73 - The Second Coming of Christ | Striving For Eternity | Andrew Rappaport

Well, welcome to the

Striving for Eternity Academy. This is a ministry of striving for eternity. You can go to strivingforeternity .org

to get all the information about striving for eternity. Gee, I think I said striving for eternity way too much.

Anyway, we have a lot of other classes in our academy. We have classes on how to interpret the Bible called Biblical Harmonetics.

We have classes on Introduction to Discipling, classes on an Introduction to World Religions, and then this one, which is our

Systematic Theology, our School of Systematic Theology. We are going through God's, what we're calling

God's program for the ages, the Doctrine of the Church, and now the Doctrine of Last Things.

Today's lesson will be on lesson number seven, the second advent of Jesus Christ.

That's the second coming of Christ. If you'd like to get a syllabus, you can pick that up at our store.

Just go to strivingforeternity .org, go to the store, and in the store you'd be able to pick up the syllabus.

So that is helpful for keeping all your notes and things all together in one place.

Now the teaching of the second coming of Christ focuses on all the areas surrounding

His second coming. We've been working through, we gave an overview of the different views that there are of end times.

We moved into that in the last couple of weeks. We looked at that period of time between when we die and the final judgment, and now we want to look at all the things surrounding the second coming of Christ.

Now, the first coming was prophesied extensively in the

Old Testament, and those prophecies were fulfilled literally, and if you have a syllabus, that's your blank there, literally.

That's important because just like the first, the prophecies of the first coming were fulfilled literally, so will the second coming prophecies.

Now let's realize that, you know, those first century believers, or actually before the first century believers,

I should say, those before the time of Christ, they didn't have everything figured out as well as they would have thought or as well as they would have liked.

They saw a lot of the prophecies and had some confusion. We have the benefits of hindsight.

We look at these things and are like, why didn't you see this? Well, they didn't see this because it wasn't as clear.

In other words, it's not as clear for us either, and though this is an area of where when we get into a study of end times, there is lots of speculation and a lot of things that people speculate on.

I mean, there's a whole set of movies and books where people, you know, get so creative, well,

I think they just make things up altogether, and the reality is that what we see is that there are people who do a lot of speculating on the things to come because it's not as clearly defined as we would like, because when we look in hindsight, yeah, hindsight's always 20 -20, right?

It's when we look ahead, we don't see it as clearly as we might want to think we see it, and before the first century, they didn't see it as clearly either, but when we look back, we see that many of the promises and the prophecies of the first coming were fulfilled literally, and so we trust that God will be faithful, and He will fulfill those things just as literally in His second coming.

Now, to gain a better appreciation for the second coming of Christ, let's look at some numbers, okay?

Here's some numbers for us to look at. There are 333 general references to the coming of Christ, okay?

That's passages, chapters, just there's 333 general references, large sections of Scripture.

Out of that, 224 of them were fulfilled in the first coming of Christ, and 109 are fulfilled in His second coming.

Out of the 46 Old Testament prophets, 10 speak of His first coming, where 36 of them speak of His second coming.

There's over 1 ,500 passages addressing the second coming of Christ.

That's a lot. In fact, it's so much that one out of every 25 verses in the

New Testament refer in some way to the second coming of Christ. For every time the

Bible mentions the first coming, it mentions the second coming eight times more.

For every time that it mentions the atonement, it mentions the second coming twice.

That's your blank there, twice. In other words, as important as the first coming of Christ is, the second seems to have even more emphasis and even more

Scripture devoted to it. As we look at this, it's not a subject that we should just brush off or blow off, even though some of us, well, we try.

Because it's an area of such speculation, some people don't enjoy getting into this as much.

I'm one of them, to a point where some people thought I would never get to this subject as we went through theology.

But I would. I said I would, and I am. It's just that it's not one that I love to discuss, and I'll tell you why.

I like to discuss what we can know and not speculate on what we can't know or we can't be sure that we know.

So really what I'm going to do is I'm going to provide for you what I think the Scriptures say in areas that I think we can be somewhat clear on.

Am I 100 % accurate? Well, of course. No, I can't be.

I wouldn't think that I'm 100 % accurate in everything that we're going to go over because there's lots of different views.

And you know, every one of the systems that people have for their end times view has some pretty good argumentation for it.

