159. 9 lies People Believe About The Timing Of Revelation

He could have said I John was taken in the spirit to the last days to the end of time The final moments of world history and from there

I saw what was soon going to occur and then we would have said, okay John said that he was transported to the future and he saw what was gonna happen

Okay, we believe him because we believe what the Bible says, but he doesn't do that He says from where he's standing in ad -60 to people who are living in ad -60 that the judgments coming soon to them

Hello everyone and welcome back to the podcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf

This is episode 159 nine lies Christians believe about the timing of revelation

And welcome back to the podcast last week. We lit a fuse on Revelation 1 1 and we blew the roof off of every false idea that you may have heard about what the apocalypse is and we

Resurrected a biblical definition of what the word apocalypse actually means doesn't mean doom.

It doesn't mean chaos But it means unveiling Revelation in that way isn't about confusion.

It's about clarity. It's not a horror story It's a wartime anthem.

It's a victory song. It's a covenantal transition that is so big so Earth -shattering only

Jesus himself could pull back that curtain and that's what he does He tells

John that he's the one who's gonna unveil the meaning of the book and we saw that That this revelation wasn't a riddle for 21st century

Americans. It was it was a letter of hope it for the first century Church It was a letter for those who were standing in the smoking shadow of a collapsing temple

Wondering to themselves. Did we get this right? Is Jesus really reigning? Is he coming back to vindicate us is the

New Covenant coming and the answer? That Jesus gives them in verse 1 and all the way throughout the book is a thundering

Yes God gave this Revelation to Jesus and then

Jesus gave this revelation to his angel and his angel delivered it to John and then John handed it

Straight to seven churches in Asia Minor not to confuse them But to strengthen them not to stall them but to send them and to and to encourage them

This is the King's battle plan for how they're gonna walk through the most difficult period of church history

Which is the collapse of Jerusalem entering into the greatest period of joy

Which is the establishment of Jesus's bride on earth his new Jerusalem who is going to take over the entire world and he said

Not that these things must take place a long time into the future He said these things must soon take place not once upon a time not some fairy tale not maybe but now

Now as in the first century Because the old world of temples priests and feasts and all of that was dying.

The new kingdom was rising and Revelation is the trumpet blast that all of that first century stuff was happening because the

Lion of Judah Was sat down on his throne and he is going to supplant all of his enemies so if you missed that first episode

Revelation 1 1 stop what you're doing go back and watch it because I think it's actually a helpful episode and it's gonna catch you up to what we're doing because Once you see what this book is actually about then you're not gonna be able to unsee it and you'll be able to really

Understand this book moving forward now Today, we're gonna be inching forward.

We're gonna be making incremental progress and we're gonna be talking about Revelation 1 1 through 3 in a in a way that I hope is

Interesting that's eye -opening that's encouraging and filled with stirring Applications that are gonna help you really see what this passage means and how it's relevant to your life to do that We're gonna jump like I said into Revelation 1 1 through 3 and we're gonna be examining nine lies that people believe about the timing of the book of Revelation nine lies that that Obscure the nearness and the first century

Fulfillment of this book and then at the end of that we're gonna be looking at one reason why we know for sure

That this book is speaking about things within the first century. This episode is gonna be dense. It's gonna be helpful

It's gonna be funny in the end I'm praying that it's gonna fire you up and get you ready to labor and to work and to build

For the rest of your life So with that, let us read our text Revelation 1 1 through 3 and let us jump right in.

This is what the passage says The revelation of Jesus Christ which

God gave him to show his bondservants the things which must soon Take place and he sent and communicated it by his angel to his bondservant

John Who testified to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ even to all that he saw?

Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and he the things which are written in it for the time is near Revelation 1 1 through 3 and that leads us to part 1 a common -sense view

Revelation 1 1 through 3 doesn't need a decoder ring or a PhD in Greek in order to understand what it's saying

It just needs some good old -fashioned common sense John says these things must soon take place and that the time is near and Here's the thing that's not apocalyptic jazz hands

It's a stopwatch if someone tells you something is near and must happen soon

Well, you don't assume that they mean that it's actually not near and won't happen soon

That it's thousands of years into the future I mean you presume that they understand what the word now means now is not a very difficult word.

You learn it as a toddler When John says that these things must happen now and the time is near and behold him coming quickly and the time is at hand

And all of these near -term time frame references. He's not saying eventually he's saying soon and soon means soon and you can't build your theology on Eschatology by bending the meaning of such simple words

If you if you do this kind of word bending hermeneutics and time delay semantics Then you're guaranteed to get this book wrong

And that not only confuses the text it destroys the book's actual literary value

When it says when it says precisely what it says soon is soon I mean think about it this way if if your boss says hey

We need to have a meeting because something is about to happen in the marketplace That we all need to be aware of and we need to have that meeting soon

You don't interpret that your boss is thinking. Yeah. Well, we probably need to have that meeting in a couple thousand years

I mean you start paying attention now you start looking at the market now You're you're setting the trends now because he said soon

John isn't writing to people in the 21st century about barcodes and microchips. He's writing to seven real

Asia minor churches that existed in the first century many of which were bleeding and dying because of martyrdom and persecution

They were asking real questions. Like where is God's justice? When is Jesus coming in power and the answer that they were looking for is not well you know, hang on tight because the

Jesus is gonna come back in two millenniums. Oh They wanted something

They were looking for an answer that affected them. That's why Jesus said behold. I'm coming soon.

The time is near. I'm coming quickly because The Old Covenant world which was collapsing which was attacking them, which is making them

Bleed that was murdering them was about to completely rip apart in the

New Covenant Kingdom the church the Bride of Christ was rising. So John's message is urgent not abstract

It's immediate not indefinite. So What does he mean he means that the time is near He said the temples on the very edge of collapsing the judgment

That's that Jesus promised is I the door the judge is right at the door getting ready to pronounce the sentence done

The book of Revelation is not the blueprint for the end of the cosmos It's the it's the plan from Jesus the general on how to have victory over his near -term first century enemies

Once you see that everything else in the book starts making sense

But the sad reality of the fact is that so few people actually see this

It tells us up front in the first verse be all the time is near. I'm coming soon and Yet the majority of people believe that when

Jesus says his coming is near It's not near and when he says that he's coming soon.

It's not soon like It is Jesus Christ who said that So to believe that two thousand years later

We're still waiting on that to happen makes Jesus a liar I mean the vast majority of Christians on earth today

Believe that Jesus lied to us or that he doesn't know how to use language so and what follows

I want to take that assumption that When Jesus said soon he didn't mean soon when he said near he didn't mean to near I want to take that assumption and I Want to show you nine different ways

That people try to get around soon meaning soon and near meaning near and I'm gonna talk about nine lies that people have believed about this opening verse in the book of Revelation so that they can preserve their futuristic fantasy so that they can punt this book into the modern world and so they can make the

Things in the book mean Apache helicopters and Antichrist and all of that malarkey. I want to talk about nine lies that average

Christians and that scholars have believed That totally undermine the text.

I'm gonna disprove all of them and then when we end I'm gonna conclude by pointing to the simple common -sense reality

That soon means soon near means near and that has great

Implication for your life. So with that, let's jump in and let's begin by looking at these nine errant views and we will do that by going to part two nine lies about the timing lie number one

John was mistaken Was the Apostle John wrong about the timing of the book of Revelation That's what some people say that is the first and the most blasphemous falsehood that we have to drag out of the shadows of the murky darkness and into the light because It's false.

If John is wrong, the Holy Spirit who inspired him is wrong and the Bible is wrong but according to many

Modern commentators John was either wrong or he was mistaken

Oh, they say that John was sincere perhaps. I mean Passionate for sure, but ultimately at the end of the day

John was wrong John was wrong by a couple thousand years

He was enthusiastic in his eschatology He was he was really trying to make it relevant to the church that he was writing to but he was

Definitely misguided in his math. He probably carried a few too many zeros he probably didn't know how to round up appropriately or he was caught up in the

Empathy as a pastor trying to encourage a a church that was struggling But lied to them because he was wrong and it wasn't gonna happen for a very long time

That's the first lie and there's this man named Eugene boring.

Yeah, that really is his name Where he said was John wrong, this is a quote was

John wrong and he says yes Harrington nods in agreement and adds that John thought that the end was right around the corner, but We now know better bar says that revelation failed rather spectacularly in its promise and Buchanan With all of the subtlety of a jackhammer concludes

John made a mistake That's all that there is to it.

Now. We need to stop right there Because if that is all that there is to it that John just was confused that John just made a mistake

Then we have a problem that is far more significant than whether or not we understand Revelation We have a

Bible that is now bleeding error We have an inerrant scripture that now has error.

We have a Spirit of God who whispered lies to this Apostle we have an apostle who claimed divine revelation and yet he whispered divine disappointment and yet this view

Even though it runs completely roughshod over the doctrine of inspiration We have people in seminaries who are still teaching this heresy that are still promoting it in Bible commentaries and promoting it in pulpits and sermons as if this were somehow a kind of Humble and honest and yet courageous way to say yes.

