And then a few short years later, the temple is destroyed.

59:45

Not one stone is left upon another. The whole old covenant system is wiped off the face of the earth.

59:51

This isn't dealing with a political worldwide conflagration.

59:57

It's dealing with the end of a redemptive system that the people of those days thought if it went away, everything about them would go away.

01:00:09

And yet the reason for them to hold on to that view was that they did not recognize that Jesus was in fact the fulfillment of all of that.

01:00:18

And so they lost everything, but those people who believed in Jesus gained everything.

01:00:24

So this isn't talking about something that's going to happen to the world.

01:00:31

In fact, if you go back to Ezekiel chapter 5, kind of similar conditions.

01:00:37

It says, let's see, Ezekiel chapter 5 verse 8, "...therefore says the

01:00:42

Lord God, Behold, I, even I, am against you, and I will execute judgments among you in sight of the nations.

01:00:51

And because of all your abominations, I will do among you what

01:00:57

I have not done, and the like of which I will never do again."

01:01:02

So I think Jesus is borrowing that language from Ezekiel, and he's applying it to his own day, that this particular one is the granddaddy of them all.

01:01:15

What took place back in Ezekiel's day was a type of what was going to come about, and it was going to be the end of the whole old covenant system.

01:01:26

And the new covenant that was brought in, and that had passed away. And it can never be repeated again, because it was planned obsolescence.

01:01:35

It was something that was supposed to pass away. So again, Matthew 24, 34, this generation will not pass away.

01:01:43

Local judgment that could be escaped on foot. Jesus makes this statement from the language that was used back in Ezekiel that happened to the destruction of Jerusalem in that day as well.

01:01:54

Yeah. Let me ask you this, and this is just an aside question, but I've mentioned to people before, was

01:02:00

Jesus's crucifixion the worst that ever occurred? And I'll say, let's talk about physically.

01:02:06

Was it the worst? Well, I don't know. I mean, there were tens of thousands of people, maybe even more, who were crucified physically.

01:02:13

Maybe some of them got 41 lashes. Maybe some of them got the crown of thorns pushed down on their head too.

01:02:20

Or maybe someone actually did endure a more physically brutal beating than Jesus did. So what makes

01:02:26

Jesus's crucifixion the worst death that has ever been? It's not the physical brutality of it.

01:02:33

It's that God poured out his wrath spiritually, our sin onto Christ. In the same way,

01:02:39

Jerusalem's destruction is the worst act of destruction on any city in human history, not because of the physical brutality.

01:02:48

If you covenantally the worst, it was a severance of that city from covenant status with God.

01:02:55

No longer you go to Jerusalem to worship the Lord. No longer you go to the Jerusalem temple. You go to Christ, and that is earth -shattering.

01:03:03

I think that's a good analogy. The crucifixions had, in fact, taken place, but the Lord of Glory was not the one being crucified.

01:03:12

Think about that. The incarnate God being hung up on a tree, which was the embodiment of a curse.

01:03:23

Yeah, you're right. I think you're exactly right. That is a very good analogy by saying, yeah, other people have, in fact, been crucified.

01:03:30

My guess is no one was ever probably crucified like Jesus had been, because they made a mockery of him with a crown of thorns and all the other things.

01:03:40

And then, of course, it was the fulfillment of so many Old Testament prophecies as well, some literal and some more figurative.

01:03:49

But no, I think that's a very good analogy. The reason that crucifixion was the worst is because of who was being crucified.

01:03:57

And the same thing with the temple. The reason that was the worst, that tribulation, was because what it had done to the entire system.

01:04:04

If they had embraced Jesus as the Messiah, they would have just abandoned the temple, in which they did not abandon the temple.

01:04:11

They built it up even better than it had ever been built up before. And then Jesus just wiped it out and said, not one stone here was going to be left upon another.

01:04:20

So yeah, I think it's a very good analogy. Well, as far as our time goes, maybe ask one more.

01:04:26

We could talk about the rapture, which happens after verse 34, supposedly, you know what

01:04:31

I mean, just as the days of Noah moment. But I think a lot of the, if we could prove one thing,

01:04:39

I think it would topple most objections, and that's the meaning of the word generation in verse 34.

01:04:47

Because if generation means what it means, then everything prior to 34 and everything logically connected to 34 and 24 is in the past.

01:04:58

So, the objection is that the word there, the Greek word genea, can't mean 40 years.

01:05:04

It has to mean that this kind of people will not pass away until all these things take place.

