Mt 24 pt 8: The Great Tribulation, Coming of the Son of Man, and Sun, Moon & Stars

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Did Jesus' words about the Great Tribulation, Coming of the Son of Man, and Sun, Moon & Stars come to pass?? Yup- watch the message and enjoy. www.ReformedRookie.com

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Tonight we're going to be going through the Great Tribulation, the coming of the Son of Man, and the falling of the sun, moon, and stars.
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We've covered this briefly, but we'll go into it in a little bit more depth because this is the time we can focus in and zoom in on certain things.
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Zoom in on certain things, get it? Alright, so you know the drill, how we're going to do this study. We read the whole passage already, we summarized it, we did a review, then we went through each verse individually and we explained it, and again our hermeneutic is the analogy of say, scripture interprets scripture.
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Scripture is the best interpreter of itself. We don't want to take any preconceived notions that we have or something that we've heard and impose it upon the text.
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We want the text to speak to us and to interpret it in light of itself. We take the difficult verses and we interpret them in light of the easy or clearer verses, not the other way around.
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Okay, so now we're going through addressing the larger key points and the themes of Matthew 24.
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Tonight, we're going to go over the Great Tribulation, like I said, the Son of Man, the falling of the sun, moon, and stars, and again, if all of these things took place within the generation that Jesus was speaking to, then his words proved true and we should not be looking for another fulfillment of these things.
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These things have been fulfilled. Now, how we apply that to our walk as Christians is a different story, but we have to at least admit, okay, what
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Jesus said was going to happen, happened dramatically, I mean, changed the world.
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It was the end of the old covenant, the end of the Jewish sacrificial system, and the beginning of the new covenant.
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So that bears repeating and taking notice of. All right, so let's start talking about the
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Great Tribulation. Matthew 24, 21 says, Now, that sounds serious.
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This is a Great Tribulation, the likes of which no one has seen or ever will.
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So would this be the worst of the tribulation that the world would ever see? That's what
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I want to talk about tonight. The book of Acts describes the beginning of the tribulation that affected the infant church, which started with the death of Stephen, who was stoned by the
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Apostle Paul and Paul's friends, James and James. When Herod saw that the murder of James pleased the
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Jews, he seized Peter and put him in prison. By the mid 60s, AD 60s, in the lead up to the destruction of Jerusalem, there was tribulation against Christians at the hands of many unbelieving
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Jews. These people were decidedly opposed to the followers of Christ and Jesus, or in other words,
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Antichrist. They were against Jesus. So now it's real important to just remember that most of the early
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Christians were Jews, but then there were unbelieving Jews who persecuted the
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Christians. So it originally started with just a group of Jewish people. Obviously, they were waiting for the
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Messiah. Jesus spoke to the disciples who were all Jewish. It would eventually spill over into the Gentiles.
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That was Paul's ministry. But initially it was one large group of people, Jews. Some believed, some didn't.
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The ones that didn't persecuted the ones that did. It was it was a serious offense in their estimation.
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So these Jews were the Antichrist that John spoke of in 1 John 2, 22, chapter 4, 3 and 2
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John 7. And they made up the synagogue of Satan. That's what Revelation calls it. The word synagogue means gathering, a simple word that just means gathering, the gathering of Satan.
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Now, that's a pretty heavy statement when, you know, God's word calls a group of people, the gathering of Satan.
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You don't want to be in that gathering part of it. OK, so these were the Jews that John was speaking of.
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Those who say they were, they are Jews and are not, but lie. That's important.
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And those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. Remember, it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise who are regarded as descendants.
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So that was a quote from Paul. He's delineating between genealogical Jews and spiritual
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Jews, Jews who are people who were circumcised of the heart. We are now spiritual
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Israel, which is what the point of of God's plan is to have an inward heart change, not just an outward one.
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So, again, when the scripture calls unbelieving Jews a synagogue of Satan and and liars, they're saying that they're
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Jews, but not because they don't acknowledge Jesus is coming in the flesh. He was the Messiah.
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They should have recognized it. They didn't. Again, very serious. It needs to be repeated that the first people to embrace
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Jesus as the promised Messiah were Jews and the first to reject Jesus were also
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Jews. Sorry, James Jordan says it like this.
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The Judaizer Judaizers were the heirs of the tradition serving Jewish teachers who were
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Jesus's worst enemy. The Judaizers are the constant enemy in Acts and the epistles. They are the antichrists in John's letters who claim to have been sent out by the apostles, but who were not of us.
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They are the main enemy in the book of Revelation. The Judaizers fit perfectly Jesus's predictions.
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They claim to come in his name. They misled many. They claimed an anointing, but it was false.
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They were false prophets. OK, so here here are these Jews that opposed
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Jesus, even though he did signs, wonders and miracles. They acknowledged that he spoke as one with authority.
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Jesus claimed to be the I am in their presence. They picked up stones to stone him. Why? Because you and me, a man claimed to be
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God. They knew what he was saying. He backed it up, like I said, with signs, wonders and miracles and authoritative teaching that they never heard before.
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Yet they still rejected. And then we're going to see how. How and why that becomes great tribulation.
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OK, this is why John could write that he was a fellow partaker in the tribulation and the church of Smyrna was undergoing tribulation at the hand of the
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Jews. OK, now I'm going to make a distinction and we're going to get to that in a minute. But any time John says talks about him partaking in tribulation, he's always partaking in tribulation, not great tribulation.
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The church goes through tribulation, but it's never said to go through great tribulation.
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Tribulation. I'm going to show you what I think that means in a little bit. Matthew's great tribulation is synonymous with Luke's great distress.
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They both use the term great. One says tribulation, one says distress. It's the same thing.
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Some prophecy writers argue that Luke is describing events related to events leading up to and including the destruction of Jerusalem, while Matthew is describing a great tribulation that will affect a future generation.
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However, when you compare the two accounts, they basically are describing the same events. So it's not that Matthew's describing a future great tribulation that wasn't part of A .D.