John was well -intentioned But he was wrong. It's throwing the Apostle John underneath a first century chariot and running him over To preserve a futurist system that is choking on its own delay but Let me make something very very clear here

If John was wrong Jesus was wrong We if John was wrong

The Holy Spirit was wrong because the Holy Spirit inspired John to write it if John was wrong

God the Father was wrong because he's the one who sends forth the Spirit and if John is wrong Jesus is wrong because Jesus is the one who said it

John's not speaking from his own Quotation here Revelation 1 1 says the revelation of of Jesus Christ.

It means it's Jesus's revelation It means that it's what Jesus gave or what

God gave Jesus So that Jesus could show the early church the things which must soon take place so God is wrong

Jesus wrong Holy Spirit wrong and The all of it it would mean that the entire book is now undermined and cannot possibly be recovered

So, okay. Great. Have you ever heard the phrase you cut off your nose to spite your face? That's exactly what's happening here you you cut off Inerrancy and you lose the entire book in order to what preserve futurism

It's a trinitarian heresy to say that the father the son the

Holy Spirit and John We're all wrong If we're gonna say that the prophecies of Revelation failed, we're not just blaming

John we're accusing the Triune Godhead and the truth is even sharper than that because John wasn't just mistaken and the problems even sharper than that because the entire

Canon of Scripture now comes into question. This is a terrible terrible lie that's been foisted upon many people in order to preserve a system that the book of Revelation happens in the future not in the past and We must reject that lie the problem

Isn't with John the problem isn't with John's timeline. The problem is with our

Assumptions we bring assumptions to the text like like well these things have to happen in the future.

Therefore John must be wrong Well when you see that the entire edifice of the

John was wrong view stands on an entirely Faulty foundation the assumption that Revelation is talking about things in our future in the modern world is a flawed

Foundation that's brought to the text because first verse says soon

Which it can't mean soon It must mean not yet and when he says near it must mean eventually and and then you've got

Scholars who are gathering together and trying to fit a square peg into a round hole trying to fit a future square peg into an ancient round hole and And basically the wheels come off of this entire view

Altogether and when that happens these scholars would rather throw the Apostle John under the chariot wheels then throw out their stupid system of Dispensationalism they would rather cling to a view that's about the nuclear world war three a future

Antichrist barcodes on the forehead Instead of the imminent collapse of the

Old Covenant world Which is what Revelation is talking about the destruction of Jerusalem the divine divorce of the apostate

Israel the coronation of Christ is reigning king over the nations John Was writing on the cusp of history's most remarkable covenant transition and he wasn't confused

He wasn't reaching he wasn't mistaken. He wasn't wrong He was preaching to a persecuted church to a people who are under pressure to a body of believers on the brink of tribulation

And he told them repeatedly and emphatically that these events that he was telling them We're just about to happen.

The time is near verse 3 behold He's coming quickly 22 verse 7 do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book for the time is near Revelation 22 10 he's not being vague.

He's not just being wishful He's not mistaken It's inspired from the beginning of the book to the end of the book that these things must soon take place if Revelation was written in AD95 as some futurists claim then

John wasn't just wrong. He's a false prophet Because none of the things that he said we're gonna happen soon actually happened soon in any meaningful sense but if every piece of internal evidence as Suggests that this book was written in the 60s

Just before the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 then John wasn't just accurate

He was prophetically perfect if this book is written in the 90s, then John is wrong

But if this book was written in the 60s, which if you want more information on that This is I don't have time to go into it in this episode

Go and check out Ken Gentry's book before Jerusalem fell. It is 400 pages of Evidence proving that this book was written in AD 60 in the 60s

So if it's in the 60s that John is talking about he's being perfectly prophetically clear

That these things really did happen in the near -term future. They really were soon.

They really were quick and We don't have to and we can avoid the silly heresy of affirming that John was somehow

Wrong, either you believe that John was wrong and you lose the entire book or you believe that the dating of the book is wrong

And that John got it, right in the 60s He told the church that things were gonna happen soon and a couple years later.

They did That makes sense with soon. That's the first lie lie number two

John was being ambiguous Now the question here is did

John cloak the timing of the prophecy in a kind of hazy prophetic vagueness if The first false view which that John was wrong is heresy.

Well this second view Tries to be a little bit more charitable to our brother John. It says no.

No, no, no, John wasn't an error He was just being a little ambiguous a little mysterious a little symbolic.

He was using Prophetic language that was never meant to be precise. It was just meant to be evocative this is the dodge of choice for those who flinch at calling an apostle mistaken and Yet still can't square that the time is near with their unmistakable and unshakable loyalty to the future fulfillment of this book so if they're gonna continue to hold to their futurism they have to shift the tactic because they've realized that well if We say

John was wrong that undermines the entire Bible so we can't do that. So Maybe it's just that John as a prophet and prophets

They don't speak in calendars and they don't speak with with clarity and and all they speak in poetry

They speak in in visions and clearly John was not attempting to be clear here

He was being mysterious and vague. There was one scholar in this camp. His name is Scott McKnight.

He puts it like this Prophetic knowledge is not erroneous knowledge.

It's just different He calls it later limited kind of ignorance and Ambiguous, but hey not wrong because you know, we don't want to charge

John with with with being wrong We don't want to charge the Holy Spirit with being wrong. We don't want to charge the Triune Godhead with being wrong

So it's just mysterious. It's unknowable It's just it's language that it's meant to puzzle you and confuse you

Apparently when prophets said things were near they didn't really mean near they just meant urgent dish and So the argument goes that John sounded very urgent, but that's just how prophets talk

They're dramatic people. They they wear Camel skins and eat crickets and they're intense and they're a little too much to deal with and you know remember

Ezekiel and all of his shenanigans and Isaiah and They're just they're just trying to get people ready.

They're trying to work people into a frenzy they're just they're just a little ambiguous and That can kind of sound spiritual and sophisticated

It even may sound plausible until you actually read Revelation Because here's the problem

John isn't being ambiguous here. Not even a little bit. He's not opening the book with here's the things that much

Kind of maybe could possibly come to pass. He's saying this is the revelation of Jesus Christ To show his bond servants the things which must soon take place revelation 1 1 that's not ambiguous at all

Then just to make sure you didn't miss the fact He says in the very next or there are two verses later

The time is near and he ends the book with the same refrain saying these words are faithful and true

He says these words are faithful and true The Lord the God of the spirits of the prophets in his angel to show his bonds over the things as much soon

Take place. I mean then he even says later Don't seal up the words of this prophecy of this book because the time is near he's not faking it

He's not speaking in riddles and you shouldn't be like what he says these words are faithful and true so they can't be

He's saying this time is near. So it must not be Imagine if somebody asked you to show up at a particular place.

Hey, we're gonna have a lunch at 12 and you're like Well, you know how he is. Yeah, he clearly

I'll show up at 4 You make a mockery of the person who's telling you the time frame when you do that John is not shouting from the rooftop that the time is nothing the events are ambiguous the fulfillment is

Uncertain he's not doing that at all. He's not being metaphorical.

He's not being ambiguous. He's being literal here The parts of the book that are the most literal are chapters 1 through 3 the parts of the book that are visionary that that are that are

Fantastical are like 4 through 20 the part of the book that is the most literal is 1 through 3 so in 1 through 3 when he repeatedly over and over and over again says very common -sense non -visionary non -apocalyptic non

Non pie -in -the -sky kind of language. He's not being vague. He's being literal

He's not asking you to to try to decode his meaning and to try to discern from it thousands of years into the future

He's just giving you concrete Declarations. Hey that these things are going to happen soon.

He's talking to first century people and saying hey, it's gonna be soon It's gonna happen very quickly.

It's gonna happen in your lifetime. The time is near He's talking about the unraveling of the

Old Covenant world the harlot Jerusalem the Great Tribulation that his people were going through and he's looking right into their eyes and saying

Take a deep breath. I know it's painful. I know it's hard I know you're going through suffering, but don't worry.

The coming of Christ is near Can you imagine if John hand wrote this letter and he sent it to the church at Sardis and The pastor stood up and said this letters from John he said that he got this message directly from Jesus Christ Behold the time is near but don't worry everybody.

It doesn't apply to us It applies to people who are living in Massachusetts in 2025 you would wonder what kind of drugs that man was on if he said that Especially since they had no idea what

Massachusetts was because it didn't exist yet when Jesus in Matthew 24 34 says these things are gonna happen in a single generation

And then he says to John in Revelation 1 that behold the time is near that means that that generation was almost over in 8030 he made the statement 40 years

John in Revelation chapter 1 39 years or 38 years had already happened

The sands in the hourglass were waning and and Jesus is coming to John so that John can tell the

Churches don't worry. It's almost here. Stop doubting have faith

He's not hinting at something. He's he's not he's he's not being vague on purpose

He is declaring with perfect Greek precision That the covenant lawsuit

Jesus promised was almost there He wasn't he wasn't functioning in the clouds and in the fog

He was heralding imminent judgment to say otherwise is to is to ignore

John's words to ignore prophetic tradition it's It's to gut the entire book of Revelation of its power and clarity.