01:05:12

How is that just, how's that so false? Yeah, it's, well, the word genea, you know, the

01:05:19

Schofield reference Bible said it could be translated race, which is just absolutely impossible. Matthew chapter 1, verse 17,

01:05:26

I think, the word genea is used, and I always tell people, look, if you think genea can mean race, then

01:05:33

I think you go back to Matthew chapter 1, verse 17, and plug race in every time where you see the word generation, or generations, and it just doesn't work.

01:05:44

And look, all the commentators, they're honest, and they say, look, genea means generation.

01:05:52

And we know it means that, even in using Matthew's gospel. And I remember

01:05:58

I debated Tommy Ice on a radio once, and he said, well, every, yeah, Gary, you're right, every time generation is used, or genea is used, it means the generation to whom

01:06:07

Jesus is speaking, because we see it in Matthew chapter 23. And he said, but it doesn't mean that in Matthew chapter 24, verse 34.

01:06:17

And I said, Tommy, if I had pulled that argument on you, that, oh, every time this word is used in Scripture, it means this.

01:06:24

But in this particular context, it means something completely different. You would just know, saying

01:06:30

I was just plain foolish. But yeah, you see that in Matthew chapter 23, verse 36. Actually, if you just go through Matthew's gospel, and I would just challenge people, just go through Matthew's gospel and try to get around this idea of where genea means this type of generation.

01:06:48

If Jesus wanted to say this type of generation, it seems to me he would have said this type of generation will not pass away until all these things take place.

01:06:56

But he doesn't. Tommy Ice and Tim LaHaye wrote a book together, and they said, well, it's the generation that sees these signs that won't pass away until all these things take place.

01:07:06

So there they acknowledge that generation, genea means generation. But look what they did.

01:07:12

It's not this generation will not pass away, but it's the generation that sees these signs.

01:07:20

So they have to add things to the text, remove a word, add words to the text in order to get it to say what it says.

01:07:26

And so I would say, okay, fine. If you want to say the generation that sees these signs will not pass away until all these things take place,

01:07:33

I'll go with that. So then all you have to do is look at Matthew 24, verse 33.

01:07:39

This is the verse right before verse 34 for those who are counting. Jesus says, even so you too, the you is referring to them.

01:07:49

Even so you too, when you see all these things, recognize that he or it is near right at the doors.

01:07:59

So verse 33 tells you it's that generation. Verse 34 means that the generation to whom

01:08:07

Jesus was speaking. In my book, Wars and Rumors of Wars, I have a section in there where I list all of these commentators who say, look,

01:08:18

Jesus was referring to that generation. Now, it doesn't mean that they believe that all those things were fulfilled.

01:08:24

They have their different ways of trying to get around that. But look, you can't get around it. Genea means generation, this generation, this is a near demonstrative that refers to their generation, not a future generation.

01:08:38

Look, you're stuck with it. You can't dance around what the text has to say, especially since in the previous chapter, it's obvious that Jesus was applying the use of this generation to their particular generation.

01:08:51

He lays it all out for them. You got chapters 21, 22, 23, 24. Jesus is putting the onus of responsibility on that generation.

01:09:00

Right. And I think we would both agree, we would say, whether you understand what

01:09:05

Jesus means by the sun, the moon, and the stars in previous verses, or whether you understand that Wars and Rumors of Wars, demons, false

01:09:14

Christ, and false messiahs, and earthquakes, and all of these different things, whether you understand how that occurred in the first century or not, verse 34 guarantees that Jesus intended that it was going to happen in the first century.

01:09:27

Yeah. You know who Kirk Cameron is. Kirk, of course, he was in the

01:09:34

Left Behind films, and we have a mutual friend, Marshall Foster. Marshall died a couple of years ago, and Marshall and Kirk were good, good friends.

01:09:43

And Marshall went to Kirk and said, Kirk, you need to watch this video series by a friend of mine, me.

01:09:49

And I was going through Matthew chapter 24, and he was putting the DVDs in. So, I was taking him through basically

01:09:56

Matthew 24 verse by verse, and he was agreeing with it all the way up to the sun, moon, and stars language.

01:10:05

And he told me, he said, there's no way Gary DeMar can convince me that that sun, moon, and stars language applies to that generation.

01:10:16

Well, then he put the DVD in, and he played it, and he said, well, yeah, it does.

01:10:23

And the reason it does is because what Jesus was doing was taking language from the Old Testament. And there are passages in the

01:10:30

Bible, if you look at Isaiah chapter 13, verse 10, talks about sun going dark, moon going dark.

01:10:36

You got other places, I think in Isaiah, Ezekiel, Joel, same type of apocalyptic language to talking about the dissolution of the cosmos.