And they poke some pretty good holes in all the other views. And that's the thing. When it comes to this subject, and people are like,

I know absolutely. Well, you know what? There were people that thought that on the first coming of Christ, they knew absolutely.

And when Jesus showed up on the scene, they were like, this can't be Him. He's from Nazareth?

What comes out of Nazareth? Well, He's actually from Bethlehem. But still, who's

He? He's not a Pharisee. Who's this guy? I mean, they expected this leader, this king.

That's not what they saw. So we have to realize that it doesn't always work the way people think, okay?

So these truths stress the significance of the doctrine of the second coming of Christ. Now consider this aspect.

Let's first look at one thing that becomes important. Let's look at what's called progressive revelation.

Progressive revelation. This is the idea that revelation developed over time.

It does not, listen very clearly so you don't misunderstand, it does not mean that the revelation that we are given changed over time.

God's truth is God's truth. It's just that we were not privy to it all, okay?

And so as we become more, as time went on, we got more and more information, you had a time where they had

Genesis, and then they had Exodus, and then they had Leviticus, or maybe they had all first five books at once. But at the time of Moses, the

Psalms weren't written. You know, at the time of David, well, the prophets weren't written.

These things were written over time. So I'm pointing this out to say that we have to look at the fact that revelation was progressive.

We were given different pieces of it over time. And we see in Scripture that this progression of understanding about Christ's second coming also took place throughout history of Scripture.

The reason for this was the proximity of the prophets time -wise in the revelation of the fulfillments that they prophesied.

So this often is described as the mountain peaks prophecy.

So let's put the picture up. Okay. So what you have here is if you see there's a little guy on the lower left, and he's looking up at, well, those two triangles are supposed to be mountain peaks, okay?

But with the idea that you can see there is if someone was on the side before the first coming of Christ, what they're looking at is they're looking at this first coming of Christ, and they're seeing prophecies.

But as you can see there, as he's looking up at a mountain peak, and maybe you've done this where you've looked at a mountain range, and there's some smaller mountains, and there's some larger mountains behind it.

But because of the distance between the smaller mountains and the further larger mountains, you'd never even saw the valley that was in between that range.

Because the smaller mountains, even though they're smaller, they're closer. They seem larger, and they basically eclipse the larger mountain.

So you can't even see the other mountain range. And so this is called the two, the mountain peak prophecies.

And the reason being is, as you saw, so you had this thing where you have the first peak, and that represents the first coming of Christ.

And the Old Testament saints could not see that gap that we would call the church.

They didn't see between the first and second prophecies. They could not see that time frame between there because they saw these first prophecies, and they saw the prophecies of the second coming, but they would be intermixed.

They'd be intermixed, and people didn't always see them. Let's take a look at Isaiah 61, and then in Luke chapter 4.

So Isaiah 61, 1 and 2 says this. If you open your Bible. The spirit of the

Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He set me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the

Lord's favor and of the day of vengeance of our God to all comfort who mourn.

Now what we see there is actually both the first and second mountain peak. And when we cross -reference that with Luke 4, 18 and 19, we see it says, the spirit of the

Lord is upon me because he anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering the sight of the blind.

He set a liberty to those who are oppressed to proclaim the

Lord's favor. Notice, and we have these together so you can see. Notice that Isaiah 61, verse 2 is not mentioned.

It doesn't mention about proclaiming the day of the Lord, the year of the Lord. So what do you have?

You have Isaiah looking, and he doesn't see a distinction between the first coming and second coming. Jesus comes and talks about the first verse of Isaiah 61, and talks about that being the first coming, his presence.

But he doesn't mention the rest of that. Well, the reason is because that's the second coming. And so you see often in the

Old Testament, this intermixing of prophecies of the first and second coming.

Now some of this is why some people see that there is no second coming. They try to make that argument, and they think that all these things were fulfilled in the first coming.

But the Gospels saw two advents of Christ, two comings of Christ.

We see in the epistles, they saw two stages of that second coming.

Let's take a look. The first stage is called, well, the rapture. Oh no, I just gave away my position, didn't

I? Okay, now I've said, if you haven't been paying attention all along in the classes,

I am premillennial. If you have a problem with that, that's your problem. No, if you have a problem with that, realistically, try to just understand how

I'm presenting the position that I hold to. I've tried to be fair with everyone else's position. And that's one thing we do have to do.