It's to neuter it It's to take what it says as plain and to purposefully

Obfuscate it for your own purposes. The book of Revelation is Not a theological mood ring that you get to put on and see what color it turns

It's not a kaleidoscope of vague fantasies. It's not meant to just keep you in suspense

It's meant to show you the things which must soon take place soon means soon

Soon to the first century soon to the people to whom it was written. It's a covenant indictment

It's a covenant lawsuit against the Jews who killed Christ and murdered his people and now the chickens were coming home to roost so The accusation here the lie here is that John was being vague.

Oh Contraire mon frere He's declaring with thunderous Certainty that the judgment is coming and it is near and it is gonna happen soon and Behold, it is coming upon them

Quickly, there's nothing vague about that at all. That's number. That's lie. Number two line number three

Revelation was meant to be a motivational speech Now the question here was is this was

John only trying to stir up the emotions of his people Not to describe real events or or imminent catastrophes that were getting ready to happen

No, he was being a sort of Tony Robbins. He was being a motivational speaker

He was he was trying to he wasn't trying to predict anything. He was just trying to motivate them

He was trying to encourage them. He was just giving them sweet little nothings that would make them feel better and Apparently make us feel better too according to this view

John didn't mean soon and literally and He certainly wasn't speaking ambiguously either.

He just wanted to throw in a little drama He wanted to raise the emotional stakes He wanted to get the early church to sit up a little straighter to worship a little louder to stop whining about their

Persecution to cling a little tighter to Jesus Even if the actual events that he described in the book weren't meant to happen in their lifetime or ours

It's just this view is just that revelation is religious theater

Michaels a man who holds this theory says that the conviction that the end of the world is near is

What makes the book of Revelation larger than life? It infuses the imagery with sharpness and rich color in other words

Urgency in the book is just a literary device. It's not a deadline It's a literary technique, it's a it's not a timeline

It's it's a poetic device another scholar. I can't pronounce their name he goes further and he says

John is building a kind of artistic tension and Meyer joins the chorus quipping that Jesus in Revelation is kind of like Godot just around the corner that never

Ended up turning now If you remember the the show or the play where two men are waiting for this man named

Godot who never shows up That's what this man is saying Now I want you to take for a second and notice what they've done here

They've reduced the most theologically dense symbolically rich and eschatologically precise book in the

Bible to a kind of fable to a kind of Dramatization a motivational myth that's just meant to encourage and inspire but not meant to communicate real truth something like a biblical play performed only to stir up your emotions not a prophetic message meant to meant to Interpret real redemptive historical events that were happening in space and time.

This view is disrespectful to the text I mean I want you to imagine that you're a

Christian in Smyrna and You've just buried two of your friends who were killed because they loved Jesus and they were murdered

Rome is Slowly beginning to tighten its roost noose around your neck in order to make peace with the

Jews And then the apostate Judeans are dragging your people out of your church services and they're parading them before tribunals and hanging them and murdering them with stones and your young people are being hauled off to prison and You open a letter from the last living

Apostle out of the twelve John and he says the time is near and Blessed as anyone who reads and hears the words of the book and you're like, oh that must be a motivational speech.

I mean in Some ways when you read that you would have been immediately encouraged and you may have said to yourself.

Oh, thank God Thank God that the tribulation that we've been going through is almost over but what you wouldn't have done

You wouldn't have said that these events are meaningless and this is just meant only and truly to be motivation

It's like going to a symphony orchestra and being encouraged Your emotions being captivated by the the sound of the swelling instruments

But when you leave it doesn't actually affect anything in your life. It was a performance that was meant to Incite your emotions.

That's it No one would have read this book that way they wouldn't have said

That John is writing fables or myths John that John is just trying to rouse them

They would have said that this man this pastor who knows us who loves us who is bled with us

Who's been in the trenches in the foxhole with us is now talking to us and encouraging us that our suffering is almost over They would have believed him.

They wouldn't have thought he was writing fantasy novels But according to this slide John never intended his words to me to be taken

Specifically about a timeline at all all he was doing was peddling cheerful vagaries to give the church the kick in the tunic that they needed in order to get going

Again, and the church at all times would need a little kick in the tunic It would be like John ignoring his own world and his own context in order to give them

Hallmarkish milk toasted vanilla nothings and that cannot be what

John is doing The urgency of the book of Revelation is rooted in reality. They were actually going through real stuff hard things

It was grounded in time and space and the storm clouds that that were not imaginary They were actually there forming the judgment wasn't emotional.

It was real. It was imminent that King wasn't around some cosmic corner It wasn't some fairy tale

King and some ivory tower some princess in a who needs to be rescued by a dragon slayer this was real the gates of Jerusalem were ready to render the verdict and kill them and Jesus was coming to destroy

Jerusalem He was coming to use his army the Romans to burn that city to the ground

This book doesn't exist to color the walls of Christian imagination Existed to fortify real men real women in real events the kind that they could mark their calendar and say thank

God This end is coming soon and let's just say the obvious here if John's timing statements were nothing more but mood -setting and Motivational fodder then they actually lose all of their motivational power because We're now 2 ,000 years in You have to believe that the edge of that motivation has dulled the colors faded the urgency of what he called soon and Near have lost its point

Because when you abuse language like this and you say that behold things are gonna happen soon The time is near and now we're 2 ,000 years away if I heard a motivational speaker say

That your life is gonna change Things are gonna get better for you You're gonna you're gonna be wealthy

You're gonna be successful if you just follow my program and don't worry if you if you follow steps 1 2 & 3

That's all you need to follow. Then you'll be rich 2 ,000 years from now. I would think that that man was an idiot.

I would think that he's trying I Would think he's crazy actually and then he needs to be institutionalized.

I Wouldn't think that was motivation. I would think that's disillusionment the book of Revelation is

Not Waiting. It's not like waiting for a good. Oh It's not emotional hype

It's not symbolic delay It's a covenant lawsuit a declaration of imminent judgment on a city that killed the prophets that crucified the son that persecuted his holy bride and when

John wrote the time is near he meant it and As the blood ran down the streets of Jerusalem in AD 70

Everyone would have known that what John said was true That's the third line that this is a motivational speech and it's a lie from hell

That leads us now to our fourth line my four The events unfold rapidly once they begin now

The question here is did John mean that revelations prophecies would would happen quickly but not soon and It's here.

We come to a view that pretends to honor the text while quietly sawing off its legs

This is a sort of sleight -of -hand Interpretation that gotcha Greek approach and here's how it goes

When John says that the events of Revelation must soon take place

He doesn't mean soon really in the way that we would think about it what he really means is like according to dispensationalist like John Walvoord or Charles Ryrie?

What he actually means is that the events are gonna happen quickly once they begin So not soon in Relation to John or to the people that John is writing to No, just quickly once the dominoes start to fall.

They will start to fall quickly That's what he means. In other words, don't expect this stuff to happen anytime close to when

I'm saying it's gonna happen But once it does at some point in the future, it's gonna happen fast

Now let's expose how ridiculous this is Right here with just an example,

I want you to imagine this imagine a husband texts his wife And he says honey, don't worry.

I'll go to the grocery store soon. I can get in and out in no time

It'll be quick Now I'm assuming if she's like my wife she smiles and she says oh, that's a really thoughtful thing

She realizes now that she doesn't have to take the entire family out and drag everybody into the grocery store Because her husband's got it.

He said he's gonna do it soon and he's gonna go quickly So she begins to make her plans and get ready for dinner.

He's gonna bring in some groceries They're gonna she's gonna cook and everything's gonna be great and she waits and then she continues to wait

And then he finally comes home empty -handed not having gone to the grocery store at all and she's not only confused

But she's aggravated at this point and she says you told me that you were gonna go soon and imagine that man looking at her

And saying oh honey. I'm sorry. You must have misunderstood me. I wasn't promising to go today

But I but I was saying when I do go I'm gonna do it quickly When I finally get around to going to the grocery store, it's gonna be world record time

But I wasn't promising that I was gonna do it today I was just saying when I do now That wife would probably be very frustrated with that husband because he would be mocking the use of language now imagine if John made that same kind of argument to us and he said

Jesus is gonna come back soon, but It's not gonna be for 2 ,000 years

Before any eschatological kinetic energy actually starts to inch its way forward in the movement

I think it goes without saying that everybody knows that this view is Completely nonsensical when

John says soon and quick. He is not just Saying that when it finally begins to happen, it's gonna be soon and quick He's putting these terms together and the only meaningful reason to put these two terms

Together in such near proximity to one another is that he intends for it to happen in the near term

If it doesn't happen for years centuries or even millennia or you know in Revelations case 2 ,000 years at this point, then the words weren't quick and Soon isn't soon.