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70 and Luke is describing something near to to the to the hearers. They're both describing the same event.
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By combining the elements of Matthew and Luke, we get a more complete picture of the prophecy, as we do with the birth narratives.
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Both prophecies end with this generation will not pass away. And we have gone over that ad nauseum.
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When Jesus says this generation, he means this generation, not some generation way out in the future.
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And as we've seen, this generation refers to the generation that was in existence at the time
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Jesus prophesied about the end of the age that coincided with the destruction of the temple.
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If Jesus had a future generation in mind in either of these accounts, he would have used the term that generation to clear up any possible confusion.
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Real simple. If I'm talking to you guys and I say, these people are going to get to eat cookies, you would immediately think, hmm, that's us.
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If I was to tell you, well, those people are going to get to eat cookies. You'd be like, why can't we have cookies?
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Right. So this generation would have heard Jesus and said, OK, this is going to happen to us.
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All you need to do is say that generation is going to have all this stuff happen. He didn't say that.
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It's very it's really clear in the text. And it's amazing what the human mind can do to try to get around what it actually says and put it so far into the future that nobody knows what it is.
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That's the human heart for you. OK. Notice that the event is described in two ways.
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First is tribulation and second as great tribulation. One aspect of the tribulation is described as great because the crime that brought it on was great.
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The chief priests and the religious leaders, in collusion with the Roman government in Judea, crucified the Lord of Glory.
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They crucified God in the flesh. Jesus' disciples described it this way.
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The chief priests and our rulers delivered him to the sentence of death and crucified him.
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That's a heavy charge. If Jesus was who he said he was. And they knew that and crucified him anyway.
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That deserves great consequence. Peter declared that his fellow countrymen disowned the holy and righteous one and asked for a murderer to be put in his place and put to death the prince of life.
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Today's Jews did not deliver up Jesus to death. So why should they endure God's righteous judgment for this crime?
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In other words, a modern day Jew wasn't the one who put Jesus on the cross. It was the
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Jews of that generation that put him on the cross. OK. Should a
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Jew today receive the same penalty for the crimes of the Jews in the past?
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No. They were the ones who did this. The same way my children are not going to pay for my sins.
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Now they're going to experience the consequence of them because my sin, not that my sin gets passed down, but the consequences of my sin gets passed down.
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So the consequences of the Jews who said may his blood be on our heads and our children's heads gets passed down.
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But for what they did, it's an eye for an eye. Right. There's justice.
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God never gives more or less than what they actually deserve. So if they were the ones who actually put
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Jesus on the cross, they're going to actually pay for that sin. Could there be a more egregious crime than the murdering of the
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Lord of Glory? Seriously, ask yourself that. Is there anything that you can do today, any sin that you can commit today that would be as bad as putting
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Jesus on the cross? Right. Well, he went to the cross, right, because he was going to pay for that.
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Right. But there are people's sins who he doesn't go to the cross for, right? Right. So the actual putting him up on the cross and condemning him and saying, we want him dead.
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Is there any sin greater than that? Is somebody putting
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Jesus on the cross and putting him on the cross to die, would that be a greater sin than what
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Hitler did? Would it be a greater sin than what Joseph Stalin did?
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Yes. Hitler killed about 12 million people. Joseph Stalin ranges between 60 million to 100 million people.
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This guy got killed. That wasn't as bad as putting Jesus on the cross. And I'm emphasizing this for a reason.
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OK. Say again. Because Jesus was the only innocent person ever to die.
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He was the only he was the holy one, the righteous one, the Messiah. They killed.
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They killed the very thing that they needed for salvation. They killed the very person who they said that they were in relationship with.
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Right. And then went on to deceive people and say he's not the Messiah, knowing that he was.
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OK, in fact, Daniel 12 contains the length of the time of the Great Tribulation, which is three and a half years or twelve hundred and ninety days, coinciding with the spring of AD 67 to September AD 70.
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OK, so I just wanted to let you know that this this was prophesied in the Book of Daniel. Now, in Matthew 29, he mentioned tribulation and then it says this.
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Then they will deliver you again, meaning the disciples, up to tribulation and put you to death and you will be hated by all nations for my for my namesake.
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Now, who was that tribulation focused upon? It comes right after meaning the.
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Somebody shouted out the disciples. Come on. Is everybody dead here?
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Come on. This Jesus is saying they will deliver you, meaning the disciples. They were the ones who were going to experience the tribulation.
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But watch how Matthew 21 reads 20 verse 21. He uses a different term. He uses great tribulation.
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We must be careful to know that not every tribulation has to be identified as the great tribulation.
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There have been many tribulations in the last 2000 years and many others that are right around the corner.
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We're experiencing some of these things right now. Even John in the
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Book of Revelation speaks of the great tribulation and its martyrs as well. And it reads, and he said to me, these are the ones coming out of the great tribulation.
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They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Revelation 714. Notice that the saints came out of the great tribulation and didn't suffer the same way as those who were in the great tribulation.
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They experienced tribulation. But not great tribulation. And I'm making that distinction for a reason.
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This tribulation, the one in Matthew 21, is called great because of the outpouring of God's wrath in tribulation came upon the generation of Jews that chose
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Caesar over Jesus. The disciples didn't choose
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Caesar over Jesus. They chose Jesus over Caesar. So to the
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Jews who acknowledged Jesus as Messiah, would they receive the same punishment or go through the same tribulation that the
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Jews who rejected Jesus as Messiah and put them on the cross experienced? No, it would be different.
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My opinion is that the tribulation in Matthew 24, 9 and 24, 21 are two concurrent but separately identified events as far as its recipients are concerned.
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The disciples would be the recipients of a persecution from the Jews, Matthew 24, 9, but the
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Jews would be the subjects of the wrath of God, a just persecution because of their rejection of the
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Messiah in verse 21. Both are tribulation and I think it's one concurrent event, but one is greater than the other.