We have to make sure we rightly understand what someone else's position is before we criticize it and say it's, well, wrong.

Because I find that interesting. Yeah, we have people that comment on our videos, our classes, and they tell us how we're wrong.

And when you actually ask them, you find out they never actually watched the class. They're responding to the title.

We had in the last class, it says, the intermediate state, part two.

And someone told us that we are teaching falsely. That we are false teachers.

Did you watch the class? Support your scriptures. Support what you believe with scriptures.

Did you watch the class? You're a false teacher. Okay, what are we teaching that's false?

This is Roman Catholicism. Well, if you watched the last class, we clearly are not Roman Catholic.

Okay, so it's kind of interesting how people respond to some of this stuff.

And they don't even take the time to try to understand what it is you believe. So try to take the time, just saying.

So when we look at this, the first stage of the rapture, this is if we put up 1 Thessalonians 4.

Thank you. 1 Thessalonians 4, 15 to 17. In this, we're going to see five, well, they're not all going to be here, but for the first four, we're going to be here.

We're going to see that the first stage of the rapture, we're going to see that it's in the air for the saints, that the righteous will be taken among the wicked, that the resurrection of the righteous, and then later we're going to see that it's an intimate thing, something we should be expecting soon.

So 1 Thessalonians 4, 15 to 17 says, For this we declare to you by a word of the

Lord, that we who are alive, notice we who are alive, who are left until the coming of Christ, so it's those people who are alive at the coming of Christ, will not proceed those who have fallen asleep.

In other words, those who die. So we're not going to go ahead of those who die. For the

Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of a command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

So they rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds.

You see it's in the air. To meet the Lord, where? In the air.

So we are always, will always be with the Lord. So what do you see here?

We see it's in the air. We see this is for the saints. This is speaking of the saints.

We see that the righteous will be taken. Now this is where some will see this distinction, because this is speaking to the righteous.

It's those of us who are alive. And we're going to see, we're going to go.

And now some see the dead and they say that's the wicked. And so some say, no, the wicked rise first. Those that are asleep.

Well, I think there's saints that are also asleep. And so I think that it says that those who have already died and are saints are going to rise.

And they say, well, how is that going to be? Well, I think that's the rising of their bodies to be reunited with their spirits, which are already with the

Lord. And so we see that this is, we're going to be raptured in the air. It's for the saints.

The righteous are taken. And we see it's the resurrection of the righteous. That's their bodies being joined. And then in James 5, if we put that up in Revelation 22,

James 5, 8 says, You also be patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the

Lord is at hand. It's intimate. And that's what we should be thinking that this should can happen at any time.

Revelation 22 verse 12 says, Behold, I am coming. Bring my recompense with me to repay each one what he has done.

He's coming. He's coming soon. That should be our attitude. The idea here is that we should be looking at this and saying that Christ could return at any time.

And we should view this in light of that. We should view this with the idea that we really should be seeing that Christ's coming.

There's really nothing that has to happen next. Christ could return. This rapture could happen.

Oh, no, I didn't go. The thing, though, is that I think everyone has to agree that there is a rapture.

It's a question of when is the rapture. Um, now there's also the second stage, which is the second coming.

The second stage is called the return. And that's your blank there. So the first stage, your blank there is rapture.

The second stage, your blank there is return. Well, where does he return? This is one of the reasons

I think that that we this rapture is not the very end. Because when we look at something like Zechariah 14, 4,

Zechariah 14, 4, we see that, well, the return is to the earth. On that day, his feet shall stand on the

Mount of Olives. And that lies before Jerusalem on the east.

The Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley.

So that half the mountain shall move northward and the other half southward.

Now, this is where people say that just as they saw the angels when Jesus ascended, he ascended into the air.

And the angel said, just as you see him ascending, he'll descend. So the idea is that he will return again and he will come back and land on that mountain.

The difference in the thing is, if you try to say that that was fulfilled in his first coming, well, then you have to argue that that splitting of the mountain from east to west, moving north and south, well, that must be figurative.

That's the only thing you have. And yet, it doesn't seem to be because he literally did come and literally did touch the earth once.

If he did that and that was a fulfillment, why didn't the rest of it happen, literally? These are the questions you should ask. But what we do see is that we see this thing, it seems like there's still more to be fulfilled, especially with the fact that the angel said he will come back to earth in that same way as he ascended.