These words are in fact just lies in The same way that your wife isn't gonna feel reassured because she's gonna think that you're an absolute idiot

Well in the same way How can we be assured that John is telling us the truth if he's using this kind of logic

How can men who read this book? Believe that what John what anything that John has to say

Actually means anything if this is the kind of harebrained conclusions that they're coming to if John's telling

Persecuted Christians that judgment and vindication would come soon But what he really meant was not in your lifetime not in your children's lifetime not in your great -great grandchildren's lifetime

But one day somewhere over the rainbow things are really gonna get moving quick Then he wouldn't be comforting them at all.

He'd be confusing them. It'd be a slap in their face Let's go a step further if John meant that the judgment would be fast

But not near then why would he layer it with other words? Like the time is near do not seal up the prophecy yet.

He even quotes. Jesus is saying yes, I am coming quickly Either Jesus means these things literally or he's yanking their chain

And it's obvious that Jesus doesn't yank our chains He tells us the truth tells us exactly who he is and what he's going to do

That's the fourth lie that that somehow quickly and soon mean when they start at some point in the future

That's nonsense. That's number four Lie number five John is speaking of God's time

Now here's the question did John mean soon according to God's time instead of ours

Now here we have the most pious sounding lie of them all that escapes the futurists lips

And it certainly is one of their go -to Apologetics this view doesn't claim that John was wrong.

It doesn't claim that he was vague It doesn't claim that he was trying to be a motivational speaker It doesn't claim that he was that he was delusion about when the soon and when the quick actually happens

No this view is wrapped in scripture and it quotes 2nd Peter 3 verse 8 like a magical incantation with the wave of a wand with the

Lord one day is like a thousand years and a Thousand years is like a day and then they look at you with that sweet little smile and they say

We just solved the riddle from this verse alone Misinterpreted no doubt they have a magical fix for the problem of biblical hermeneutics and then boom they've solved it the argument goes like this when

John says soon he means soon in God's time Not in our time not in our material space in reality, but somewhere in God's ethereal

Infinitude God means soon God's because God's outside of time after all he's eternal.

He's infinitely sovereign He's not he's he's not in chronology. He is Lord over chronology

So near and quickly don't actually refer to Earth's time. They refer to divine approximations and when we hear that kind of mush mouth theologizing

Which is cloaked in a veneer of biblicism. We think well, that might be true

I mean Peter does say it right and maybe that'll satisfy you until you realize that the book of Revelation was an address to God And it wasn't talking about God's time.

It's talking about time on earth It was addressed to seven local churches who were actually existing in the first century who just so happy It happened to operate in a space and time bound world of humans

I mean, let's look at it just clearly for a second if soon really means not soon to you

But soon to God then every time the Bible says that something is near we can have absolutely no idea

What near means? Every time it urges obedience. Well, maybe that's obedience according to God what it promises justice

Maybe that's justice in the divine sphere when it warns of wrath. Maybe that's wrath in heaven when it proclaims victory

Maybe that's spiritual. We're left asking the question. Is anything applicable to us

When we throw it up into that perspective when it says when it says for instance today is the day for obedience

And and you say well, you know the day of the Lord and say a day to the Lord's like a thousand years So today is the day for me to obey

I don't need to obey for a thousand years because you know one day is like a thousand years to God When it says that God created the world in six literal days, you can say well, you know a days like a thousand years

Maybe each day was it was a thousand six thousand years just to create the first week Or maybe we can add more zeros to it.

Like some people do and say that it's an old earth It's billions of years old because you know, it is like a thousand years

To play with the scripture like that to make it fit with science or our preconceived notion is

It's foolish Because that's obviously not what the scripture is saying day one.

He made this day to he made this day three He made this and he made it in six days. That's what it means to create an equal sign one day equals a thousand years is dumb and That's clearly not what the

Bible means When it says that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills Does that mean he only owns the cattle on one hill in a thousands the same as one?

I mean, it's not reverence to the scripture. That's not fidelity to the text That's relativism at best and that's stupidity at its worst and we're doing it

People do it in order to preserve their theological system because they care so deeply

That the book of Revelation must talk about the future So therefore when he says John says that the time is near it can't mean near to us

Because that would ruin our narrative that would ruin our theological system That would make us think that that it really actually did happen in the first century just like John said

So we have to come in and save the day with a day is like a thousand years So if John is saying that it's gonna happen soon and soon as two or three days from then

What how contraire that's two thousand years? That kind of thinking

Contradicts how language naturally works for us humans it contradicts how prophecy is delivered to nations and Peoples and what

John is actually doing in writing this book to these churches I mean imagine John looking at them and saying hey guys, here's the deal.

I Want to tell you what's getting ready to happen? But since God's outside of time you can have no confidence whatsoever on when it's going to actually happen

So therefore everything I'm about to say to you is utterly meaningless That's not what he's saying

He's certainly not saying hey every time that you see the word day Just go ahead and assume that it means a thousand years and every time you see the word thousand years

Just remember that I'm actually talking about a day if that were the case Then what would the millennial reign of Jesus be the same people the same?

Dispensational to say a day is like a thousand years will turn that back on them and say, okay

You believe in a literal thousand -year reign of Jesus. Is it a one -day reign a thousand years is like a day

So does Jesus only reign for a single day? Is that what that means that they know it's nonsense.

They know it's madness They know that that it absolutely doesn't work It's not good exegesis, but they still continue to implement it why because they're trying to protect a system

They're trying to protect their view that revelation is future even when John says that it isn't so they insert this

Lunacy into the beginning and all you need to do to correct them is just play it back

Right back at them and say okay was the millennial reign a day and when you do that I think you've undermined their entire point of view

That's the fifth My six the events are always imminent

Now the question here is were the prophecies of revelation never meant to be fulfilled in a specific time

But they were only meant to feel like it If the last few tried to hide the delay of Revelation in the vault of God's eternal

Eternality and timeline. Well, this one tries to make the delay a permanent feature This is what

I would call the perpetual eminence view It's the idea that the events of Revelation are always just around the corner, but they're never really

Fulfilled they're just perpetually pending Something that never actually arrives.

This is the theological version of the carrot dangling in front of the donkey He keeps chasing it, but he never gets it.

This is a prophecy That never pounces. This is a judgment that always threatens but never falls

Robert mounts who's a key proponent of this perpetual immanency view claims that the phrase must soon take place

Shouldn't be taken as Chronological, but should instead be taken as a moral imperative.

He says it's not about timing, but it's about tone God we're told by Mount simply wants every generation to feel like the end is near But never actually know whether it is

Metzger follows this line and calls it moral eminence He says that every generation ought to behave as if this is the last day because in theory it might be

Live every day like it's your last and you'll have no regrets. That's sort of what this view is positing and According to this view

John wasn't actually saying that the end that was coming soon He was just saying you know what?

You always need to live like the end is coming soon, which like the other views is fraught with all kinds of logical problems

Let me give you an example of this this would be like turning on the evening news and watching a meteorologist immediately begin looking very tense and foreboding and then looking right in the camera and saying a

Massive storm is brewing and I believe it's possible for this one to be a category 5 hurricane

Which would cause massive devastation if you're listening to this broadcast you really need to take every precaution and Some of you are gonna actually need to evacuate your homes and flee

Immediately for safety and then you you're you're like in panic mode You're like what did

I just hear and you would probably do what I would do You would have a moment of panic where you're trying to think and get your thoughts to settle down Then you'd pull yourself together and you'd start packing the essentials loading the car

Maybe boarding up the windows and doors of your home and then you would leave as soon as possible so that you could avoid disaster but what happens if a

Couple days later the weather event doesn't come and all you have is blue skies and chirping birds What if three days passed?

What if an entire week passed where the only thing you saw was some squirrels playing in a tree

Then maybe a month and maybe two months and without ever a dark cloud or lightning or wind.

What would you do? Well, I'll tell you what I would do I would call the local weather station and I would say hey, by the way, what happened with that category 5 fiasco?

How could you predict that such a calamity of such scale? Was actually gonna happen when nothing ended up happening.

How could you be that wrong? now I Want you to think to yourself? What would you say if that?

meteorologist Cock sure and straight -faced said to you over the phone.

Oh boy You apparently have misunderstood what I meant. I didn't mean that an actual storm was coming

I just meant that you know life's unpredictable and all and you should probably live ready for whatever does happen

So that when a storm does come you're always ready Now if he said that to me if you were like me

You would want to yank that man through the phone that he was speaking to you on and guess what the same would be true for John if he behaved that way and He looked at real people in Sardis and Smyrna and Philadelphia and Thyatira and he said

Jesus is coming back soon The time is near and imagine it didn't happen for 20 30 40 years

Imagine the child the eight -year -old who heard John say that or who read who heard the book of Revelation say that and now 80 years later.

Let's say she's 88 years old and she's like How is it that John said that the time is near and it's been 80 years.