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So what makes one tribulation greater than the other tribulation? The magnitude of the sin and the magnitude of the consequence.
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Right. The people who acknowledge Jesus as Messiah, should they get the same consequence as the people who rejected
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Jesus as Messiah and had him killed? No. Do you see the difference?
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It wasn't that I pulled this out of a commentary. I'm looking at this and I'm saying, I see a difference.
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Matthew uses tribulation for the disciples and a great tribulation for the
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Jews. I'm seeing that there's a difference there. So what was the magnitude of the sin in Romans 9, 4?
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This is what the Israelites had. This is what their background was. To them belonged the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises.
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To them belonged the patriarchs and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is
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God over all, forever blessed. That was their history. That's what they had.
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They were set up by God, chosen by God. They were the chosen people to bring forth the
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Messiah. Think about if you were a bloodline Jew and you knew that somewhere along the lines, one of your ancestors were part of those tribes that brought forth the
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Messiah. I'd be like, wow, somewhere along the lines, my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was part of this whole thing that we read about in the scriptures.
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That would be amazing, right? But if your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was one of the guys who said, you know what, put him on the cross, you'd be like, oh, that's not good.
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That's not good. So watch what Luke says in chapter 12, he says, and the
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Lord said, blessed is that servant whom his master will find doing so when he comes, meaning when the
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Messiah comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that servant says to himself, my master is delayed in coming and begins to beat the male and female servants and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him.
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And in an hour, he does not know. And we'll cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful.
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And that servant who knew his master's will, but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating.
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But the one who did not know and did not and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating.
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Everyone to whom much is given of him, much will be required. And from him who they entrusted much, they will demand more.
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So the Israelites, along the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises, they had everything they needed.
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They were given much because they crucified the
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Lord of Glory. They require much, right? Their consequence is going to be much greater than someone, one of the other nations who didn't have all this.
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Right. Let's say the Egyptians. The Canaanites, although they persecuted
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God's people, they didn't have God's revelation in their midst. Remember the
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Israelites? We went through the temple, the tent of meeting. They would come.
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They would surround that. God's presence would be in the midst of them. They would receive atonement for their sins. No other nation had that.
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They were the only ones. So to whom much is given, much is required. They should have known.
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They have a greater level of responsibility than people who didn't have this. Luke says, the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation.
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From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the house of God. Yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation.
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This generation of who? The Jews or the believers? The Jews who rejected him.
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That's a heavy, that's a heavy charge. All the blood of the prophets up until now, it's going to be charged to them.
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They should have known. When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather that a riot was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying,
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I am innocent of this man's blood. See to that yourselves. Pilate knew there was nothing.
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Jesus didn't do anything wrong, worthy of death. And all the people said, his blood shall be upon us and our children.
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Then he released Barabbas to them. But after having having Jesus scourged, he handed him over to be crucified.
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Remember, the custom was to release one prisoner in place of someone else. They wanted
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Barabbas, who was a zealot, who was actually working against the Jews. They'd rather have him released than Jesus.
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Again, heavy charge. Finally, they cried out, away with him and away with him, crucify him.
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Pilate said to them, shall I crucify your king? The chief priest answered, we have no king but Caesar.
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Jesus, king of kings, Lord of lords, proved that he was the
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Messiah, stood in their midst, proclaimed to be the king. They said, we don't have any king but Caesar.
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Caesar, the king who had them on the Roman occupation, who was, you know, oppressing them and would further end up, not
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Julius Caesar, but another one of the Caesars, Nero, would end up persecuting the Jews and killing them.
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It's no surprise that Luke records Jesus saying, these are the days of vengeance in order that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
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These are the days, right then and there, because God's going to pour out his wrath upon the unbelieving
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Jews who should have received him. And what prophecies is Jesus referring? Micah 3 .12,
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therefore, on account of you, Zion will be plowed, Zion is Jerusalem. Zion will be plowed as a field.
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Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins and the mountain of the temple will become high places of a forest.
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Jeremiah 24, and you will say to them, thus says the Lord, if you will not listen to me, to walk in my law, which
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I have set before you, to listen to the words of my servants, the prophets, who I have been sending to you again and again, but you have not listened.
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Then I will make this house like Shiloh and the city, I will make a curse to all the nations of the earth.
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Again, Jerusalem. Most likely, the passage that directly applied to the term days of vengeance is found in Daniel 9 .26.
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Then after 62 weeks, the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary and its end will come with a flood.
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Even to the end, there will be war, war, desolations are determined. OK, so this is talking about Jesus being killed, the cutting off the
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Messiah and the people of the prince, OK, which are the Jews. They have the backing of the
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Romans. The Romans come in and destroy the city and the sanctuary called the Jewish Wars.
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So we can see why that's great tribulation. Now, here's another thing we need to remember. If the
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Great Tribulation is a future event and hasn't happened and the right after the
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Great Tribulation is going to be an immediate final judgment, then there wouldn't be much time after that event culminated.
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Right. So if there was this Great Tribulation and then judgment, there's not a big time gap, almost immediate.
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However, history will continue for some time after the Great Tribulation, according to which is
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I think that's Matthew 21. For then there will be Great Tribulation, such as not been since the beginning of the world until this time, nor nor ever shall be.
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It's anticipating that there's going to be time after the Great Tribulation. Right. That is, history is going to continue for some time after this
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Great Tribulation. He also tells his disciples that the tribulation will be cut short for the sake of the elect.
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OK, that's the regular tribulation of the Great Tribulation, but looking at that verse.
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Jesus is explaining this is going to be a Great Tribulation, unlike one anyone has ever seen, nor ever will.
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That implies that there's not an immediate end to the world right after the
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Great Tribulation so that there'll be final judgment. Is everybody tracking with that? You follow what
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I'm trying to say? No. What happens after AD 70?
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After AD 70? That's half, that's two and a half years, right, or three and a half years.