01:10:48

The sky being rolled up like a scroll. Right out of the old, it's all out of the Old Testament. And if you pick up a commentary by dispensationalists, and you go to those

01:10:58

Isaiah passages and the Ezekiel passages, they'll say, oh, this is descriptive of the judgment upon nations, because nations are often represented by sun, moon, and stars.

01:11:10

Give you a good example. Our flag has 50 stars on it.

01:11:15

Japan has a sun. Islamic flags have crescent moon on it.

01:11:21

It's typical language. I'm not saying that's evidence for it, but it's just obvious that people,

01:11:28

Oriental language, use that type of indicators to describe nations. And when the sun goes dark and the moon goes dark, and when stars fall, that's a sign of judgment.

01:11:39

When the sun is shining, the moon is shining, and stars are bright in the heavens, that's just a sign of blessing.

01:11:46

And so we're back to kind of where we started in the Book of Revelation. When stars fall down to the earth, that is a symbol of judgment.

01:11:54

When this woman representing Israel is standing on the moon and has 12 stars on her head and is draped with the sun, that is a symbol of blessing.

01:12:05

And so, again, let the Bible speak for itself, and if you're going to be a good student of the

01:12:10

Bible, compare Scripture with Scripture. Darrell Bock Amen. That's so good. There's so much more we could get into, but for now,

01:12:17

I think that's a wonderful start, and we've been doing this every week on this show. Gary, tell us some resources that were helpful for you that, if we read them, if we purchase them, that would further our study on these things.

01:12:31

Gary Barnes I became a Christian in the 1970s when Late Great Planet Earth was out, and that was the big thing.

01:12:37

And then being a very new Christian, I started reading through the New Testament, and I couldn't figure out, wait a minute, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel until the

01:12:48

Son of Man comes, Matthew 10, 23. There's some standing here will not taste death until they see the

01:12:53

Son of Man come into His kingdom, and this generation, and all that. But the book that got me interested in this was a book by Marcellus Kick, K -I -K.

01:13:02

It was on Matthew 24, and he did essentially what I just did. And that book is available as an eschatology of victory, which has

01:13:14

Matthew 24 in it, and Revelation 20, and a couple of other articles. My views differ with him as to where this transition text takes place.

01:13:25

Does Jesus go talk about the end of the world after verse 35? I don't think he is. So that book really, really helped me tremendously.

01:13:34

And I've just read everything on this topic. There are older commentaries out there, commentaries on Matthew 24 that take the same position.

01:13:45

And Thomas Scott, John Lightfoot, John Gill Baptist. So this is an old, old view, a very substantial and orthodox view.

01:13:58

Go ahead. Chris What do you think about a guy like James Stewart Russell? Very helpful for me in Matthew 24,

01:14:04

Matthew's gospel in general. But what do you think about him overall? David I like Russell. It was a book that was published anonymously back in the 19th century.

01:14:12

Then he finally came out and put his name on it, Baker Bookhouse republished it. R .C. Sproul endorsed it with reservations.

01:14:19

I endorsed it with reservations. Ken Gentry endorsed it with reservations. But it's interesting, in the 19th century, how many books like Russell, the

01:14:29

Parousia is the title of it. But there are a lot of these other books that put all of this together, and they've been lost on us.

01:14:40

The internet has made them available today, but numerous books have been published on the

01:14:46

Olivet Discourse. We published John Bray's book on Matthew 24 fulfilled,

01:14:53

Jim Jordan's book on Matthew 23, 24, and 25. I mentioned I have a short book called

01:14:59

Is Jesus Coming Soon, which is on Matthew 24, Wars and Rumors of Wars, Last Day's Madness.

01:15:05

Chris David Chilton. I've got Prophecy Wars, which deal with a lot of the kind of objections that people raise on the topic of 10 popular prophecy myths, you know, examined, exposed and examined.

01:15:23

So there's a ton of material out there. Go to AmericanVision .org. I do a podcast every

01:15:28

Friday at AmericanVision .org on Bible prophecy, and I have a bunch of articles. In fact, this week,

01:15:34

I don't know when this will air, but this is February 6th. If you go and look this particular week,

01:15:39

I have a couple of articles that deal with some other questions related to the topic. So there's a ton of material out there on this topic.

01:15:46

And to anyone listening, I would commend to you the American Vision website, all the articles, all the things in the store.

01:15:54

David Chilton's Paradise Lost or Paradise, sorry, Paradise Regained, Restored. Sorry, I just misquoted the title.

01:16:00

Paradise Restored. One incredible book, and you guys republished it, thankfully, and got it back out there.

01:16:06

I've got Days of Vengeance from you guys. And then I just picked up The Great Tribulation by Chilton that I think you guys published as well.