Oh Don't worry. Someone in the congregation tells her he didn't mean that it's actually near just live like it

Just live like every day is your last live like every day is is

Some sort of disaster could happen because you know, we need to live like we're prepared. That's not moral as As mounts calls it that's theological gaslighting

That would neuter Every time based statement that's in the book of Revelation It would convert every prophecy into some sort of posturing reality into ritual

It would urgency into emotional placebo and here's what makes this view even worse

It contradicts Daniel Daniel in chapter 12 verse 4 Tells or God tells

Daniel to seal up the words of the prophecy because the time is not near So Daniel seals up the book because it's gonna be several hundred years before the prophecy happens

Well in Revelation 22 10 John is told the exact opposite He said you have to not seal up the words of this prophecy

You can't seal up the words of this prophecy Because the time is near Daniel's told seal it up.

It's a long way away. John is told don't seal it up It's very near and guys like mounts and guys like whoever the other guy was

When they look at the text and they say oh don't know he's not meaning that The events are actually near he's just meaning live like that there

It drives me crazy when we play these kind of linguistic Gymnastics to just try to make sure that we can preserve an idea that the book of Revelation didn't happen when it happened

Why are we so committed to this book happening in the future when it's so clearly applies to things in the past Listen, John was not telling everyone at every time period to live every day

Like today could be your last. I mean, yeah, that sounds good on a Hallmark card live today. Like it's your last have no regrets

That's not what Jesus. That's not what Jesus doing. There's no one John was doing he's saying hey the time is near because the

Jews actually killed the Son of God and They're murdering Christians and God is tired of it and he's gonna come back and murder them.

That's what the books about Why are we pretending like it's some sort of motivational Hallmark card to live every day?

Like today's your last live it like it matters. Oh That's the sixth lie and it's stupid and it's foolish and I'm glad you see that with me

My number seven the events are not imminent But certain the question here is was

John only emphasizing the certainty of Revelations prophecies, but not their timing.

This is what I call the respectable man's dodgeball Theological argument this view is espoused by the kind of man who likes to appear reasonable without saying anything actually definitive

This view doesn't accuse John of error. It doesn't suggest that he was being vague or motivational

It doesn't twist the language or smuggle in some kind of Greek wordplay. This one wears a kind of theological tie

And carries a tone of safety. This is the view that says don't worry about the win

John wanted us to worry about the what what is going to happen? He's not necessarily saying soon, but he's saying surely

He's not saying that that these events are certainly gonna happen in the first century, but they are certainly going to happen

In other words revelation isn't about the timing of the event It's about the confidence of the event and a man named

Smalley puts it this way The phrase this phrase near and soon indicates the sure accomplishment of God's purposes rather than a hasty consummation of history

Brighton echoes the same thought saying the events described will certainly take place

It is necessary that these events take place But if you read his words and his commentary, he doesn't believe that they happened in the first century

He just believes that it's necessary that they occur at some point Maybe in maybe in the year 2025 maybe in the year 2100 who knows the point is not the time.

The point is the certainty That's the way the argument goes So apparently what John said when he said must soon take place what he really meant was

It will take place Eventually, I mean don't worry about the details it happen.

I'm sure of it But let's be honest here This view is just another sanitized version of the imminent delay view

It puts a doctrinal bow on the same basic problem It's a refusal to believe that John meant what he actually said when he used real words

When he said what he said to whom he said it. I mean, let me break it down if John wanted to emphasize

Certainty alone. He had Greek options. He could have written something like these are the things which must happen full stop

These are the things which must happen. Yes, they must happen. He didn't have to say soon He didn't have to say the time is near he could have doubled down on the

Formula like Jesus uses in the gospel and he could have said truly truly I say to you These are the things which must happen.

He didn't have to say must happen soon He didn't have to say that they must soon take place for the time is near don't sell up the words of this prophecy

Behold, I'm coming quickly. He'd have to say any of that if he meant that certainty instead of imminency

Which means that because he did say all those time frame references he Undeniably is telling us when he thinks this book is gonna happen

Not that just that it's gonna happen at some point at some point in time. No, he's saying it happens in the first century the pastors who read this book to their

Congregation in all the different churches these seven churches None of them thought that John meant that this is gonna eventually happen

All of them took the words as they're read on the paper John Hey guys, everybody everybody listen up turn your turn your hearing aids up everybody.

John said Jesus is coming back soon All of them would have thought oh, okay.

He's coming back soon. I'm not gonna have to suffer many more days I'm not gonna have to suffer many more years

I'm not going to have to bury many more of my friends None of them would have been like wait a minute.

Wait a minute John didn't mean that Jesus is coming back soon when he said

Jesus is coming back soon He meant that at some point Jesus is gonna come back and soon equals certainty not timing and Everybody would have looked at that guy and they would have said

Really Really the Greek word soon doesn't mean soon why because you don't want it to Because you want it to be punted into the future like nobody would have thought that I Mean think about it like this

This would be like a fire marshal saying to a building inspector This building must be torn down soon.

And then when you ask him, well, when does that need to be scheduled? He shrugs and says I don't really know

I mean eventually but who could even know right like when I I'm saying the building must soon be torn down But it's just cuz it must certainly be torn down.

We don't actually think it has to happen in like a near -term kind of way Like you you would smack that man across the face and say go home

You'd send him to the mental health Clinic and have him work on his head because clearly he's lost his freaking marbles

I mean that kind of statement would be utterly worthless to anybody standing there

Like oh, yeah, we need to tear the building down soon. When does that mean? I Don't know.

I mean, but sadly that's how many people take the book of Revelation when they read that the that the events of the book must

Surely happen soon. They're like, oh, yeah that applies to me in my 21st century world Because John didn't mean what he what he actually made him in soon.

He meant he meant for me He meant for us. He meant that we're gonna see it happen eventually soon.

I mean Honestly, I hope that this is coming across that's laughable to read a book that way

We said it in a former episode if you found a letter That was written by an ancient man named

Frank Who was writing to an ancient man named Joseph and Frank said hey

I'm gonna come over to your house soon and we're gonna we're gonna talk about X Y &

Z and you said I Bet that applies to me. I bet

Frank means me and Joseph means my friend and this letter is a prophecy about He and I are gonna have a conversation today

It Has nothing to do with Frank and Joseph. It has to do with me that kind of Narcissistic reading of the

Bible is exactly what we do to the book of Revelation We look at a handwritten letter from John to real people in the seven churches and we say

That's not about them. It's about us Because we're the ones that John had in mind

He just Pretended to write the letter to those churches He just he just wrote the letter to them to shut them up and to quiet them down But what he really was thinking is he's writing to us

Clearly, that's the most logical outcome possible, right? The reason that we can know the timing of the book of Revelation is

Not because of theological fruit loops who are telling us this kind of stupidity we can know it because Jesus said it

John's just quoting Jesus When Jesus says this is my revelation of things which must happen soon.

Jesus is the one saying it John's just quoting Jesus. John is like us

John's like, oh, thank God. Jesus just promised. He's coming back soon That's what the time frame references are for to encourage

John and his first century people That it's not it's not a crapshoot

Where they're rolling the dice and like which century which millennium is Jesus gonna come back? We don't take language that really means what it means and reduce it down to a general certainty

That's just just not the way language works. That's my number seven Now let's move on to my number eight

John speaks to us from the future Now the question here is was John somehow transported into the future and Only then did he actually say that the events were soon.

He didn't say that the events were soon in his time He was catapulted into the visionary future and he said the events were soon in that time now

We enter into the realm here of chronological contortions

This is where eschatological desperation to hold on to futurism puts on its lab coat and and plugs into the flux

Capacitor and tries to fix revelation with some kind of sci -fi enhanced time travel this view seriously

Proposed by some is that John was telling the truth when he said that the events must happen soon and that Jesus is coming quickly

Behold, the time is near but here's the catch He wasn't speaking from his time according to this theory

John was Supernaturally projected into the far future flung in a time

Capsule catapult to a moment just before the very end of the world and then from that vantage point

John declared the time is near Yes really this is what

I call the Apostle Marty McFly theory Where John hopped into a visionary?

DeLorean and he punched in the year 20 -something five or six or seven or eight or whatever and he took a joyride in time and He saw all of the strange signs and symbols that he had no idea what they mean

Can you imagine John an ancient man? Who's never seen neon lights? Who's never seen a light bulb?

Who's never seen a car never seen a plane and he's and he's flying in his little theological

DeLorean and he's like, what is that place? They're making burgers.

What is a burger? I come on really Do we really think that that John is

Catapulted into the future and that he's describing those events as soon near and quickly

I mean That's not biblical interpretation at all. That's just a cheap knockoff of Star Wars Star Trek and Back to the future and yet there's biblical scholars who believe this mess

Beasley Murray tries to defend this view and saying this about John's vision. He says in his vision

John stands near To the close of the period of Messianic judgments in case you missed what he was saying there

That's just a fancy way of saying that John isn't talking to his audience

He's talking to a future generation from a future pedestal

About future Messianic judgments that they are going to face in the indeterminate future

This makes revelation not a pastoral letter written by a man who loves these seven churches

But it makes it into a time capsule that John just buried and hoped one day

The mystery generation would open it and it would all make sense to them It would be irrelevant to every

Christian who's ever lived at every time period until finally the final generation whom it really applied to the generation that John visited in Visionary dreams when that generation finally comes then it's all going to make perfect sense

But here's the problem about this view actually Because John makes all of his predictions about time in the non visionary section of the book

You can say okay John must have been in a vision and he's saying that these things happen soon to the people who he's visioning

Except the time frame references don't happen in the visionary sections The time frame references are not during John's heavenly joyride

All of the time frame references occur in parts of the book that are not visionary Before he sees heaven open in Revelation 4 before he's caught up in the spirit

He writes the revelation of Jesus Christ to show his servants. What must soon take place

He's not saying that hey, wait a minute This is the revelation of Jesus Christ to some future people about things which must then take place.