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Yeah. So what happens in the next three and a half years? The next three and a half are the playing out of the persecution of the
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Jews. Oh, OK. And the Jews are in the mountains at that time, right?
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Believing Jews are. Unbelieving Jews aren't. They're fighting the war. Do the Jews die in Jerusalem or are kept as slavers?
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Yeah, that's part of it. So they're going to be persecuted more. Yeah, absolutely. Their temple is going to be destroyed and they're going to be taken captive by the
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Romans. So if that, if according to dispensationalists, once the
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Great Tribulation happens, then there's a final judgment. There is no final judgment after this.
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Well, there's going to be a future final judgment. That's my point. That's my point.
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So if dispensationalists are right, then the final judgment happened, happens after the
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Great Tribulation. But Jesus is saying that there's going to be time after the
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Great Tribulation. And I wouldn't necessarily say there was no judgment after AD 70.
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There was no judgment of that magnitude. There were multiple judgments. Sure, there's ongoing judgment.
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Look, once we die, it's appointed for a man once to die and then to judgment. We're going to get an immediate judgment, right, at the point of our death.
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You know, are we in heaven or not, right? The final judgment where the final rewards and consequences for what we've done in this life, whether good or evil, right, are going to be handed out.
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And then the people on the right come with me into my kingdom. The rest are going to be cast into the lake of fire.
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The second death, right, with all the consequences that go along with that. And for the believers, the rewards for the things that they've done in the body, whether good or evil, are going to be with them wherever they are in heaven, on earth.
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Make sense? Okay. All right. Just check it. I was just wondering what happened after AD 70.
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It was, it was not a good time. No, I didn't get much better. Two thousand years later.
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That's a great tribulation. You don't think the world's gotten better since AD 70? Basically, I don't think so.
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Really? Yeah. Why not? Do you think man is any better today than he was back then? The world is a better place to live.
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Back then, what was it? What was the expected lifespan? Give or take 30 years, I guess.
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All right. Call it 40, 50 years. What's the, what's the average lifespan now? Okay. 86, really?
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It's up to that? Really? Think of the, think of the technological advantages we have now versus what they had then.
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Would you've liked to take a shower back in that day or today? Would you like to?
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I don't think they showered all that often. That's what I'm saying. Would you like to bathe the way they did then or now?
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A community type? Whatever. Would you like to go to the bathroom where they went to the bathroom? Or the way you would do it now?
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I'm just saying, I don't think man has improved. No, man's sinful. The world has gotten better though.
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Lifespans have increased, uh, ease, comforts. I would disagree with that statement too.
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Which? Man hasn't improved. I mean, Roman was a sewer pit for people.
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Right. Morality was just not heard of. Right. So to a certain extent, morality has.
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Um, I, I, I, I'm tracking what you're saying. Man's heart is desperately evil. Oh yeah.
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Yeah. There's still evil. I know what you're saying though. I, I, I, obviously there's no man on the planet who has gotten better in that sense, but the common grace that, that, that Christianity has brought to the world has tamed the evil, has restrained.
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Yes, definitely. Has restrained the evil in the world. Christians were the first ones to create schools. Christians were the first ones to create hospitals.
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Right. Where would the world be without? Well, in the name of God, the
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Calvin Reformation killed millions of people. Yeah, of course. There's been, that was 1400 years after, after AD etc, right?
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Yeah. How, how is man getting any better? Not, not the heart of man.
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Yeah. Right. Not the heart of man. The heart of man isn't getting any better. But society on a whole is okay.
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Well, I mean, you don't even have to look too far into the book of Acts to see thousands of people being converted to Christ, you know, from Judea to Samaria to the outer parts of the world, the gospel is going forth.
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And we know Christ is reconciling all things to himself right now by making peace by the blood of his cross.
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Right. You know, so like we could look at, like, we're not saying it's, the depravity of the human heart never changed.
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That's right. It's a constant thing. Right. And we're always battling our sinful nature. But on the outward, like, perspective of everything, things are getting better because of the gospel of Christ being spread.
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Righteousness, the way God flooded the world and, and destroyed it is the way he's flooding the world with righteousness right now.
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It's, it's, it's, it's happening slowly. Right. The, the, um, the mustard seed, although the smallest seed, right, will end up growing and having a plant that even the birds of the air are going to perch in.
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I was just going to say to Jake's point, and that's what brings about some of these changes that we see physically, you know, even, even to the perspective of, uh, ultimately we're called to reclaim the earth as well, you know?
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So exactly. Yeah. Well, look, look, look at the creation of America, right?
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It was, it was created by Christians who came here, fled, uh, religious persecution to start a, a government here based on, on biblical principles.
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It grew into the greatest nation in the world, right? It's the heart of man is still the heart of man.
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And you see what's happening today, but think about what the world would look like without America. Yeah.
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I want to just throw another point out that might muddy the waters a little bit. Thanks. That's typical for me. Um, I, maybe you're right.
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Maybe it is getting worse. I said this guy to my left. So what God is also doing though, is he's showing the, the church, uh, more and more the depravity and he's, he's actually,
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I would say, taking back some of the restraint with what we're seeing now.
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Right. Definitely. Whereas before it was behind closed doors still existed, but it was behind closed doors.
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Now it's becoming very visual and, uh, we would, if you wanted to give it a name and, you know, call it liberalism or whatever you want to call it, uh, you know, what's coming out of that, the church is seeing, which you see,
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I think that's a trial for the church. Sure. I, I think that what's happening today,
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I think what's happening today is is, um, even felt to a greater degree because of the technology that we have.
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We're seeing things happening across the world. We're seeing things happen in all, all over the place. And it's overwhelming for us.
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We were never meant to take on that burden. That was not God's plan for us to take that burden upon ourselves to see all these things that have it, you get overcome with anxiety, right?
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So although technology can be a tremendous benefit for us, and it is in certain cases can also be a tremendous benefit, right?
