Are Biblical prophecies future predictions?

Hello, hello. Welcome to Biblically Speaking. My name is Cassian Bellino, and I am your host.

I am more than excited to introduce a new guest today, Dr. Gary Yates. Welcome to the show.

Gary, you are a PhD in Old Testament Studies. You're from Dallas Theology Seminary. You've taught

Old Testament, you've taught Hebrew at the grad and undergrad level for over 20 years at Cedarville University, and now you're at Liberty University, which is how we got connected through Dr.

Yates. You also serve as a senior pastor at the Living Word Baptist Church in Virginia, and you co -authored the

Message of the Twelve, Urban Legends of the Old Testament, and Encountering the Old Testament. So, vetted and well ascribed,

I'm so excited to have you on the show to talk about the topic of prophecy, and what are we getting wrong about it?

Because I don't understand it. But anyways, welcome to the show. Thanks, Cassian. Great to be here, and I really appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation.

Yes, the prophecy is kind of a trippy, tricky, trippy and tricky topic for me, simply because I don't understand it.

What do you, what have your studies led you to believe? Have you studied this topic specifically? Yeah, I did actually do my doctoral dissertation in the

Book of Jeremiah. So, I've taught courses in the prophets basically my entire teaching career, and one of the books that I did with B &H,

The Message of the Twelve, we were looking at the minor prophets. So, this is an area that I tell people that a lot of people, when they do their

Bible reading, this is the area where they still have the gold leaf on the pages, because they haven't read this very much.

But it's kind of an area that I really enjoy. And I think one of the things that I would try to tell people is that this is not a part of the

Bible that you have to be afraid of. Because I think once we stop trying to either fit it into contemporary events, or we're trying to figure out how does it fit in certain eschatological systems, and just learning to read the prophets on their own.

I'm sorry, you got, I'm like a nine -year -old reading level when it comes to these terms. What is eschatological?

What is that? Well, a lot of people, their views of the future, are they a pre -millennialist, or a non -millennialist, or a post -millennialist?

Are they pre -trib, post -trib? And they're trying to, you know, their views of what they believe about the second coming of Jesus, or how the kingdom of God will come to earth in the future.

And a lot of times they're more trying to like, how does this fit into my theological system, than I think sometimes just reading the prophets on their own.

And I think when you end up doing that, kind of the imagery, and the ways that they convey their message in figurative ways, and really rhetorically, you know, interesting way.

I think it becomes more of a, kind of a wild ride going through the prophets, and just a very enjoyable part of scripture.

I love that you say we shouldn't be afraid of it, because truly I am. I mean, if I'm just going to open up my

Bible and, you know, skip to all the popular characters, you know, the Moses, and like the Jonah, and the

Job, and the Jesus, and then his apostles. I'm mostly going to skip over the Jeremiah's, or the minor prophets, just because I'm like,

I don't know how this fits in. Are they fortune tellers? Are they just people that got visions from God, and now they're coming true?

I think this is why, in part, I'm afraid of Revelation, just because like all those things are going to... Revelation is scary, but it's kind of its own category.

But I think part of it is, if we can understand like the historical setting of the prophets, like what was going on in their lifetime and in their ministry, because most of the time, their prophecies are relating to either things that are going on in the people's lives that need to change, because God is angry about that, and they're confronting the people with their sin, or they're announcing things that will probably be happening, or could happen in the very near future.

They're not always talking about the end times, or the last days, or the future judgment, and these kinds of...

Most of the things that the prophets are talking about relate to things that happen pretty much in the near future of their ministries.

Yeah, I love that you say that, and historical context is everything, and I love that in these conversations, that my guests can offer that level of intellectual conversation.

We'll get to a couple examples of kind of biblical prophecy out of context, and how people kind of use it to rationalize it's now the end times, and all of the prophecy are coming true right now.

But let's back it up. To me, as an early Christian going to church your whole life, prophecy was always about telling the future.

How would you, an educated person, how would you define prophecy? Well, I would define prophecy, first of all, as the prophets were inspired spokesmen from God.

And a lot of our key passages about the prophets, or even things related to biblical inspiration, talk about how the

Spirit was the one who led the prophets to deliver the message that God gave to them.

So I think that's the first thing, is that prophecy doesn't originate with men, 2

Peter 121 says, but it came as these men were moved along by the Spirit of God. So it is the

Word of God. You see repeatedly, like in the Old Testament prophets, thus says the Lord, I think appears more than 350 times or something like that.

And then you also have these statements like utterance or declaration of the Lord. So they are very aware and convinced of the fact that they're speaking for God.

And there's even a couple of passages in the prophets where the prophets believed that they were the divine council up in heaven, where God's having his cabinet meetings and making decisions and those kinds of things.

These prophets will claim that they actually, they were there for the meetings. So prophet

Micaiah in 1 Kings 22, he says, like, I was, I saw what was going on. And God was sitting around the table with the members of his council.

And they decided that they were going to deceive Ahab and send out a messenger to, you know, to trick him into going into battle.

And so he's like, I was there. I saw, I saw what the deliberations were. And the prophet

Jeremiah does the same thing over in Jeremiah 23, he says, look, the difference between me and all of the false prophets is that I'm speaking what

I heard in the divine council. I was there and these other prophets are just speaking the dreams and imaginations of their own mind.

So I think part of it is just at the beginning, they're speaking for God and the words of the prophet are the very, the very word of God itself.

Okay. Wow. A divine council, that's a whole other episode. So I wouldn't go too far to that.

But just an interesting way of thinking about, like the prophets received their message from God.

I mean, it's pretty audacious for a human prophet to claim. Yeah, I was there at the meeting. I know what happened, but that's really the way that they, that's the way they viewed their message and the authority that they had when they, when they spoke it.