He's not in vision mode yet He's not an apocalyptic mode yet. He's not in his

DeLorean When he says blessed is the one who reads this for the time is near He's saying blessed are the people in those seven churches that read the letter that I'm handwriting and giving to them

If there's any part of this book that futurist agree with me that was written in the ancient world to the ancient world

It's chapters 1 through 3 and that's where all the time frame references are The orientation of Time in this book is not coming from the seven seals the seven bowls the seven trumpets or any of the other

Visionary sections of the book it's coming from the part that everybody agrees applies to the first century

You ask a dispensationalist most of them at least there's some crazy ones But if you ask them hey was the letter written to Philadelphia to the people of Philadelphia They would say oh, yeah,

John wrote that letter to the people of Philadelphia. Okay. What about the letter to Smyrna? Oh, yeah, he definitely wrote it to the letter of Smyrna or to the people of Smyrna.

What about Thyatira? Oh my goodness. Yeah, he loved them He was handwriting that to them and you go on and on all the way down to Laodicea But when the book switches to chapter 4 they say

John hopscotches into the modern world and he leaves his friends behind My point is that if Revelation 1 through 3 was written to an ancient people about things going on in their world the time frame references happen there and Not in one on John's Wonka Vader technicolored vision

The part that everybody agrees was written from the Isle of Patmos To the churches of Asia Minor is where John says things like the time is near Jesus is coming quickly behold

These things will happen soon He's writing to people who are facing persecution

Martyrdom and being threatened and killed by both synagogue leaders and Caesars I mean what good would it do for John to tell them deliverance is happening soon, but not for you and And not technically soon

I mean 2 ,000 years from now. It's going to happen to somebody. I saw it in a vision. I saw it in a vision

I saw people sitting down and eating these things called burgers and that's

Who it applies to it applies to people who live in this magical place called, New York And they have to go through this magical land called the

Lincoln Tunnel He's saying that in 2 ,000 years from now

There's gonna be a people who these events apply to but I'm writing you this letter and I'm gonna tell you about it

Because you're gonna be so interested while you're dying and being murdered and being strangled and being stoned to death

You're gonna be interested in what happens to 21st century Americans Can you imagine a wife watching her husband being torn apart by the by the limbs being beaten?

Watching him bleed and die and she's like, oh, thank God John gave us this vision about what's gonna happen to 21st century

America as my husband dies. Oh, I'm so comforted by that I'm so thankful by that.

Oh Praise God that I know what's gonna happen about an Antichrist in the

European Union. Oh happy day How foolish why would

John even write such a ridiculous statement that wouldn't comfort them? that would be an insensitive and very cruel joke and let's state the obvious here if John wanted you and I to know that he was seeing these events from the end of the world

Perspective from a future vantage point. He could have just said that He could have said

I John was taken in the spirit to the last days to the end of time The final moments of world history and from there

I saw what was soon going to occur and then we would have said, okay John said that he was transported to the future and he saw what was gonna happen

Okay, we believe him because we believe what the Bible says, but he doesn't do that He says from where he's standing in ad -60 to people who are living in ad -60 that the judgments coming soon to them

That the that Jesus is gonna return quickly for them to believe. Otherwise you have to think that That that John project was projected forward thousands of years

Saw a vision and then was transported back into the first century wrote it down and then gave it to people

Knowing that it was going to absolutely and totally Confuse the heck out of them

Can you imagine? Okay. I mean, can you actually imagine John a day in the life of John?

John wakes up and all of a sudden he's in the year 2025 and he looks around at all of the crazy apocalyptic things that are going on under the reign of Antichrist Donald Trump and then all of a sudden after 45 minutes to an hour of just watching this apocalypse play out then he's

Cast back into his world in the ancient world. No more neon lights No more flashing signs.

No more orange man bad, and then he starts to write all these things down Thoroughly confused by what he saw because he has no idea

What any of the stuff that we have around us are like he would look at me and think what's this black thing?

That he's speaking into What's this thing that I'm looking at him through this they call it a television like?

Really take for really take it into your imagination that nothing Almost nothing that exists today would have been would have been understandable to John But but he goes back and he dutifully writes it and he sends it to the church and he addresses it to them and he says

Here's the things that's gonna happen to you I know you're not gonna understand it, but don't worry because it doesn't happen to you it happens to someone else at some point in the future

I Can think of nothing more crazy

Than to think that John Who knew the names of these

Saints at these churches who knew the pastors? Who knew the deacons and who knew the elders and who knew the sweet little lady?

Who was a widow and who knew the little boy? Joseph who was running around and playing in the church at Thyatira or Pergamum or whatever

He knew them all and he said, you know what? I Saw this vision, but I'm gonna send it to him.

Anyway, even though I know it's going to utterly and totally confuse them I I can't even imagine

John saying that that would be like John Looking right at us and saying great

Scott I've discovered it. It's foolish and I and I'm trying not to mock too much.

I really am trying to hold myself back here But this is dumb that's lie number eight lie number nine the events were

Inaugurated but not completed. The question here is did revelations prophecies begin in the first century?

but They still await some kind of future fulfillment a dual fulfillment and already

Not yet This is the kind of final boss the scholarly halfway house, this is the theological friend zone this is the eschatological hedge fund for those who want to give a nod to the very obvious first century fulfillment that we've been talking about without actually

Paying the cost of being a preterist What they're basically saying is yes

Revelation Began to be fulfilled in the first century, but it's not fully

Fulfilled in the first century. It's still kind of unfolding gradually Symbolically over the centuries and then eventually in the future.

It's gonna have a really big fulfillment There's a tiny fulfillment here in the first century

But in the future, it's gonna be epic This View, maybe you call the already not yet view and this is a view that really came into existence

By a scholar named Herman Ritter boss, which coined the term already and not yet Which posits that some of its in the

Bible can have a dual fulfillment one fulfillment at the time that it was given and yet Another Instance of that fill fulfillment later a bigger more magnified fulfillment later not to be fair in this phrase

Already not yet Ritter boss gave the church a helpful category. That is sometimes helpful in The same way that sometimes a hammer is the right tool to use

Other times it isn't if you're nailing a 10 penny nail into something Well, I hammers the right tool if you're playing with a baby

Well, the hammer is not the right tool if you're washing fine China a hammer is not the right tool

Sometimes a hammer is the right tool sometimes it's not the whole world is not a nail and yet somehow this phrase gets thrown around by Biblical scholars and pastors like a

Swiss army knife like it magically solves any and every difficult passage that you have to deal with It's simple.

It's an already not yet You you think of you think about this phrase like duct tape it'll fix anything

It just it's already not yet. And if you can't fix it, it's an already not yet it or something like that this phrase seemingly gets slapped on to every single difficult passage that we don't understand and it's hard to hard to fit into our

Eschatological worldview and and what we do is is we use it as some kind of divine solvent for instance

I know for sure that the book of Revelation happens in the future So what do

I do with that when John says soon when John says near when John says quick when John says? Gee when

John quotes Jesus is saying behold. I'm yes. I am coming soon. What do we do with that? Well, it's an already not yet It already happened, but not yet Matthew 24 same deal already not yet Isaiah 65

Already not yet your great -grandmother's dreams of a future revival already and not yet.

It makes people lazy theologians and it gives you some sort of exegetical impulse of a three -toed sloth to say yes, it surely happened but not in full and People do this without having any biblical

Justification for doing it they avoid any biblical heavy lifting of trying to understand the passage in its context and they simply

Slap onto it this label already. Not yet John didn't mean fully that Jesus was coming back soon, but it did happen in a kind of way already

But not yet This phrase has become a kind of fix -all for Dispensationalists who never need to prove it who never need to substantiate their sacred cow a

Futurism that somehow into the future at some point at some way. No, this view has become a kind of unchallengeable

Unassailable synonym for common sense in biblical studies, but here's the issue Scripture doesn't give us the license to assign dual fulfillments wherever we want

The Bible actually does tell us that there are some dual Fulfillments and it it does a really really helpful thing by telling us that it's a dual fulfillment

Let me give you an example. This will help Isaiah 7 Isaiah gives a prophecy to a house

He says ask me for whatever and the Lord will give it to you and I and a has you know does this thing and the prophet

Isaiah says, okay a Young maiden is gonna bear a son in the passage.

It says virgin in the Hebrew It says a young woman young woman's gonna bear a son and before that child knows right from wrong

The king who is a has and I Isaiah's day is gonna see Judah delivered from the nation of Israel.