So I think he's going to descend, touch that mountain. I don't know. Maybe he's going to come down with such speed that when he lands, boom,

I mean, the Mount of Olives just splits. I don't know. Maybe it'll be neat to see.

But let's look at the other thing is that it's with the saints. Revelation 17, 14. In Revelation 17, 14, we're going to see that he comes with the saints at his second coming.

Revelation 17, 14, they will make war with the lamb and the lamb will conquer them for he is the

Lord of lords, the king of kings, and those with him are called the chosen and faithful.

Now, I think that this is referring to, and there's more we can get into, we don't have time, but I think that when we look at this, we look at different passages, it talks about the saints that will be with Christ, that will rise from the dead.

I think, Revelation 20, I think that what this is saying is that when Christ returns, he returns with the saints.

Third, or letter C in your syllabus, is that the wicked are taken from among the righteous. This is in Matthew 13, verses 40 to 42.

Matthew 13, 40 to 42. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the age.

The son of man will send his angels and they will gather up his kingdom, all his kingdom, all causes of sin and all lawbreakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace.

In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

By the way, the weeping and gnashing of teeth, you see that, a fiery furnace, that kind of continues what we looked at last class with where people spend that punishment.

But here what we see is that the wicked are going to be gathered up and they're going to be, well, cast into that furnace, that lake of fire.

And so what we see is that the second stage, those that return don't have that resurrection. I think it's because they already have their body.

And lastly, let's look at, it's preceded by a sign of Matthew 24. Matthew 24, 14 to 29 is a rather lengthy passage, but it'd be good for us to look at this because this is going to, it'll help us to see that it's preceded by a sign.

So let's look at this. Matthew 24, verses 14 to 29.

And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then end times will come.

So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place, let the reader understand.

Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let the one who is in the housetop not go down to take what is in the house.

And let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. And alas, the women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days, pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a

Sabbath. For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now.

No, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human would be saved.

But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short. Then if anyone says to you, look, here's the

Christ, or there he is, do not believe it. For false

Christs and false prophets will rise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

See, I have told you beforehand. So if they say to you, look, he is in the wilderness, do not go out.

If they say, look, he is in the inner rooms, do not believe it.

For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the

Son of Man. Whatever, sorry, wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.

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 heaven will be shaken.

Wow, that's a lot of things that have to, you know, these are all the things that we're going to see before the second coming.

And this is what I'm going to say is the tribulation period, okay. But what we see is that there's several aspects to the second coming of Christ.

Now, what's the purpose? The purpose of the second coming of Christ?

Well, first let's look at the rapture. The first purpose is going to be the rapture. When we look at this, what's the purpose of it?

We said there's two stages. What's the purpose of the rapture? It is to rescue believers.

That's your first blank there, to rescue believers. Let's look at some more passages of scriptures. 1

Thessalonians 4 verse 13 says, But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who were asleep, that you may not grieve as those who have no hope.

Also in Revelation 3 .10, Because you have kept my word about patient endurance,

I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to try those who dwell on the earth.

So what you see here is that I think that the purpose, one of the purposes of the rapture is to rescue the believers.

And that would be why I think that the rapture occurs first. Just, I would say the same that Noah and his family was rescued ahead of the flood.

That's an illustration, not a type, just saying. But as we look at that, we see that the believers,

I think, will be rescued from this time of trouble. It's also to judge and reward believers.

That's your blanks there, judge and reward believers. Now, you know, in the last class, we had a lot of people that commented about how we're wrong about Christians being judged.

Well, Christians will be judged. It's just a judgment that's a reward.

All right, so let's look at 1 Corinthians 3, 10 -15.

According to the grace of God given me, like a skilled master builder,

I laid a foundation and someone else building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.

For no one should lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is

Jesus Christ. Now, if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, each one's work will become manifest.

For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, it will receive reward.

If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss. Therefore, he himself will be saved, but only through fire.

Also, in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 10, it says, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Now, notice that one. All must appear before the judgment seat. 2 Corinthians 5, 10.

For those who want to say that Christians will not be judged, we will. We will be judged for good or evil.

There is a judgment for believers, but that judgment is one where we receive rewards.

And what do we do with those rewards? Those rewards are crowns. We take them off our head and we cast them at the feet of Christ because He is worthy, because we cannot claim credit for the good works that we do.