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When we don't keep the kingdom in, in mind, first seek first the kingdom of God. When you start looking at all these other things, oh my goodness, you can despair like that.
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Right? So yes, to your point, absolutely. This is a purpose for it.
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Sure. And I was talking about to my wife about it this morning in Romans chapter nine. Um, God wanting to display his, put his, his wrath on display to show the objects of his mercy, just how powerful he is.
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Right. What is God doing? He's allowing these things to happen so that the church can see he really is in control and he really does judge people.
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What should we, we should be taken away from this is, you know what? I better get to work. I, I really better start listening to what my
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Bible tells me to do. I can't be a hearer of the word only got to be a doer of the word and we should know better.
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And we've been lulled into this, um, false sense of security. Oh, we live in America, the most prosperous nation in all the world.
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Your faith and trust can't be in America. Your faith and trust has to be in Jesus, the king of the kingdom, right?
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Although we're, we're, uh, we're dwellers in America, we're citizens of the kingdom.
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And that's what God's focused on. He's not focused on saving America. He's focused on saving his church, people from every tribe, every tongue, every people, every, every language.
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And we got to remember that, you know, America may come and go just like all the rest of the great empires, Greece, Rome, the
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Egyptians, the Syrians, the Babylonians, all those places were great at one point in time and fell dramatically.
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Why? Because of their sin. We're not here to build a, a, a human nation.
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We're here to build the nation of Israel, the spiritual nation of Israel, the church. Okay. R .T.
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France, who's a theologian, he says, when Titus returned to Jerusalem, the horror was in fact cut short by the
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Roman capture of the city after five months, bringing physical relief to those who had survived the famine in the city.
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Any Jew familiar with the Hebrew scripture should have known that God would pour out his vengeance because of disobedience and rejection of their promised redeemer.
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Josephus again calls attention in his wars of the Jews, when he declares that no generation and no city was so plunged in the misery since the foundation of the world.
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So the disciples experienced tribulation. The Jews experienced great tribulation, and there would be time for more tribulations in the future.
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It doesn't mean that there's no more tribulations. A lot of people look at it and say, well, that's the great tribulation. And since we see tribulations that happening now, there's going to be one in the future that's going to be greater than all of them.
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That's not true. The greatest tribulation happened to the Jews who put the
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Messiah on the cross. Okay. We're going to shift gears and start talking about the coming of the
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Son of Matthew 24, 23 says, if anyone says to you, behold, here is the Christ or there he is, do not believe him for false
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Christ and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders. So as to be misled, if possible, either the elect behold,
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I have told you in advance. So if they say to you, behold, he's in the wilderness, do not go out or behold.
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He's in the inner rooms. Do not believe them. So he's saying to them, if anyone says to you, he's expecting the disciples to understand what he's saying, that somebody is going to come and say,
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Oh, we found Jesus. Come with us. He says, don't believe him. Why? The warning seems to mitigate against a physical coming of Jesus back to earth.
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Think about it. If Jesus was coming back physically, it would be perfectly acceptable for someone to say, here he is, we found them.
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However, Jesus precludes that idea altogether. If his coming in judgment upon Israel was a spiritual coming and not a physical one, then this warning makes all the more sense.
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He will not and cannot be found until his final coming at the consummation of all things.
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So when, when Jesus comes back in judgment upon the Jews in 70 AD, it was a physical judgment.
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It was a spiritual judgment. It wasn't coming back in the flesh. So if somebody says,
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Oh, we found Jesus. How could you find Jesus? He didn't come back physically. He was coming back in judgment upon Jerusalem.
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Does that make sense? Right. So he's, he's precluding the fact that this isn't a physical coming.
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You tracking with that Paul? Okay. You look a little confused. Oh, okay.
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All right. Uh, also just as light in 24, 7, uh, 24, 27 for justice, lightning comes from the
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East and flashes even to the West. So will the coming of the son of man. Now, everybody thinks that's a visual thing.
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Oh, everybody's going to see Jesus coming. However, though the warning and his spiritual coming in judgment becomes clear when
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Jesus says his coming will be like lightning, which means it's going to be swift and it's going to be destructive like lightning is it's swift and destroys things.
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All right. So in the Bible, lightning also signifies God's presence, the manifestation of his power and the display of his awesome judgment against his enemies.
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And you can see that in Deuteronomy 33 to second Samuel 22, Psalm 18 and Psalm 144.
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Similar to wind and fire, lightning, lightning does surrogate duty for the image of the invisible
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God. Scripture uses lightning as proof of God's terrifying presence. It frightens believer and infidel alike as proof that God attends his chosen people in battle, lightning routes his enemies.
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And if you look up those verses, it talks about the lightning coming from that and destroying
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God's enemies. Okay. So it doesn't mean that everybody's going to see Jesus's coming in judgment upon Jerusalem, just lightning is swift, terrifying, and destructive.
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It's no accident that the language and circumstances of Ezekiel's prophecies regarding the destruction of Jerusalem in the sixth century
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BC, this is before 78, they obviously, especially the usage of the son of man for Ezekiel and later for Jesus, Jesus are strikingly similar to the way
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Jesus described the impending destruction of Jerusalem in his day. And because of all your abominations and the like of which
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I will never do again. God assured Ezekiel, just as Jesus assured his disciples that judgment comes and it will happen.
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The imagery of a sword polished to flash like lightning is used to describe
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God's judgment that will make every heart melt and all hands feeble and all knees weak as water.
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Son of man prophesied and say, thus says the Lord, say a sword, a sword sharpened and also polished sharpened to make a slaughter polished to flash like lightning.
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Now, if that's a physical image and Jesus is coming, does anyone believe that Jesus came back physically with a flaming sword in his hand to slaughter the
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Jews? No, that's imagery, right? A sword in your hand polished to flash like lightning.
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Okay. It's drawing a picture. This is like apocalyptic literature. It's signifying something different.