Okay? There's a near -term fulfillment for that a has was watching

Isaiah's young wife had a baby and Before that baby was old enough to eat his

Cheerios Judah was saved from a real nation called

Syria So the prophecy was fulfilled but then the Spirit of God 700 years later in the book of Matthew says behold the

Virgin shall conceive and Matthew in chapter 1 verse 23 tells us that yes this prophecy applied to a has and Isaiah But what it really applies to is

Jesus He's the greater fulfillment of this prophecy So the prophecy of the virgin birth as you study it and I encourage you to study it.

It had a real actual fulfillment 700

BC when Judah was spared from Syria and it also because Matthew tells us that it does is

Applied to Jesus by the Holy Spirit of God Who said that actually this passage of the young maiden the virgin giving birth is about Jesus?

now the only reason that We know that this passage has a dual fulfillment

The only reason this gets right to the point here The only reason that we know that this passage has a dual fulfillment is because Matthew tells us so Because the

Spirit of God who spoke through Isaiah and through Matthew Confirmed that this passage applies in both places.

For instance. Here's another one out of Egypt. I called my son That passage originally was about the nation of Israel Who was called

God's firstborn son who he called out of the land of Egypt and into the land of Canaan?

and yet Matthew again takes this Old Testament passage and By the

Holy Spirit applies it to Jesus so that out of Egypt. I called my son what Matthew is doing is saying that Jesus just like Israel went down to Egypt and Then he was called out of Egypt and back to the promised land that that's what

Matthew's doing There is an already not yet in those two passages and that actually makes sense

It already happened in Exodus or in Isaiah and but yet it was a not yet because the

Holy Spirit was gonna take this passage and Amplify it and place it on Jesus. So it's an already not yet but you can't just start rubber stamping that category on to every passage that doesn't make sense of your

Eschatological worldview and think that that it applies to everything because it doesn't

You you're not interpreting scripture anymore. You're just Manufacturing a theological comfort zone and you're using this sort of category as a way to make your view

Unfalsifiable so long as you give the disclaimer. Well, this is one of those already not yet passages It's fine.

Yeah. Okay. It had a little bit of a fulfillment back there, but it's not full I mean clearly it applies to the future.

Why because it's an already not yet. How do you know? It's an already not yet. Well because it is I mean, that's just what it is.

I mean, you know because it Did is it forces a kind of uncritical unthoughtful

Non -exegetical view that you are placing on the text and Hoping that no one will challenge you but here's the fatal flaw in this point.

The canon is closed You see the only reason we know that the virgin birth passage in Isaiah applies to Jesus is because Matthew a book of the

Bible told us So the only reason we know that out of Egypt God called his one and only Son doesn't just apply to Israel But it also applies to Jesus is

Because Matthew told us so So if you tell me that the book of Revelation is a dual fulfillment show me a

Bible verse where the Bible tells me it is Show me a Bible verse that says the book of Revelation has a dual fulfillment because you can't

Because the canon is closed Because the Bible is finished

God finished the Bible So you can't point to a single passage that verifies your thesis.

I Can point to passages and say that yeah, this isn't already not yet because the scriptures tell me it is you

Only have a presupposition to substantiate your futurist view and I don't believe you because John said soon near and quickly and you have nothing no proof of your dual

Fulfillment that's line number nine and that takes us to part three the right view

The Conclusion that you're probably feeling right now. Is that if Revelation?

Doesn't mean what it says it means and we can never actually know what it means If God says soon and he doesn't really mean soon.

Well, then we can't ever know what God means at all We can't ever have any certainty that we've understood scripture because those these nine different views would make would run roughshod of true biblical interpretation

Not just Revelation the entire Bible either God is truthful or he's a liar

This is the paradox that we're down to can you and can I?

Trust the words that are being said and believe them as though they're true or not

Did he write them to leave you an endless confusion and speculation or not? And here's the point that I hope you see

When you come to the Bible with a preconceived idea for instance Revelation must be about the future because it must be about the future.

That's a that's an assumption When you come to Revelation with that view You have to force the text to say that you have to adopt one of these nine lies to make it say

What it doesn't say and just like a cat has nine lives we've just shot down every one of them

So in this sense the theological kitty cat is dead My challenge would be to just put aside your your your your assumptions

Put aside your view that Revelation must be about the future and just read it with fresh eyes when

John says Hey, these these things are near Jesus is coming quickly.

The time is gonna be pretty soon Just believe him at face value. I mean

The dispensational types are the ones who brag about being the most literal So take your own advice

Believe what John says literally he meant that these things were gonna happen soon and they did

After Looking at all of this these nine lies this theological dodging this

Greek hula -hooping this timeline twisting We finally arrived at the most obvious and the most biblical and the most faithful and the most hermeneutically consistent

View of them all and that is this Revelation was written to John's generation about events that were gonna happen to them

That's the right view that's the view that we are gonna be looking at now as Carrington plainly says it when

Revelation was written. It was naturally Adopted as an account of current events and of events shortly to come to pass

That is how it describes itself. And that is how it was naturally taken

That's the plain and obvious and unavoidable truth about it Revelation opens by saying the revelation of Jesus Christ Rooting it in the

Godhead to show his servants who the servants that were living at the time What the things which must soon take place revelation 1 1 and the book ends by saying these words are faithful and true

These words are faithful and they're true. What behold?

I'm coming quickly revelation 22 7 The the book really does begin by saying these things are gonna happen soon

And it ends by saying these things are gonna happen soon because everything in the book is gonna happen soon if the book begins

By saying all these things are gonna happen soon and the book ends by saying all these things happened are gonna happen soon then you can know that the whole book is

Is going to happen soon soon according to who John?

the word there in Greek Tacos not tacos like taco

Tuesday tacos like tachometer It doesn't mean eventually.

It doesn't mean probably possibly or it doesn't mean might could It doesn't mean over the next millennium at some point it's gonna happen.

No the word means immediately Greek scholar Kurt Aland affirms this and he says this the word taco

Means I am coming now. I'm coming immediately Here's another

Greek word in goose, which means near it's used in Revelation 1 3 and in Revelation 22 10

It means near in time not Inevitable not possible not certain not proximate.

It means pressing Looming near What we're seeing brothers and sisters is not

Linguistic spandex that you have to squeeze an oversized body into The words here have definitions they have semantical limits and ranges what that means is that the word soon has a range that it can mean and distant far

Or not inside the bounds when I say soon I don't mean far when

I say near I don't mean distant That's just not what words mean

Either words mean what they mean or they don't and this idea of trying to stretch words

To actually mean their opposite is crazy land Notice how often

That these proximate words are used these words that mean near and close and soon and quick They show up all over the book of Revelation So that if you're going to twist them into something that they're not

You actually have a lot of verses that you have to twist before you can make that crazy pretzel

The time is near Revelation 1 3 The there shall be no delay

Revelation 10 6 a little while longer revelation 6 11 a short time revelation 12 12

Behold, I'm coming quickly revelation 3 11 revelation 22 7 revelation 22 12 revelation 22 20

Did you know that more than any other book in the Bible the book of Revelation is doing everything that it possibly can to get you to Understand the time frame of the book no other book does that Paul doesn't begin his books with hey

I'm gonna tell you things that are soon gonna happen Genesis doesn't do that No other book has as many time frame references as Revelation and yet This is the book that we try to uncle

Rico football toss into the future We treat

Revelation like John is being vague and playing word games when he was a herald of imminent covenant

Judgment against the Jews and He's encouraging his fellow partakers in the tribulation

Revelation 1 9 Not to be confused not to be hopeless, but to hope in Christ because Christ was coming soon

How is Christ coming Christ was coming in judgment? This is not the end of human history coming of Jesus.

This is the coming of Jesus in judgment Against the Jews to crush that Old Testament era to burn the temple to the ground like he promised in Matthew 22

I think verse 10 to end the priesthood that was

Mocking him every single bull and goat that they sacrificed on the altar was a blasphemy unto

God Why because the true and better sacrifice had come Every festival that they ate was a blasphemy because the true feast

Christ who is the bread and the wine of the Lord's Supper had come God out of vengeance against the

Jews for their apostasy and out of holy reverence for what his son did on the cross destroyed that murderous generation and The book of Revelation tells us that it's going to happen soon quickly and near What else do we want

Like what else do we want John to do? He's literally leaping over hoops for us

He's he's doing everything he possibly can like imagine Imagine a drunk driver is driving towards the edge of a cliff and they're getting ready to they're getting ready to fly over the edge of the cliff, you know into insanity and Somebody sees it and they get out of their car and they wave their hands and they scream and they yell

They do everything that they possibly can to get this lunatic to stop What else could

John possibly do brothers and sisters to tell us that these things are gonna happen soon near and quickly in the first Century then what he did

He all he literally said these things are going to happen soon. Do you first century people not us?