Okay. A couple questions come up because what would be the difference between a prophet who, you know, was in the presence of the divine council and like a praying person?

Because to me, we've shifted from prophecy is telling the future to now prophecy is having the word of God come through them that they're speaking.

So could I technically prophesy if I felt like God was telling me something, or is there a clear distinction between who is and isn't a prophet?

Well, that gets a little bit into maybe even what you think about the gift of prophecy in the

New Testament. But I think at the very least, there's a distinction between prophets that were conveying like special messages from God that became authoritative scripture versus maybe even sometimes people that had prophetic gifts that could give a word from God, but didn't necessarily have that specific designated chosen role as an instrument of God's revelation.

So I think I would probably make a distinction there. But again, some of that has to do with, well, what do you think the gift of prophecy?

And when we hear people, or when we read texts in the New Testament that talk about having that gift, what exactly does that mean?

Even that is somewhat different from, you know, those that are speaking authoritative scripture and that sort of thing.

It's different from that. It's different from like a pastor getting a message in the middle of his sermon being like,

I feel like the Holy Spirit is telling me to say this. That would be a different thing than a prophet speaking.

Yeah, well, it could be a prophetic utterance that's coming from the Spirit, but a little bit different than what we're talking about in terms of like inspired prophets like Moses or Jeremiah or in Isaiah or others that were called by God with this special role of proclaiming his special revelation.

Interesting. It seems to me that there's a lot of prophets in the Old Testament, but not so many in the

New Testament. And I feel like even fewer in 2024. Would you agree with that? Yeah, there really is, you know, prophets are everywhere in the

Old Testament. And, you know, the first person that's referred to as a prophet is Abraham all the way back in Genesis 20.

Then you have kind of the office of prophet, I think really originates more with Moses. And God promises in Deuteronomy 18, he says that in the future,

I will raise up for my people a prophet like Moses. And it's in the singular, but I think it's probably talking about as a, you know, generically all of the prophets that God would raise up, they would have the same role as Moses.

They would take a message, they would get a message from God to convey it to the people. You wouldn't say that was just referring to Jesus?

No, I think Jesus is the culmination of that. But I think, you know, it's more just talking about the prophets in general, because as you read that passage, you know, it's clear that this is something that will be happening throughout

Israel's history. And then in the New Testament, like in Acts 3 and other places, those passages are applied or that passage is applied to Jesus because he is the ultimate prophet like Moses.

But even in the Old Testament, like with an Elijah or a Jeremiah, the writers often kind of, to me, go to pains to try to say, this is what

God was promising. This is a prophet like Moses. Because Elijah, for example, met

God at Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai, same place that Moses did. When God calls

Jeremiah, Jeremiah says, Hi, Lord God, I don't know how to speak. I'm just a child.

And it's like, oh, I think I've heard someone say that before. So they were trying to present themselves as prophets like Moses.

And throughout the Old Testament, God raises up these prophets that speak to Israel.

Prophecy kind of enters a new dimension when you have Samuel, because now prophets are going to speak to kings.

And we have a lot of these passages where kings and prophets are kind of having these sort of angry confrontations and things like that.

And then when the people and their apostasy has reached a place that God says,

I'm about to send the judgment of exile, then we have more the classical prophets or the writing prophets that come and preach to the people and warn them, look, time's running out, judgment's coming, and it's on the way if you don't repent and get right with God.

Yeah, I'm going through Exodus right now. So it's a lot Moses going to God and God being like, we'll go back to Pharaoh and say this, and this is what's going to happen.

Could you kind of walk me through, at least contextually, how do you think that was happening? Do you think it was like God appearing before him?

Do you think it was like a voice in his head? Do you think it was like a burning bush every time? How logistically did this work?

Yeah, and that's an issue. Some prophets do at times have encounters with God like Moses did at the burning bush.

There's other times when they receive like visions or maybe things are conveyed to them in dreams, but it seems like that they are more, it's just something that God sort of intuitively reveals to them.

I don't think it's necessarily a vision or, you know, it may be a divine voice that they hear, but there's an intuitive sense that the that they've been given, however

God communicates that, is something that's come to them from God and from God's spirit.

But again, we don't always know exactly the process by which that happens and everything.

Of course, yeah. Not all of it's going to be fully understood at that time. I know we're spending a lot of time on prophets, but I'm just so curious.

Do you feel like today there are, if Jesus, well, I guess you don't think he is the main prophet, but like prophets today,

I've encountered a vision from God. I would not call myself a prophet, but it sounds like, you know, becoming a prophet is more of like a set apart, designated gift from God.

How do you feel about like modern day prophets? Do you feel like they exist? Is there like one that you're like, definitely this one or like even distinguishing them from false prophets?

Sorry, that was so many questions. Yeah, I think I'm at times with those types of things open, but cautious.

But I do think that there's a culmination point with the kind of special revelation from prophets that I think, like John the

Baptist is the kind of the culmination of the Old Testament prophets. Hebrew says in these last days,

God has spoken to us by his son, Jesus. And so with Jesus and John the

Baptist and the apostles and the kind of inspired prophecy that they receive from God, I don't think that prophets today fall into that category.

But again, this sort of goes back to what we were just talking about in terms of is the gift of prophecy that, for example,

Paul talks about in his letters, does that involve actual revelation from God or they're receiving, or is it simply, you know, they're empowered by God to preach and proclaim the word of God in a way or something like that?

It does seem that there's some type of revelation or some type of message from God that those types of prophets receive.

But I think in my theology, I would be careful to distinguish that from what we're talking about when we're discussing the biblical prophets.

Yeah, let's talk about that. Because I, again, like prophecy for me is about telling the future, but you would disagree how like prophecy should be more so taken within context of the gifts that were given, of the purpose that they're being told, and also as revealing

God's will, more so giving us a view into the future. Right. Yeah.