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This is not Jesus coming back with a, with a, a polished sword in his hand.
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The sword of judgment is made for striking like lightning. It's wrapped up in readiness for slaughter.
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That's Ezekiel 2115. The sword has power to consume like lightning 2128 swiftly without warning and terribly.
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Therefore the image of Jesus as the son of man coming in judgment against first century Israel, as the lightning comes from the east is most appropriate.
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So again, the Jews who understood the old Testament and read that language from the prophets would understand when they heard about lightning, it was, it was judgment.
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It was judgment to come. It didn't mean they were going to see a bolt of lightning hit the ground and all there it is.
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That's, that's what he was talking about. So this is not something new to the scriptures.
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Again, the analogy of faith scripture interprets scripture throughout the old Testament, God came in judgment using language, remarkably similar to Jesus' description of his company to that first century generation and Genesis 1115.
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The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men built. Now, was that a physical coming of the
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Lord in Genesis 11, five? No, right. The Lord came down in judgment spiritually.
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So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them up from the land of, from the land, that land to a good and spacious land.
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Exodus three, eight. Was that a physical coming of Jesus? No, spiritual presence of the
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Lord. So the Lord of hosts will come down to wage war on Mount Zion and on its hill. Isaiah 34, 31, four spiritual coming, not physical.
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He, he bowed the heavens also and came down with thick darkness under his feet.
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He sent out his arrows and scattered them and lightning flashes in abundance and routed them, Psalm 18, nine and 14.
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Is that a physical coming or spiritual? Spiritual, right? All this, this talk of lightning is to signify something else.
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It's symbolism. An oracle concerning Egypt. Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and is about to come.
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Egypt, the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.
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The judgment come upon the Egyptians. Was it lightning? And was, was
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Jesus like on a cloud? No, this is imagery, right? Symbolizing God's judgment upon a people.
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Same thing that happened in AD 70 to the temple and the Jews. Behold, the Lord is coming forth from his place.
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He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth. The mountains will melt under him and the valleys will be split like wax before the fire, like water poured down on a steep place.
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So when, when Jesus came back to all mountains, just going to fold in half, they're going to split, right?
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Are they going to be like wax that melts? No, that's imagery to show you that the coming of when
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God came, when God comes in judgment upon a nation, it's destructive. No one's gonna, no one's going to survive that.
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Also remember how many times Jesus threatened to judge the churches of Asia minor by his coming. If they did not repent, makes no sense.
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If the comings referred to in these passages were distant future, physical comings and appearances in the, into the, in the seven churches, in the beginning of revelation, he writes to the church of Philadelphia, you know, you've forgotten your first love, but this, uh, this
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I have against you. You've forgotten your first love. If you don't repent, I'm going to come back to you. Says that to all seven churches.
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Did he mean he was going to come back physically to each one of those churches if they didn't repent? No, he was going to come back in judgment, spiritual judgment upon them.
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So he's not talking about physical coming in these verses. That's important to know because most people think
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Matthew 24 is about a physical coming of Jesus at the end of the age. And that's not what it's talking about.
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Furthermore, Jesus stated that his coming in judgment would be before the last apostle died. And we talked about this before, but it's very important that we repeat it.
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This is, uh, John 21 verses one through three for the son of man is going to come in the glory of his father with his angels and will then repay every man according to his deeds.
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Truly. I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the son of man coming in his kingdom.
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Now that the group of disciples that he was talking to, he says, when I come back, some of you are going to be dead, but some of you are going to be alive.
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Now, if this was talking about the second physical coming, do you think some of those disciples are still alive?
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But they'd be like 2000 years old. What does that have to do with John in the revelation, uh, saying the
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Lord, you know, up in heaven, you know, he saw the
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Lord coming back during the revelation. All right. So he was a disciple. He saw the
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Lord coming back at the end time. I don't know about the other disciples, but there was one.
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Yeah. When, when he's, Jesus is talking about him, him coming back in glory and judgment upon, right.
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Not physically did, did, did Jesus says you will see not one stone upon another, talking about the temple.
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You're going to see the signs you're going to see. And then he comes back like lightning. Until they see the
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Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Like John sees that in the revelation. Right.
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Okay. So, but that's a vision. Well, he sees it. It's a vision. What's the difference? It's not a vision.
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You have a vision. Are you, are you, are you, are you having a vision of me right now? Or are you really seeing me?
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I have both. I mean, all right. Having a vision is like a dream.
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Okay. Um, the, the word see, like, uh, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he's born again.
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The word see means understand. You see what I'm saying? That's, that's, that's sometimes what the word see means, but the
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Son of Man coming, what he's talking about. He says that there's going to be some, some disciples dead, some not dead, right?
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There was a persecution of the early church. Some of the disciples, Paul, uh, Peter dead.
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John was the one who was alive when Jesus came back in judgment upon Jerusalem.
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Well, there's more that we can, we're going to go through. The coming had to be far enough in the future that many in Jesus's audience would be dead, but not so far in the future that everyone would be dead.
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The fulfillment could not have been the transfiguration that happened about a week later. Jesus could not have been describing the events of, could not have been describing the events of Pentecost since only
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Judas had died by that. Some people say when they see, uh, for the Son of Man is going to come in his glory.
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A chapter later, Jesus comes at the transfiguration, right? And Moses and Elijah are with him.
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And some of the, and Peter's like, Lord, should I build three houses? So some, some dispensationalists will say, well, this was fulfilled at the transfiguration, right?
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But this reference could not have been about a distant future coming outlined by dispensationalists for, for his church in a rapture and seven years later after his church, after the great tribulation.
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Let me just get through this. Since everyone who heard Jesus deliver the prophecy is dead. The events that fit the time requirement of this text is the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.
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And here, this is going to be a little bit easier to understand. Jesus stated that the coming of the
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Lord is at hand, right? Right at the door, at hand for whom?
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James, James told his readers to be patient. How could James have exhorted his readers to be patient if the coming he was describing was a long way off?