So he was writing to those people who were enduring tribulation He doesn't say someday

God's gonna act for some entitled Spoiled brats who live in the 21st century whose soy latte was too cold and they have to go back through the drive -thru to get

Another one. Oh the rapture needs to happen today because I didn't get my drink He's talking to people who are dying for their faith he's talking to people who are being murdered and John is

Giving them the words of Jesus and he's saying brothers. I get it. Just hold on a little longer

Because Jesus is coming. He didn't lie to you Don't be afraid Don't be afraid of the things that are happening to you rejoice in your suffering because the time is near Jesus when he said to the martyrs who were underneath the throne and they cried out how much longer

Oh Lord in Revelation 6 11 Jesus tells them to wait just a little while longer

Until their number the number of the martyrs was complete and the judgment was going to be unleashed and What judgment was

Jesus referring to not the end of the physical cosmos? But the end of the

Old Covenant age The temple the city the prophets the sacrifices the feast the priesthood all of it was becoming

Obsolete Hebrews 813 The harlot city of Jerusalem who was riding on the beast called

Rome was about to be destroyed the judgment of Jerusalem in AD70 Was not a footnote in redemptive history.

It was the main event It was what the Garden of Eden was was pushing towards It was the pouring out of judgment upon the

Old Covenant world So that a new covenant world led by a new Adam and his bride the church a brand new

Eve Would be unveiled and unleashed upon the world AD70 was the unveiling of the

Empire of Jesus and Revelation describes it in beautiful symbolic magistrate and It was fulfilled

See the thing that is so beautiful is that I can point to the grammar and say soon near and quickly mean first century

But I can also point to the first century and say Everything Jesus predicted came true

My view can be substantiated Grammatically theologically historically

The dispensational view is built upon a fantasy That just because I believe it happens in the future it must therefore

I'm gonna twist and mangle and pretzel the text until I can get it to say whatever I want And if I can do that to Revelation, then every other text means nothing in AD70 the shadow had been put away

So that Christ and all of his fullness would come Revelation isn't waiting to be fulfilled.

It's the holy record of Jesus's fulfillment. We don't need more charts we just need more courage to actually believe what the

Bible says because the war is over and We need to as the church stop acting like victims and start acting like victors

Christ has called us to be Conquerors overcomers why because he's on the throne and because his kingdom is advancing because the bride is being gathered because the dragon has been thrown down because the only enemy left that Jesus is going to Defeat personally in the flesh himself is when he comes and curb stomps death in 1st

Corinthians 1526 until then He's left his bride the church here to spread his dominion to the ends of the earth and that is

Where I would like to take everything that we've seen in this episode all of the foolishness and all of the truth

And I'd like to apply it now to mine in your life by going to our

Conclusion So now friend here we are.

We're at the conclusion. So what do we do? Well, we need to stop waiting for permission. We need to stop living like second -class citizens in the king's kingdom

We need to stop looking at the text as though it

Automagically applies to the future and we need to just read it for what it is And what it says as you go through Revelation 1 2 & 3 is encouraging the first century church to persevere

Revelation 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 all the way down to 20 is the first century Jews who are being destroyed by Jesus and Revelation 21 and 22 is the inauguration of the church

The church who will feed the nations with the gospel the church who will bless the nations with the gospel and that means that you and I are a part of that kingdom, which means we need to plant and we need to build and We ought to show up on the

Lord's Day to worship because Jesus reigns and Jesus is King We ought to pray like our prayers actually are firing shots and arrows like it's firing big artillery down the range because our effort matters

We need to preach like heaven is invading earth because Jesus said that it was Viking them come

I will be done on earth as it is in heaven our sermons ought to shake the kingdom of darkness into ruin because It is being shaken as Hebrew says we need to come with appetites every

Lord's Day ready to eat at the Table of our Lord to eat the body and to drink the blood of Christ and to be nourished by him for the battle ahead

Revelation brothers and sisters isn't telling you and I to wait for clearance in order to land

We're already on the battlefield So stop circling the runway like you're waiting to land and start conquering where you're at with boots on the ground

That's your mission. And with that the only question left for you is Are you actually gonna believe that revelation what revelation says is true?

That the parts of it that everyone has told you to be scared of have already happened and the parts of it that people punt forward into the into heaven are

For you and I today Will you believe revelation will come true in the way that revelation says that it will come true

Which is soon quickly and near it says it in Revelation 1 it says in Revelation 22, which means that the entire book is

About things that have already either happened in full or have been inaugurated in the church the question is will we live like we belong to the kingdom of the reigning

King Jesus Christ or will we live like Cowards and ostriches planting our heads in the sand and peeing our pants like a bunch of turtles who are scared of their shadow after everything that we've seen after all the excuses have been exposed after all of the all of the

Twisting and pretzeling of the text every misinterpretation has been dragged into the light after all of that.

We need to understand That judgment did come that the

King did triumph over them that the harlot was judged the temple did fall the priesthood was abrogated the

Old Covenant did collapse in the ashes and fires of 80 70 and Jesus Christ the faithful witness the firstborn from the dead the ruler of the kings of the earth revelation 1 9 stood up not as a

Long awaited coming stranger, but as the present and reigning King and the book of Revelation describes how he how it did not happen

Like the DMV where you go and you waste an entire afternoon waiting for something to happen

No, it happened It happened in the first century and Jesus set up his command center his war room his officers tent on earth

And that's you and I the church Revelation is not about the defeat of Jesus and his bride but the covenantal coronation of Him and his kingdom and you as his bride as the mother and as the royal queen over all the earth

Brothers and sisters revelation is the announcement of the end of the Jewish Empire and the beginning of Jesus's Empire that Christ has taken

His seat upon his throne that he shattered his enemies. He's vindicating his martyrs

He's begun his long march through the world so that his kingdom is increasing that it's not gonna stop until every enemy is underneath His feet and that the world

Shines with the glory of the knowledge of the Lord as the water covers the seas and when you get that it changes everything

It means that we shouldn't be huddled away in the shadows waiting for the end to come We shouldn't be hoping and expecting that things are gonna be getting worse.

We are citizens of the kingdom of Jesus Christ We are the ones who he's put in charge of the planet in order to disciple them and make them obey

Jesus we are the ones who've been called vice regents and stewards and ambassadors and Royal priests in a kingdom of priests in a royal nation you and I are not the ones who are expecting to lose

We never lose. We are more than conquerors because of him who loved us So, what do we do we build things?

We go to church and we take the Lord's table. We plant new churches. We serve in our churches

We raise families that love Jesus We have God glorifying marriages with pure sexual intimacy that tells the story of the gospel of God We have as many babies as we can possibly have with with all

Wisdom and and before the Lord so that we can catechize them Participate in family worship raise them up send them out and take over the world and fill it full of image -bearers of God We disciple the nations to join us and obey

King Jesus We run for public office so that Christians will set their trajectory of local state and federal governments we start

Christian companies that exude the character and the integrity and the and and the and the

Purity of Jesus Christ and we bring righteous technologies to market. We we bring trades and services into the marketplace

We proclaim the gospel and everything that we do with words whether we eat or drink

Whatever we do we do it all to the glory of God and in that brothers and sisters We don't run from culture.

We create culture. We shape culture We reclaim education and media and politics and economics and every inch of the earth that belongs to Jesus And we do it to the glory of God and we do it until the entire earth looks like Jesus wants it to look and why?

Can you and I do this and why must we do this because brothers and sisters? We don't exist in Revelation 6 hiding under the altar and asking

Jesus how much longer? No, we live in the reign of Christ when the enemy's been put down Where the

Old Covenant apostates have been judged we live in Revelation 22 We live in the time period when the nations bring their wealth into the kingdom of God and we're tasked with feeding the nations with The food that God has entrusted us to give to them.

What is that food? It's word. It's prayer. It's sacraments It's the Lord's Day It's New Jerusalem It's you and I being the garden pool whereby the river of life that Jesus is flows out of us and into the world

We are the keeper of the gates of New Jerusalem and we beckon the nations to come in and join us

So because of that Stop living like you're on the losing team. Stop looking like evil gets the last word

Stop wringing your hands like the sky is always falling the sky did fall and it fell on Jerusalem in 80 70 and now the stone cut without hands is growing into a mountain that's filling the entire world

The lump of dough is being leavened by King Jesus. We do not live in an age of fear

We live in an age of Dominion and Christ doesn't need to be enthroned He is enthroned and it's your job not to speculate

But to build in his kingdom like the like the parable of the talents Jesus has gone away and he's given you the job of building and multiplying and being fruitful and taking what he's given you and Using it for his glory so brothers and sisters, let's go

Don't whisper your faith herald your faith. Don't apologize for the kingdom advance the kingdom

Don't wait for permission act like today Like Jesus is in charge because he is and remember that your king is not waiting to reign

He already does reign and you are his servants on earth. You are the ones who are bringing about his kingdom

This is not the dress rehearsal This is the main event So saddle up get to work and remember to walk with a humble swagger because you're a child of the

Living God Go build your family go build your church school business build a legacy

Handed off to your children because Jesus isn't gonna return until we finish the job that he's given us

So get to work and until next time God richly bless you and we'll see you next time on the podcast