And I think this goes back and, you know, we're kind of going back to the Old Testament now, what was the role of a prophet then?

And some of this comes from Fee and Stewart in their book, How to Read the

Bible for All Its Worth, talk about prophecy, and they make this distinction that they say that two -thirds of the preaching of the prophets was simply what they call forth -telling, just telling forth the word of God.

So in other words, preaching a message that God had given to them, and, you know, primarily talking to the people about their relationship with God, their sins, things like their idolatry, their false worship, their social injustice, mistreatment of the poor.

And so most of the preaching of the prophets dealt with that. There was probably like one -third of the prophets preaching would be more what we would talk about as foretelling, or predicting the future, or telling what would happen in the future.

But the statistics they give along with that is that, again, most of that foretelling was actually dealing with things that would happen in their day and in their time.

And so they say, like, there's only 2 % of biblical prophecy that we have in the

Old Testament is messianic. So 2 % that's talking about Jesus. There's 5 % that talks about the

New Covenant era that we're living in today. And so there's like 1 % of what all of the biblical prophets in the

Old Testament are predicting. 1 % of that is still in reference to things that haven't happened yet.

So when we're going to the prophets to try to get these detailed roadmaps or very explicit, like, yeah, this connects up with the things that are happening today.

We're really looking for something that's a very minor part of what the prophets were doing.

So I do think there are predictions, and I think there are things in a very general way that the prophets say about the future.

But even when they're talking about the kingdom of God or last days or future, they give us,

I think what some people would say, the very soft lens kind of focus. They give us a general picture of what things are going to be like, but not ways that we can typically pick up the newspaper and say, oh, this is, yeah, that's what the prophet

Zephaniah was talking about, or he was looking into the future and seeing the... And that's, to be honest, that's the way a lot of popular approaches to prophets, that's the way the prophets are read.

Okay. Yeah. So it sounds like a prophecy is way more contextual as far as like, I always think of Daniel and the crazy last couple of chapters of Daniel and what it's prophesying.

And it's so hard to decipher just in modern terms, but you think of the rise of each kingdom and then the fall and then the dreams, you start to think of like, well, that's our future government.

That's the government that we live in today. And that's going to fall one day, just like Babylon fell. Do you feel like it's obvious or do you think it's just like literally impossible to know which part of those 1 % prophecies are like yet to...

I think the 1 % of the prophecies are generally easy to recognize, but it's more like things, and I'll bracket

Daniel out of the discussion just for a minute. But if you go to passages like Isaiah 2 and look at verses one to four, where Isaiah is saying that in the future day,

Mount Zion will be elevated. It will become the highest mountain on the face of the earth and the nations will stream to Zion and they will learn the ways of the

Lord and follow his ways and those types of things. They're portraying what the future kingdom will be like.

But as you look at that, you notice, yeah, it's very figurative. It's very soft lens.

We don't get a lot of details and specifics. And you have that, I think in these other, like Isaiah 11, the lion is going to lie down with the lamb and the

Messiah, the future king will bring a kingdom of righteousness and peace and justice. But there aren't a lot of like even the specific events that will lead to that or the details of those kinds of things.

So I think we can recognize when they're speaking of like the future or things that are dealing with eschatology.

But part of the way that we distinguish them or see them is that they're very kind of general and generic in their way, in the way that they portray what's happening in the future.

Okay. Okay. I feel like there's a lot of room for error, which to me would terrify me if I was a prophet, that like I would be caught in something that was too generic, you know, kind of like, you know, all encompassing and someone's like, well, you're a false prophet, like that would be worst case scenario.

Well, here's something that makes that even a little more complicated, if it's okay to discuss that.

Absolutely. Sometimes when a prophet was talking about the future, the events that they were describing weren't necessarily set in stone.

So an event that a prophet was announcing this is going to happen in the future, often that was what, this is what

God intends to do. But there was also the possibility that if people responded to the message in the right way, if they repented, if they turned from their sinful ways, if they cried out for God to be merciful to them, if they changed their behavior, then

God wouldn't necessarily send the judgment that he had threatened. So what does that mean?

Oh, no, I'm going to be a false prophet. My batting average just got messed up. But I think people understood in their culture, they understood what a prophet was supposed to do,

I think, better than we do. And so they knew that just because what the prophet said might happen didn't, that didn't necessarily fit the criteria of like, this prophet has to be 100 % accurate.

That seems to relate to things that were more explicitly, like this will happen no matter what, and was more explicitly verifiable and that sort of Got it.

Yeah, I think the example that you just kind of referenced was Jonah, and kind of him going to the

Ninevites and being like, hey, God said he was going to destroy you. But like, God's on his way, he's going to destroy you.

And then they responded, they repented, and then God didn't destroy. So it's not like those people that heard about Jonah's journey was like, hey,

Jonah, sounds like you were wrong, because look at the Ninevites. So that's great. But I do have just a ridiculous question is back then, contextually, historically, were prophets like a pretty common or like a non -shocking type of job?

Like, is it like, oh, my neighbor on the left is a carpenter, and my neighbor on my right is a prophet. And that's his business.

Like, based off what you just said is people took prophecy very seriously, whether or not it came true, they understood that person's role and how that works with God.

Back then, you know, without the internet to talk about it, without like a global sense of community, in those times, how were prophets perceived?

Was it kind of like a very niche group of people? Or was it very commonplace to kind of know and respect that living?

Yeah, I think just in light of how common it is in Israel, I think they recognize that often, of course, there's always a struggle sometimes in recognizing the difference between true and false prophets.

But prophecy wasn't a phenomenon that was exclusive to Israel either.

So we have prophets that are in other ancient Near Eastern cultures as well.

Kind of the ethical dimensions of the prophets or the ways that Israel's prophets would challenge their kings and those kinds of things does seem different from these other, you know, where some of the court prophets, it seems like are basically they're just a sort of cheer on the king and affirm whatever he wants to do and that sort of thing.