01:16:13

So you're doing great work, and I would commend anyone in our audience to go to AmericanVision .com and check it out.

01:16:20

And I always tell people, if you read my stuff and you still have questions, email me. But I generally don't,

01:16:28

I don't rehearse, rehash things I've already discussed. I said, look, it's in this book.

01:16:36

And they said, well, you know, I can't afford a copy of the book and sometimes I'll just send them a chapter out of it or something.

01:16:43

But I write the books in order to lay out my position. If you have questions after you've read my book,

01:16:51

I'll be more than happy to deal with it. If I haven't answered it elsewhere, I'll give you a pretty good answer for it.

01:16:57

I really, again, I believe that the whole prophecy thing has been damaging today because it's kept

01:17:04

Christians from being involved, because they think we're living on the precipice of some great eschatological event called the rapture of the church, which in fact, the

01:17:13

Bible just does not mention. First Thessalonians 4, none of the things related to what's surrounding the rapture are found in First Thessalonians 4.

01:17:23

It's not an easy passage to interpret. But the thing is, there's no Antichrist mentioned, there's no tribulation mentioned.

01:17:31

The tribulation period is not mentioned in all there.

01:17:37

None of that stuff is there. And that is their big, big passage. And the problem is all the things that they say, it talks about it, those things are not found in there.

01:17:47

Dave I remember hearing you say, and I'll do this quickly, but I remember hearing you say one time that just as the days of Noah, it's a sweeping away of the wicked, not a rapture of the righteous.

01:17:57

And I just remember my scales coming off my eyes thinking, oh my goodness, that's the one man left and another one taken, and one woman at the mill, and another.

01:18:07

It's a sweeping, it's a judgment. David Yeah, and in fact, you've got a lot of dispensationalists today who do not see that as a rapture passage anymore.

01:18:16

So you've got people like Mark Hitchcock and others who say, no, no, that's really not talking about, it's not really talking about the rapture.

01:18:24

And again, somebody at a mill, grinding at the mill and being in the field, it's obvious that was a local judgment.

01:18:34

And of course, that's exactly what happened. The Romans came down there and they did take people away into captivity.

01:18:42

Some say up to 50 ,000 people were taken away into the Roman Empire as slaves as a result of what took place in AD 70 and beyond all the way through AD 73 with Masada.

01:18:55

I mean, this is all history, friends. It's all history. It's all there.

01:19:01

You can read about it. We have secular sources that back up all of this, but I try to stick to the

01:19:07

Bible as much as possible when you deal with this subject. Chris Amen. Well, brother, I just want to say thank you so much for being here.

01:19:15

You are, in many ways, a father of this show because so much of what

01:19:21

I've learned I've gotten from you and Ken Gentry. And I was telling you before the show started, my first real eye -opening book was

01:19:29

Last Days According to Jesus by R .C. Sproul. And I had some answers coming out of that book, but so many more questions.

01:19:37

And by the Lord's providence, I found you on YouTube. And then since then, I've read books, and you have had such a profound influence on this show.

01:19:44

And I pray that the Lord would just continue to bring an awareness of these things to people. Because honestly, the doom and gloom and the defeatism and the lack of joy and the constantly expecting calamity, it really needs to end because Jesus didn't bring us into that kind of kingdom.

01:20:02

He brought us into a victorious kingdom. Dr. Ken Gentry I mean, we wouldn't be here today, the type of civilization we had, if we

01:20:10

Christians didn't see that the future was important enough in order to build it.

01:20:18

From Gutenberg's printing press, I mean, the first thing that came off that printing press was, in fact, a copy of the

01:20:25

Bible. And it was instrumental in changing everything. And we've lost a lot of that for a number of reasons.

01:20:32

We've created this sacred, secular dualism. The other thing we've had is the fact that, well,

01:20:38

Jesus is coming back soon, so why bother with the world in which we live? And not that this last election is going to bring in the kingdom, but it just goes to show what can take place if people get involved and decide they're fed up with what some of the problems we're having in our culture.

01:20:57

And more and more people are talking about Jesus Christ. I mean, it's amazing. I think that's a very good thing.

01:21:04

So that's why I would recommend my book, God and Government, which puts all this in perspective. So politics is not the answer, but it is one of the things that the

01:21:13

Bible addresses. And then we need to understand the very limitations of civil government, not to use civil government in order as a club to force people in compliance with a religious position, but simply to understand the limitations of civil government and the duties of the civil magistrate.

01:21:31

So, amen. Amen. Well, brother, thank you again so much. And thank you for everyone who's been watching this, and we will see you again next time on the podcast.