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At hand does not mean thousands of years. In fact, the definition of at hand in this context is right at the door.
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In other words, it was going to happen soon. When Jesus says he's coming back to, uh, and not one, one stone is going to be left on another.
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He's talking soon within a quick time span. Now, this is what's important, but if this is referring to the transfiguration as the dispensationalists say it does, then there's a problem.
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But the problem is theirs. If this is what Jesus meant by his coming back and dispensationalists believe that the transfiguration was him, him coming back, then they're preterists too.
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He has come back already. So if they argue, well, no, no, that happened at the tribulation. You're you're the next question to them should be.
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So Jesus did come back then, huh? Well, no. Well, why? You just said he came back in the tribute in the, the transfiguration.
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Follow. It blows their position out of the water. And I know this is not like a lot of you guys don't understand what we're talking about here, but when you talk about dispensationalism, this is one of their arguments.
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Okay. So an easy question would be, okay. So you believe Jesus came back at the transfiguration?
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Yes. So then you're a preterist. He has come back over. Makes sense. All right.
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Coming as a spatial coming and going is not the best transfiguration. Nearly all the
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Greek lexicons and dictionaries conclude that the Parousia is best translated as presence.
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We should remember that Jesus manifest his presence without being physically present where two or three are gathered.
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There I am with you. That doesn't mean physically. That means Jesus's presence, right? Jesus manifested his presence in judgment against Jerusalem, like lightning, similar to the way
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God manifested his presence to Israel and her enemies. So in the old Testament, when, when it talks about, like lightning or he came on the clouds, that's the same language
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Jesus is using to explain him coming back in judgment upon Jerusalem in 87.
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All right. Now let's move to the sun, moon, and the stars. We're going to get moving a little quicker now. Verse 29, immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens will be shaken at this point.
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Some commentators separate the prophetic events of AD 70 and verses four through 28 from what they say is the distant future coming of Christ that follows.
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Everything up to verse 24 or nine. So the theory goes refers to the events leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, while the events from 24, nine and following refer to a yet future coming.
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That's not what I hold to. Okay. And this is what we're going to explain. The first half of Matthew 24, some people say, oh yeah, that refers to his, his coming in judgment.
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But after, uh, verse 29 and following that refers to the future second coming. No. D .A.
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Carson takes this position that the events of 20 verses one through 28 refer to the coming of the son of man in the events of AD 70, but that the celestial signs in the coming of the son of man do not immediately follow the abomination that causes desolation, but the distress of those days.
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In other words, the entire interadvent period, the tribulation, this means the, he has placed a gap of time between, of an indeterminate length between verses 28 and 29, that is still ongoing.
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That's, that's inserting something into the text that's not there. So he comes to this conclusion, meaning the guy
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I disagree with, even though he argues that this generation shall see, uh, this generation, which will see all those things can only with the greatest difficult to be made, made to mean anything other than the generation living.
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When Jesus spoke, it's important to see that verse 29 begins with, but immediately after the tribulation of those days, whatever verse 29 means it follows immediately after the tribulation described in the previous verses immediately does not usually make room for much of a time gap.
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Certainly not more than 2000 years. So when Jesus says these things will happen immediately after the tribulation, should we expect a long period of time immediately?
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You know, that's like soon, not 2000 years, Jesus's disciples did not inquire about the end of the world.
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Again, we talked about this, but about the end of that covenant age, when the tribulation of those days was completed, the religious and political structure of Israel as a covenant nation came to an end before that first century generation passed away.
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You know, it probably might've been better if we read the whole passage again, but we did that a while ago.
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Okay. When in the first century did the sun, moon and stars go dark or fall from heaven, did they literally go dark and fall out of the sky?
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Actually, Ron Rhodes and Norm Geisler state that there are no records of astronomical events occurring in AD 70, such as stars falling from heaven and heavenlies being shaken, signs that Jesus promised would occur in those last days.
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They actually, you know, people read this and actually think that stars are going to, you know, fall out and they're going to fall out of the sky and the sun is going to be, if the sun was dark, yeah, but that doesn't, right.
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Yeah. The sun going dark. If the sun went dark for an hour, the earth is done. We don't exist anymore.
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So what records were they talking about? Let's take what they claim and apply it to the similar language used elsewhere in the
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Bible to be strictly literally in literal, in the case of Matthew 24, 29, it would mean that the stars would fall from heaven, but where did they fall to?
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If they fall simply out of their orbit, there's no way they could have been seen by anyone in AD 70. Right?
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The light from the nearest star is light years away. Falling must be a metaphor.
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Revelation 6, 13 says that the stars fell, uh, the stars of the sky fell to the earth.
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How is that possible? When the size of a star is many times larger than the earth, a single star hitting the earth would vaporize us.
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So again, this is imagery. This is symbolism. This is not literal star crashing to the earth.
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Hmm. The biblical approach is to follow the Bible's own interpretive methodology of how sun, moon, and stars apply to the temporal judgment of the nations.
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Isaiah 13, let me read this for the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light.
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The sun will be dark at its rising and the moon will not shed its light. I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity.
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I will put an end to the pump of the arrogant and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless. I will make people more rare than fine gold and mankind than the gold of all fear.
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Therefore, I will, I will make the heavens tremble and the earth will be shaken out of its place at the wrath of the
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Lord of hosts in the fierce day of anger. Now, is he talking about physical stars and the moon, um, going dark?
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No, again, this is symbolism when he says, and the earth will be shaken out of its place.
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What does that mean? Let me ask them when everything happened with COVID and the world basically shut down, were any of you shaken?
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I was, I'm like, what's going on? Like I can't, you can't even fly someplace to get out of it.
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It's worldwide. Like it shook me. That's what he's talking about. The earth is going to be shaken, right?
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The things that you see, um, are going to be shaken, not shaken like this, symbolically shaken, figuratively, figuratively shaken, not stirred.