But yeah, prophets were a, you know, they were a common phenomenon as part of the ancient

Near Eastern and Israelite religion. And people understood what their roles were. And this is outside of the

Hebrew religion. So like other belief systems had their form of a prophet? Yeah, the

Assyrians and, you know, some of the other ancient Near Eastern people that were exposed to in the Bible, they had their prophets.

And one of the more interesting kind of, I don't know if the word pagan prophet is the right way to use it, but, you know, we have

Balaam, who is a non -Israelite prophet over in the book of Numbers.

And there's a pagan king that tries to hire him to put a curse on the Israelites.

And this guy has, I mean, he has genuine prophetic gifts and supernatural connections in some way.

But the problem is every time he opens his mouth to put a curse on Israel, God sort of overrides that and he ends up pronouncing a blessing.

And in fact, it gives us one of the earliest prophecies about a future great king in Israel in Numbers chapter 24.

And this king is like, hey, this is not what I paid you for. You're talking about how great

Israel would be in the future. But I think it illustrates like there were prophets outside of Israel. And, you know, from what we can tell, there were times when they may have had genuine supernatural occultic or, you know, powers to really tell things that you couldn't just know from the human realm.

Yeah, that is terrifying that it's not even like, oh, because they weren't Hebrew or Christian, like, oh, they're a false prophet.

It's not going to come true, but it's no like, you know, equal forces of like the good Christian prophets are prophesying a good future for Christians, whereas like a more paganistic prophet can still prophesy a future on their paganistic behalf.

It's not like only one of them works, like they both have powers, quote unquote.

Well, and I think sometimes demonic and satanic deception and, you know, we were talking about contemporary prophets and things like that.

I think that's something that we have to be very careful about is that when people are making these kinds of claims and that sort of thing, you know, often their message doesn't even really jibe with what we have in Scripture.

And I think that was one of the things that God really conveyed to Moses is that a prophet who comes along and disagrees or conflicts or calls you to worship other gods or doesn't agree with what

I have already revealed to you, that's one of the ways that you should know that this is a false prophet, someone you shouldn't pay attention to.

That is terrifying. Oh my gosh. I'm not going to lie. Okay.

Well, I want to talk about - But we're thankful the spirit gives us discernment and has given -

Yeah. And he's given us the word to assess and to critique and analyze what these people are claiming and saying.

And I think that's why kind of the finality of Scripture is such an important thing.

We have that, you know, final ultimate standard to judge the claims of, you know, any religious claims by.

Right. Yeah. It's so important to just equip and arm yourself with the armor of God because of these very powerful but negative and opposite forces and authorities and dominions that are designed to be set against us.

And if you're not protecting yourself, you can be easily a victim to it. And like, I'm an idiot. I would fall for a false prophet.

Like, I could fall for, you know, like, there's MLMs that I fall for. Like, I am just human at the end of the day.

So for these things there, someone is predicting the future and has some sort of power behind it, even though it is evil.

How could that not be convincing? Yeah. I think that's where knowing

Scripture and knowing what the truth is and always making sure that no matter what supernatural power or element seems to be behind that message, if it's not in line with what

God has revealed to us in his word, then we know it's counterfeit. And Satan, you know, there are warnings about that.

You know, Satan disguises himself and masquerades as an angel of light. And that was a recurring problem for the people of Israel as well.

There were always the false prophets that were there, either because of their different understanding of the covenant between God and Israel or for purely financial reasons or those kinds of things were always promoting, at times, these false messages.

I'm going to say something and it might be problematic. But would you say that a false prophet is either

A, demonic or B, possessed slash attached to the demonic? I don't know that you can always say that they're demonic in the sense that, but I think their message has that demonic element behind it.

And, you know, if they're trying to deceive and to present a message that's contrary to the truth about Christ and those kinds of things.

So I think there is that demonic element about it. Now, that doesn't mean that every person that claims to be a prophet has supernatural powers from Satan or those kinds of things.

But they are, you know, they're preaching a deceptive message. And I think sometimes the kind of the supernatural deception that's behind all of that may be a reason why people at times seem to be more gullible about, you know, we look at people like, this is obvious that this is a fake or a con artist or that side.

How does that person, you know, win an audience or establish a cult or those kinds of things?

Well, there's definitely that satanic element behind that. Terrifying. Okay. Let's get into the juice.

Okay. Okay. Okay. So I love the environment. I'm sustainable.

My, like I was a hippie once in a past lifetime. So for me being a Christian and caring about the environment,

I started seeing all these changes in climate change and like floods and famines and droughts, and then saying, well, we're clearly in the end times because look at all these horrible things happening.

Maybe just, maybe, I mean, like, I'm not, maybe these are indicators of things that were mentioned in revelation.

And I've got three examples here, but I'm sure there's much more. The first one is revelation 16, where it's talking about the bowls and it's the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river of Euphrates.

And then the water dried up to prepare the way for the Kings release. So for me, it's like, oh, well, climate change, things are drying up.

It's so dry. Look at this in the Bible, it's drying up. So, you know, we are just, this is the, this is an overlap, you know, in the

Bible, it was talking more conceptually, but here it is like the physical manifestation. So to me, when

I read that, it was like, well, this is prophesying the future. Our 2024 language of this is climate change.

But back then it was the end of the world, again, early Christian. This is, but I feel like this is an uncommon belief.

So how would be the proper way to interpret the Bible there? I've read some of a scholar by the name of Rob Dalrymple, who has talked about, you know, the possibility that things related to global warning and climate change may be a part of kind of the end times judgments and things that could be involved in that.

There's a couple of things, if I can share this about Revelation 16, a couple of things that I would want to, you know, just as I'm thinking through how we process this.