We do that because God works through us. So we take those rewards that we receive, those crowns, we take them off and we give them back to Christ because He is deserving of them.

So I think the rapture shows the purpose of it is to rescue believers, to judge and reward believers, and then third, to remove, that's your blank there, to remove the restraining work of the

Holy Spirit and to pave the way, I think, for the tribulation. So I'm giving you my views, just saying.

But 2 Corinthians 2, verses 6 to 12. So when we look at this, it says,

And you know what is restraining him now, so that he may be revealed in his time.

For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.

And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.

So you see, this precedes the coming, right? The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan, which all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved.

Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so they may believe what is false, in order that they may be condemned who do not believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

So you see there that the Holy Spirit is removed before the second coming, and in that removing of the

Spirit, I think this is the church being removed from the world, and the

Spirit who indwells the believers, he's, it's obviously the Holy Spirit is everywhere present, so it's not that he somewhere, there's a place where he's not, he stops being there, but it's the idea that his presence, maybe through his people has been removed, and so this would be the rapture as this church leaves this earth, instantly, completely everywhere, and all of a sudden there's a void, and then we see the man of evil rise.

Now, what about the return, that second stage, what is the purpose of the return? Well, first off,

I say it is to reveal himself to the world, that's your blank there, to reveal himself to the world.

Isaiah, sorry, Zechariah, sorry about that, Zechariah 14 .5, Zechariah 14 .5,

and you shall flee to the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azel, and you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Ezra, king of Judah.

Then the Lord my God will come, and the holy ones with him.

So you see, he's going to reveal himself, this return, when he returns, he reveals himself as God.

He reveals himself, I would say, to the Jewish people, to Israel, his chosen people.

Also, it is to judge the nations for those who led him astray.

This is in Matthew 25, in Matthew 25, a longer passage, but Matthew 25, verses 31 to 46.

Matthew 25, 31 to 46. When the

Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.

Before him he will be gathered, all the nations, and he will separate people one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep.

And from the goats, and he will place the sheep on his right, and the goats on his left.

Then the king will say to those on his right, come, you are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.

I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me.

Then the righteous will answer him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry, and feed you?

Or thirsty, and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger, and welcome you in?

Or naked, and clothe you? And when did we see you sick, or in prison, and visit you? And the king will answer them, truly

I say to you, as you did to one of the least of my brothers, you did it to me.

Then he will say to those on his left, depart from me, you cursed into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.

For I was hungry, and you gave me no food. I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink.

I was a stranger, and you did not welcome me. Naked, and you did not clothe me.

Sick, and in prison, and you did not visit me. Then they will answer saying,

Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to you?

And then he will say to them saying, truly I say to you, say to you as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.

And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

Also in Revelation 19 .1 it says, after this I heard what seemed to be a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven crying out, hallelujah, salvation and glory and power be our

God. What you end up seeing there is that you see the judgment. Really graphic and explained in detail in Matthew 25.

He's gonna take all the people, those who were sheep, those who were believers, go off onto the right, those who were goats, those who were unbelievers off to the left.

So righteous from the unrighteous, there will be a judgment at his return. I also think that it is going to be to save Israel.

That's your blank there, save Israel. This is in Romans chapter 11 verse one, verse five, verses 25 to 26.

So let's first read Romans 11 one says, I ask then, has God rejected his people by no means?

For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.

Let's look in verse five and it says, so to the present, at the present time, there is a remnant chosen by grace.

And then later in Romans 11 verses 25 to 26, it says, least you be wise in your own sight.

I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers. A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the

Gentiles has come. And in this way, Israel will be saved.

It was written that the deliverer will come from Zion. He will be banished.

He will banish ungodly from Jacob. So what you see there is he comes to save Israel.

He comes back. He says, is God going to break his promise to Israel? No, that's the whole argument in Romans 11.

Romans 11 is this question of if God broke his promise to Israel, how can you trust his promise for salvation?

He made a literal promise of things and it seems like they weren't fulfilled literally, but he's saying, no, it was a partial hardening.

And we're in this time where there's a partial hardening, but there would always be a remnant. Paul was proof of that remnant.

I am proof of that remnant. I am from a Jewish background. I can, like Paul, say that I am from the lineage of Abraham.