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Jerry's drinking now in the corner. Ezekiel says it like this.
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I will drench the land, even to the mountains with your flowing blood and the ravines will be full of you.
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You think the rivers are going to be flowing with blood? When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens and make their stars dark.
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I will cover the sun with a cloud and the moon shall not give its light all the bright lights of the heaven. I will make dark over you and put darkness on your land, declares the
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Lord. God, sun, moon, and stars. And we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, would refer to like Joseph when he said the sun, moon, and stars will bow down to me.
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He's talking about Israel. Sun, moon, and stars are indicative of power, nations, peoples.
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Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So he talks about sun, moon, and stars. So when, uh, when
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Jesus says the sun, moon, and stars are going to go, go, going to go out, he's talking about the nation of Israel.
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Think about what Israel was supposed to be to the nations. What were they supposed to be? A light to the nations.
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The sun, moon, and stars go dark. They were not a light to the nations. They were supposed to lead the people to the
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Messiah. Instead, they pushed people away from the Messiah. And that's why the judgment comes upon them.
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Follow that. Making sense. You understand the imagery of sun, moon, and stars. Okay. All right. Um, if I could just add something, please, with this, with this aspect,
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I've heard it. Um, Jeff Durbin put it this way. Like these, these words that he's giving are supposed to spark an image to these
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Jews. They're supposed to like spark something in their minds of something in the past.
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Just, just the very word you use spark. Go ahead. And so, but like, Jeff was like, just in the same way for us, like if we were to stand here tonight and, and I was to say 9 11, that, that word, it sparked something in our, in our minds of, of something we've experienced in the past, something that was tragic and that really breaks in our hearts, you know?
01:00:21
And so they should remember that language from their past, you know? Right. Exactly.
01:00:26
Cause all those things happened when the Assyrians came in, uh, and, and took the, uh, the
01:00:32
Israelites away in, in, in bondage when the Babylonians came in and took them away and then destroyed the temple, right.
01:00:39
That's when all these prophecies were happening. And the sun, moon, and stars were darkened and the rivers will flow with blood.
01:00:45
They, and this was part of their history. Like you said, they should have understood these things, right. And they were given all this knowledge, all this revelation by God.
01:00:53
And then when the Messiah comes, they reject them and put them on a cross. The other, the other thing is, is all this terminology was constantly being used by the prophets, like you said, it was not new terminology.
01:01:07
This shouldn't have been a surprise to them. They should have been expecting this stuff to happen.
01:01:13
And unfortunately it didn't. So in none of these passages is the destruction of the earth in view, even though destructive cosmic language is used.
01:01:21
He's not talking about a literal destruction of the earth. Okay. All right.
01:01:29
Tim LaHaye, who's a dispensationalist, he wrote the book, uh, the series of the books. Um, what's the name of it?
01:01:37
Left Behind. Thank you. Oh my goodness. Tim Haye, author of Left Behind, admits that the sun, moon and stars are often used symbolically, namely for nations and political systems.
01:01:47
The symbolic interpretation is confirmed for us. When Joseph had a dream in which he saw the sun, moon and stars and 11 stars bowing down to him,
01:01:55
Joseph related the dream to his father and to his brothers. And his father rebuked him and said to him, what is this dream that you have that you have had?
01:02:03
Shall I and your mother and your brothers actually come to bow down ourselves before you on the ground?
01:02:09
They understood that the sun, moon and stars represented them, representatives of the nation of Israel, not actual stars.
01:02:17
LaHaye writes that the image of the sun, moon and star and 11 stars of Genesis 37, 9 and the woman clothed with the sun, moon under sun and the moon under her feet and having on her head a crown of 12 stars is a reference to the nation of Israel.
01:02:31
Right? Even dispensationalists like LaHaye understand that stellar imagery, star imagery is symbolic.
01:02:42
When used in these passages, the sun, moon and stars are symbolic of Israel. If they are symbolic of Israel in Genesis 37, 9 and Revelation 12, 1, then why doesn't the same hold true for Matthew 24, 29?
01:02:55
When Israel is faithful, the sun is shining, the moon is giving off its reflective light and the stars are positioned high and bright in the heavens.
01:03:03
In Ecclesiastes 12, 1, we find that the expression while the sun or the light or the moon or the stars be not darkened is used to symbolize good times.
01:03:14
Consequently, the reverse, an expression about the sun, moon and stars being darkened would symbolize evil days or days of trouble.
01:03:22
Since Jesus' prophecy in Matthew 24 deals with Israel's judgment, the sun and moon are dark and the stars fall.
01:03:30
Like other prophecy writers, the image is symbolic of Israel's impending judgment that took place in AD 70.
01:03:36
The Old Testament, the only scriptures that the disciples had to interpret Jesus' words, is filled with symbols of the darkening of the sun, moon and the falling of the stars.
01:03:46
In each case, the images clearly indicate the fall of nations. I think it's pretty clear, right?
01:03:52
I mean, to understand, if you understand the Old Testament, you understand the imagery, it just carries over to what
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Jesus is telling you. All right, so we're just about done.
01:04:04
I know everybody's like, zoned out. All right. First, the disciples experienced tribulation.
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The Jews experienced great tribulation because their sin was greater. There would be time for more tribulations in the future.
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In other words, Jesus said that this would happen immediately after the great tribulation.
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It did. But there would be more tribulations in the future. Jesus said, don't look for him at his coming in judgment because it's spiritual, not physical.
01:04:32
Old Testament language like lightning is used to describe God's coming in judgment many times in the
01:04:37
Old Testament. If Jesus' coming was at the tribulation, then dispensationalists are actually preterists.
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They believe that Jesus has come back already. Sun, moon and stars symbolically represent
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Israel throughout the Old Testament. Next week, I don't know what we're doing quite next week, so I just left that blank.
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And, you know, not the end of the world.
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As we know, it's just the end of the study in case you thought that this was a sign that the end was way, way out in the distant future.