And so you can let me know what you think about this, but one of the, when you look at these, the bowl judgments that are in Revelation 16, it's very interesting how many of them parallel the plagues that God brought on the

Egyptians. And so you have the water turning into blood and you have darkness.

And the one with the scorching heat in one place, we don't see that parallel, but a lot of this is,

I think, trying to create some biblical typology for us to where what

John is saying, and John has hundreds of Old Testament allusions in the book of Revelation.

And his imagery is often derived from the Old Testament. I think he's saying that the judgments that God will bring in the future are like the judgments that God brought on the

Egyptians. And now it's not just the judgment of one nation, but now we're talking about the judgment of humanity.

And this is preparing the way for the ultimate deliverance and salvation. So this is going to be the ultimate

Exodus. So before the Exodus, you have the plagues. And so with this one, and there's just a couple of other things that often in the

Bible, the idea of God pouring out his wrath is a common image.

So the idea here of pouring out a bowl is probably figurative rather than literal.

The judgments that God often brings against people in the Old Testament are described as fire and burning judgments and those kinds of things.

So I think we have to be careful reading too much into those details. But I don't think that that means that we should exclude the possibility that things related to climate change or global warming may be part of the final judgment.

I'm just not sure that in these specific texts that I would want to like explicitly interpret them that way.

And I think the interesting thing in this one is that where do we have another example of water being dried up?

Well, that again is the Exodus. So I think this is connected to all of that.

But now at the original Exodus, the water was dried up and then the army was drowned.

But here the drying up the river facilitates this army that's going to march against God and then

God is going to destroy them. So I think there's a lot of Exodus imagery involved in all of this.

And even like this is a judgment that will be even like greater and more awesome than the

Exodus itself. And so, yeah, I think we just have to be careful, understand the theology behind this and the imagery that's related to the

Old Testament. Understand the biblical things that are going on rather than always trying to speculate on what the contemporary significance of that might be.

Is there any like contextual evidence of like how they wrote things out?

Because you would think that if he was saying like, oh, this will be just like Exodus or the Egyptians, he would have said that, right?

Like I hate this margin for wondering. I mean, I'm not expecting the Bible to be written in a way today, 2000 years ago today in a way that I can understand it.

But is that just like the nuances of typology that just go over my head? Well, I think, you know, sometimes they are explicit and they will say, you know, this is that or this is going to be like that.

But I think one thing that helps us is that when you have a preponderance of these, like when you have dozens of references to things that are like, wow, this parallels that, this parallels that.

When you have a preponderance of those kinds of things, even if it's not explicitly stated, like, hey, this is like the

Exodus. There's enough of that there that, you know, you're not just being speculative when you make that connection.

But you're right. They don't always like directly. And sometimes I think, you know, being a reader who's in on, you're kind of in on the insider picture that's being drawn here.

That's part of the enjoyment of being able to read it. It's like, wow, I'm starting to see the depth and the substance of what's there.

And they don't always explicitly connect the dots for us. Yeah. And you have to remember, like these people, they understood their

Hebrew Bibles a lot better than we do. And, you know, especially, you know, just most, uh, everyday, everyday

Christians today that maybe don't, don't read the old Testament all that much. True. That's a good point.

Okay. Next one. This is much more relevant because, uh, the Olympics were recent and people were speculating that like, oh my gosh, it's the end times because there was a horseman that came in.

I think it was like the opening or closing ceremony that everyone's like, this is one of the four horsemen of the

Apocalypse, Revelation six. So again, this is the Olympics, but you know, like symbolism is real.

Like at what point are we like, it's happening? It's happening. That thing that we're afraid of is happening.

They were definitely trying to, uh, to echo some, some biblical imagery and symbolism there.

And I think there was a message behind all of that. But I think when you go back to the, uh, the four horsemen and that, you know, that's always like so ominous.

Um, but I think again, uh, you have to read Revelation, uh, even in, even the book itself in context and, uh, with the, um,

I think it's with the seal judgments that we have the four horsemen and all those kinds of things that's describing more the things that would be happening throughout history and throughout the time when

God was delaying his judgments. And so I take, I take the four horsemen to be more like what

Jesus says, uh, there will be wars and rumors of wars between my first coming and my second coming.

And, and I think that's, I think that's basically what we have in Revelation six as well, throughout history, uh, present, you know, past future, there are always going to be these conquering

Kings and nations. And I think when John is talking about this in Revelation, it certainly would have been the

Roman empire and that sort of thing. And while the Romans are claiming that they're bringing, they're bringing the Pax Romana and, uh, the world is getting better.

And John saying, no, those conquering, those conquering Kings are bringing the things that we see here.

And all of that is going to happen until we get to that sixth seal. And then that's when

God begins to pour out his judgments. Uh, but like in chapter six, you even have a place where like the martyred saints in heaven are saying like, how long

Lord, until you finally intervene, intervene and bring the judgment. So I really think the four horsemen there are, are representing more, these are going to be conditions of, of war and difficulty and opposition to God and God's people.

And, and that's going to be going on. It was going on in John's day. And, and what is happening in John's day is a pattern of what will happen for, for the indefinite future until, until Christ returns.

It's so hard because obviously we don't know when the end of the world is, but I feel like forever people have been like, we are in that day.

We are in that day. It is the end times now, but you're right. Like, I think it's so hopeful for Christians, myself included to, you know, like, what is the horseman?

So when it happens, then I know to really start praying, like, whatever our reason is, it's like,

Oh, it's the end times now because we saw one of the horsemen or that war started or world war three started.

So this is like a signal, but we've been saying this forever. So it's a little difficult. Like they were probably saying this during the cold war.

They were probably saying this during world war one and yet here we still are. So it's hard. I'm old enough to remember, uh, the cold war in the seventies.

I don't think you are, but yeah, they were, you know, Russia and the Soviet union, and this is the end times.