There is still a remnant today, but I would believe there's a time coming when all of Israel would understand and believe the gospel.

Okay, it is to redeem creation. This is in Isaiah 11.

Isaiah 11 verses 1 through 9 and then verse 21.

But let's just look at 1 through 9. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit and the spirit of the

Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might and spirit of knowledge and the fear of the

Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but the righteous shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.

And he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist and fullness the belt of his loins.

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat.

The calf will lie with the lion and the fatted calf together and the little child will lie down with them.

The cow and the bear will graze. The young shall lie down together.

The lion shall eat straw like an ox. The nursing child shall play over the whole of the cobra and the weaned child shall put his hand in an adder's den

They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the

Lord over the waters of the sea. And so you see he's going to redeem creation back to a time where all the animals ate vegetation, they didn't eat one another, where a child can play with snakes and not be a problem because he's going to redeem creation.

And then lastly to establish a kingdom. This is a kingdom that was promised in the

Old Testament very much and the Jewish people would understand that this is something that should be fulfilled literally.

It was promised and Jesus was the king after the line of David.

He should have that kingdom of David. And so we see in Daniel chapter 2, Daniel 2, 44 to 45 and then

Isaiah 9, Daniel 2, 44 to 45 says, As in the day of those kings of heaven will set upon a kingdom that shall never be destroyed nor shall the kingdom be left to another people.

It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end and it shall stand forever.

Just as you saw the stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand and it broke into precious, into pieces, the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, the gold, a great

God has made known to the king what shall be after this.

The dream is certain for it is its interpretation is sure. This is a dream that Nebuchadnezzar had,

Daniel interpreted it at the end times and what you see is that this will, that God will come back and establish that final kingdom.

In Isaiah chapter 9 verses 6 and 7 it says, For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulders and his name will be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and the peace there will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice, with the righteous from the time forth and forevermore the zeal of the

Lord of hosts will do this. And so you see that he is establishing a future kingdom and I think that you can't have

Christ come and say that that was fulfilled in some spiritual way in the clouds.

This is clearly I believe talking about a literal kingdom. There were many promises to Israel, literal promises, promises of land and that there would be a king of David that would rule over this land and all of Israel would be under that kingdom.

These are prophecies and covenants that God made with David and elsewhere, not just with David, but with David we see that he made these promises and in this

I think just like God literally fulfilled the promises of first coming, he will fulfill the promises of the second coming.

I understand that not everyone's going to agree with this. Gotcha, understood. Guess what?

You'll agree maybe even less with the next lesson because next class we're going to talk about is the events between these two stages, between the rapture and the return.

And we're going to see a whole lot more of things that maybe to some are going to be controversial, I hope not to all, but again like I said

I hope that you would at least give ear to listen and look at what we're saying just to have an understanding of what at least our position would be.

But we're trying to show where others would come in and you can see that others would take these passages differently.

When it talks about the kingdom, a post -millennialist would see that the gospel is going to go forth and it says that the gospel will go to all the lands, we read that, and then

Christ will come, they would say that that's what's going to bring that in, that's what's going to establish that.

So that would be a difference. But until next class, if you have questions about this or anything else, feel free to email us at academyatstrivingforeternity .org,

academyatstrivingforeternity .org. If you want you can go to our store and pick up the syllabus there. The syllabus for this one is book number four of systematic theology, systematic theology book four.

You can go to store .strivingforeternity .org and pick that up. While you're there, why don't you pick up my book,

What Do They Believe? Systematic Theology of the Major Western Religions. The other thing you can do while you're at the website is you can maybe sign up your church or church group for a

Bible Interpretation Made Easy Seminar. It's a seminar that you'd be able to enjoy, hopefully, and it's a seminar that teaches, that comes in, we come in for one weekend and we teach the church or church group how to interpret the

Bible. Lastly, if those watching live, I don't have a slide for it, NorCal Fire is in two weeks,

September 9th and 10th, 2016. We'll have J .D. Hall, Carl Kirby Sr.,

Carl Kirby Jr., myself teaching on the Word of God. Great time. Then we're going to go out and evangelize, but before all of that, we're going to have a debate on the nature of hell and whether people have an immortal soul, things like that.

So this will be a time we'll have Chris Date and Len Pettis debating that topic.

So I hope you come out. You enjoy that. And until next week, remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.