And we've been doing that throughout church history. And I think, you know, two things about that is like when people say, are we living in the end times?

The answer to that question is absolutely. Uh, John says in first John two, like my, my little, this is the last hour we're in the last days, but the last days of the last days have been going on for 2000 years.

And in the book of revelation, when it's talking about these events, I think revelation, when

I grew up, I, you know, grew up in a very kind of dispensational, you know, looking for the, the rapture anytime, uh, kind of thing.

And everything was related to the future. But I think what you have in John are things that were going on in John's day that are a pattern of, of what will happen from, from then until the time of the second coming and the final judgment of God.

And so we just have to be careful, uh, trying to say this proves the end times are here.

The end times have been going on for 2000 years now. Yeah, that is, that is pretty freeing.

I'm not going to lie. I feel like I get caught up in many corners of the internet, but like, especially like the prepper side where they're like, well, the end times are coming and you know, the government's going to become a one world government and that's going to be the antichrist.

And then the symbol of the beast, like all these things that are in revelation we're taking literally. And I think it's really difficult, at least for me,

I'm just going to speak for myself to like wrap my head around that, like all these things are spaced over thousands of years. Right.

And, and, uh, and again, they're not just talking about the future, you know, part of what

John is doing with the book of revelation is that he's trying to give the, uh, the churches and Christians in that day, a frame of reference for what's happening in their, in their lifetime.

And they're encountering, uh, the persecution of Rome and those kinds of things. They're the battle with antichrist and the beast is going on in their day.

And, um, you know, they, they have as much, there's as much danger of them taking the mark of the beast as it is for people that are worried about, you know, getting a tattoo on their head in the future.

I mean, it, it related to what they were going through and the struggles that they were facing with the empire and Satan and his kingdom and all those things in that day.

That that's, that's what Christians are going to be facing throughout the history of the

Christian church. Okay. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Cause the next thing I wanted to talk about was the mark of the beast is on the list there.

So, um, that, because again, like if I'm going to read the Bible, like, Oh sure. That was written on scrolls of like, when, when

Jesus comes down, we'll all see it on a cloud of like, well, obviously cause it'll be on Instagram. It'll be on Tik TOK now that we have cell phones, the mark of the beast.

Yeah. It's probably some sort of AI or chip that Elon Musk is going to come, you know, like immediately find ways that like, well now it's possible.

Whereas like before it wasn't, but for you to say even back at John's day, they were like,

Oh, that's blah, blah, blah, blah. Like that's this, you know, they were finding ways for it to fit into like, it could be tomorrow because the mark of the beast could be this, you know,

Jesus coming down in a cloud. I would see it. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Like if you go back to the first couple of chapters, like the letters to the seven churches, um, the, the big issue in their day was persecution was breaking out and you had groups like the, there's this group called the

Nicolaitans in chapter two that I think were advocating, look, you can be a follower of Jesus and, and, you know, say that Jesus is

Lord. But if you're, if you're hard pressed or you need a, uh, you need a license for your business or you need to get along with your pagan neighbors, you can go to the temple and say,

Caesar is Lord and, you know, offer your, you know, pinch of incense and, and, and for, for them, that allegiance that they were giving to either idols or to the emperor, um, they were, they were, that was for them, that was taking the mark of the beast and, and, you know, their, their businesses, their lives, their livelihood, uh, their, you know, very lives would be threatened maybe if they didn't do that.

So again, it's not just a microchip that, um, you know, might come about in the 20th century.

It's a symbol that is related to something that, you know, is, is

Christians are constantly facing that struggle in, in every generation. Wow. That is, that's pretty freeing.

I'm not going to lie. Just like that. It's not this impending doom that has yet to hit, but it's already hitting. And every day we make a choice not to take the mark of the beast or.

Yeah. Well, it's freeing in one sense, um, frightening in another in that, like this test of our loyalty.

And, and again, uh, Cassie, there's a lot of, uh, there's a, there's a lot of biblical imagery behind this because, you know, one thing

I've never heard people that, you know, Hey, I'm worried about the microchip and that sort of thing. There's also places in Revelation that talk about God putting a seal, uh, on his own people and, uh, the 144 ,000 in Revelation 14, they have the name of the lamb and the name of Yahweh written on their heads.

And I've never like, I've never heard people say, well, I wonder if they're going to get that with a microchip or a tattoo. I think these are, you know, they're spiritual identifying symbols.

It's not necessarily something that you're going to see on your, on your wrist or on your forehead, but God knows who belongs to him and who belongs to his people.

And part of this even goes back to a prophetic text back in the book of Ezekiel, because in Ezekiel chapter nine, uh,

God is getting ready to bring the judgment, you know, when the Babylonians come on Jerusalem and the

Lord, uh, sends out these angels ahead of the judgment. And he says, put a mark, uh, on all of those that moan and sigh and are, you know, lamenting the sin of their people.

And he says, put a, it says the letter T or the letter Tav, which in Ezekiel's day would have been an

X. So put an X on all the people. And those are the people that will be exempted from judgment.

But I don't think that that prophecy literally means that, you know, the next morning, uh, a wife looked over at her husband's like, you got an

X on your head. Where did that come from? I think it's talking about, you know, it's an invisible spiritual symbol.

God knows those that belong to him. And I think that's, that's the background for, uh, the symbol that's put on the, the

Godly people. And, you know, Satan always has his counterfeits. So Satan is going to use that mark, uh, to label those that belong to him.

And those that, uh, denied Jesus and said

Caesar is Lord or followed the gods of the Romans or those kinds of things. They were committing that same kind of apostasy that I think will happen in the future.

You know, whether the final antichrist or man of sin, it's, it's basically the same drama playing out over and over again until God's kingdom comes to earth.

Wow. Oh my gosh, that I'm going to be talking about that for weeks. Thank you. Thank you.

And again, revelation is, is difficult. And even when we talk about revelation and Daniel, uh, you know,

I said a little while ago, I was going to bracket out Daniel. Those books are more apocalyptic, uh, than like the biblical prophets are more, uh, what

I would label prophecy. I would label those books as more like prophetic apocalyptic. And so those books are even more symbolic and more figurative.

And, uh, there's, there's a lot more work that sometimes goes into interpreting them.

And I think part of the problem is, is that we know what the symbols are. And often we know what the symbols represent, like this, uh, you know, the symbols of King, but then where we get in trouble is like, well, we don't know the specific, the

Bible doesn't tell like, what's the referent who is that King? And when we start speculating, oh, it's this person or it's that person, or it's, you know, the, the

European, uh, common market or whatever, whatever we're trying, whenever we start trying to identify those contemporary reference, that's where I think we put our own speculation in the place of what really the word of God maybe is trying to tell us.

Yeah. And that's a difficult game to play as far as playing God and trying to decipher that. Yeah.

And I think we, we end up in many ways discrediting the Bible because the exact thing that you talked about,

I mean, Christians have been doing this from, you know, the very beginning and it's like, yeah, we're in the end times.

This person's the Antichrist or this person is Gog of Magog that the prophet Ezekiel is talking about.

But then, you know, time passes, we realized that that's not. And, you know, when I was, when

I was a kid growing up in the seventies, this, this whole idea that the prophecy is talking about Russia and, uh, the coming war with Russia, and this is the beginning of the end times.

Well, things have changed now. And, um, and, and some of that seems, seems pretty anachronistic.

And, and I think it'd be easy for people that are not believers to look at it and say, man, the

Bible and Christians are crazy, but I think it's Christians that are crazy, not the

Bible sometimes, or the way, the way we read the Bible is, um, you know, lends itself to that kind of thing.

So, I mean, this is blowing my mind and you're smarter than I, so I'll take your word over mine as far as like, this has been happening over time versus the school of thought of like, it has yet to happen.

Mark of the beast is coming in the next 10 years, whatever it is. What is the problem with me not believing you right now?

Like how does this impact my faith? You kind of just touched on it because then it kind of like us making prophecy and then it not coming true discredits our faith.

But what if I, what if I kind of choose to not believe you and essentially say, well, prophecy is telling the future.

What's, what's wrong with that? What, what's at risk for me? Yeah. And I'm not saying that prophecy is not telling the future.

Um, I think less of it is explicitly, just exclusively futuristic.

I, you know, I think this, this, you know, what we're looking at with the mark of the beast, I think there is a final culmination of this and I would see like, you know, a future antichrist or eschatological man of sin or whatever.

So I do think these things are referring to, to future events, but I think I would say, don't bracket out the ways that like this, this had meaning and significance to the original audience as well.

And it's, it's not just a, you know, code language for things that we should be looking out for in the future.

It was, it was trying to encourage them to be faithful as well. And, and I think when we take just an exclusively futuristic reading of these things, we're, we're kind of diminishing the significance that scripture had in its, uh, in kind of its own original setting.

Yeah. That old Bible response of everything in the past and the future is existing at the same time and God's word is everlasting.

And that's just pretty unfathomable for us in a linear time scale of like things haven't happened. They will in the future versus like people in the past were experiencing the same things we're experiencing today.

That's pretty hard to wrap my mind around. Yeah. I think part of this is the way that, um, and, and, you know, going back to the prophets themselves,

I think the concept of fulfillment, uh, when we think of the fulfillment of prophecy, it's a little more complicated and nuanced because I do think you have this idea where we, when we think of fulfillment, we think of someone making a prediction.

And so I predict that the Kansas city chiefs will beat the San Francisco 49ers. And I'm pointing to this one specific event.

I think what's different about biblical prophecy is that they are, I, they are making predictions about the future, but often they're talking about a pattern of things that will happen, you know, near future, distant future, and even the eschatological future.

So like the prophets will talk about the day of the Lord is coming. And so you have a couple like Zephaniah, the day of the

Lord is coming. And it's, you know, we think, Oh, he's talking about the great tribulation period. Well, he's actually talking about the

Babylonian invasion that would take place in a very near future. But then at the end of the book, you know, he's talking about all of the nations are coming and they will assemble against God and God's people.

And so I think like there's sometimes they're talking about something that's near. Sometimes they're talking about something that's far.

And, and I think there's even other times when the pattern may end up playing itself out multiple times because you keep having these, you know, partial fulfillments until finally the people respond to God in the way that they should.

And, and then the full and complete fulfillment comes. Right. Right. Which already my mind is like, well, how will we know it's the final one if it's been happening so often and you know, it's a cycle, like, how will we know that's the antichrist?

But I, again, like I, who am I to like define that? I feel like it's going to be very evident.

I mean, it's God. So who am I to be like, it won't be enough. Yeah. And I think the, the, the challenge is, is that all of this is saying to God's people in every age there, there will be, there will be satanic opposition.

There will be temptations to compromise your commitment and give your loyalties to, to Satan rather than to God.

So be prepared as if this was the, this is the, the end times, even if this is just one more iteration of the same thing, ultimately it, whether it's the end times or just another just another example of the same thing happening again, we're still called to be faithful.

And for us in our, in our context and setting, it's, it's no different in terms of the call to be faithful then as it will be for people that are living during the time of the future antichrist or, you know, whatever that might look like.

Yeah. We've talked a lot about like knowing the context of this and me starting this podcast with somebody that struggled with that specifically of knowing the context of reading.

So it was always confusing. How do you recommend any Bible reader, you know, just coming out of church on a

Sunday, opening their Bible, what would be the best advice to them to understand the context of a prophecy so they don't read prophecy wrong?

Yeah. I think there, there are some really good resources for doing this kind of thing and giving the background of any basic old

Testament survey or old Testament introduction. There are things like, you know,

I was involved with the Baker Bible dictionary, I'm sorry, Baker Bible background commentary that will comment on, you know, the, the content.

And, and I think just understanding the context of that and in the old Testament, knowing how like the prophet

Isaiah relates to the historical books, you know, what's going on during the time of the king.

So if you can read, there, there are chronological Bibles and things like that. If you can read the historical books and what was happening, like in the book of Kings and, and see how that fits with, you know, what was happening in the day of Isaiah or Jeremiah.

There's chronological Bibles? Yeah. And there are even, you know, some of your

Bible reading plans, there'll be a chronological Bible reading plan that helps you to do that.

So you'll read, you'll read the section from Kings in second Kings, you know, 16 to 19, and then you'll go over and read prophecies in the book of Isaiah that are related to that.

That's, that's really helpful. That is really helpful. Where would I find that? Yeah. Well there, yeah.

Google chronological Bible reading plan. And I think you'll find those.

I don't even need this podcast anymore. See ya. Yeah. You definitely don't need, you definitely don't need guys like me to help with all that stuff.

But that's incredibly helpful to know. Truly something I didn't know existed. Cause to me, I need it to be chronological to make sense.

Kind of like, was this during the Egyptians? Was this during the Romans? Like what is going on beyond just the story of the

Bible to kind of help me get a grasp of what was going on in the world. But that is so helpful. Okay. Anything else?

So any other tips that you had in your back pocket as far as understanding context? I think,

I think that's, those are the main things, just surveys, commentaries, and especially things like, you know,

Bible background commentaries and things like that are very helpful. If, if that's, if that's what you're looking for is just historical context and setting.

Absolutely. And I think some of the points that are the most valuable that you brought to this conversation, Dr. Gates, is that these things that we are afraid of impending doom and happening in the future have been already happening in the context of each person's lifetime and that they will continue to keep happening.

And that for the micro ones that aren't so, you know, revolution -esque in the future, that happened within that lifetime in that context.

So I think it's really dangerous when we take scripture out of context and we start applying to it like it is the future prediction.

But I think you've made a very clear argument that a lot of this is contextual and very few is in the future, but even that is just an ongoing relationship with God that will protect us against those other false prophets and dominions that are out against us.

Well, I think prophecy is not designed to give us, you know, all the details about the future or to give us, you know, things that we can make a chart of all of it.

It's largely to encourage us to be faithful. It's kind of like, especially with some of these apocalyptic things, it's like we're on the winning team.

So if my favorite team, if I, you know, know the final score before I watch, if I watch the video

I've recorded, somebody always tips you off and tells you the score when you're not wanting to know it. But when you know ahead of time that your team wins, you don't get, you're not upset if they're losing by two touchdowns at halftime or something.

It's like, I know the outcome. And I think for the people in books like Daniel and Revelation were written to people that were going through times of intense persecution.

And part of that was to say in the end, ultimately God's people win. And also there's an ultimate reality.

There's a supernatural realm. There's a kingdom of God that's coming that will supplant the realities of this world.

You need to keep your eyes and your mind focused on that. And that will ultimately encourage you to persevere and stay faithful.

That is such a good point to end on. So encouraging. Okay. Well, this was incredibly enlightening.

I truly cannot thank you for how much knowledge that you just shed on this previously confusing topic. How else can people get connected with you?

I know that you have a couple of websites that you're building. Do you have any more books that are coming out, any speaking engagements? How can we plug you?

Yeah. I mean, our church has started to work on a living WordPress is the name of our, we're just doing some podcasts and interviews.

And like, so I have that. I have an old Testament survey with BNH that will be coming out in June.

It's called Approaching the Old Testament. And if you, I've got some videos on the prophets of biblical e -learning.

I have a series of 30 lectures on the book of Jeremiah and 30 lectures on the minor prophets.

And if anybody's interested in looking at those and, you know, if you can't find that, feel free to contact me and email me.

And I'd be happy to, I'm always trying to, you know, Hey, four people listen to this instead of three.

So this is a, I'm making progress or something like that. I'll link your website in the show notes for anybody with ease of access.

And if you don't mind, I can also include your email and phone number in that as well. If works coming out.

I mentioned the book that we're working on, on Moses and, but that's not coming out until 2027, 2028.

So that's something that's in process. So working on it now. Yeah. I don't think,

I don't think it's on Amazon yet or anything. So that's so exciting. Any other things that you just want to promote that are, that are coming up?

No, I can't. I those, those were the main things that I wanted to mention. And, you know, if I could say one more thing,

I don't want to, you know, I think partly I would, I would just want to encourage people that are

Christians to read the prophets. And, and partly, I think when we get so fixated on all the things about the end times that we forget, like, man, these, these books teach us so much about the character of God and the greatness of God and the sins of the people in that day, you know, how our idolatry matches theirs or how our love for things other than God is very much like what was happening with Israel.

We struggle with idolatry. We struggle with loving our neighbors and loving the poor and taking care.

So when, when we get so fixated on the future, I think we forget like the practical applications of things that we should be living out by reading these books.

And to me, the greatest, the greatest impact that the prophets have on you, so if you read these books and really pay attention to what's there, it will change the way that you look at God himself, and it will enlarge your view of God.

And that's the most practical, important thing that I think could ever happen for us anytime that we're engaged in That's a powerful message.

Okay. Well, thank you for the encouragement. Thank you for your time and just sharing your wealth of knowledge. You're always welcome back on the show.

And hopefully we talk about Moses next because that's where I'm at right now. And there's so much to learn from him, but thank you so much for coming on the show.

I really appreciate it. Thank you. I'm, I'm, I'm honored that you invited me. And again, really appreciate that very much.