Prophecy Part 2

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. Well, in this second session, we'll want to pick up kind of where we left off earlier All of these are things that I had in mind when I was planning to just introduce some of the terms that are used in discussing eschatology and so on. [00:00:32] But before I do that, I would like for us just, and this is unapologetic because nothing I can say will hold a candle, as it were, to what the Bible says. But I'd like for you to turn with me to Revelation 21. Remember of the five things that I said prophecy does, or the purposes for prophecy in scripture. One of those is that it gives substance to our hope. [00:01:06] Now not a lot of detail is in this passage about the eternal cosmos that is to be. But I keep running into this a lot with young people in Bible Institute settings, young adults That the concept of eternity is really quite fuzzy It's quite ethereal, it doesn't have a whole lot of substance [00:01:37] And the term most often used is simply heaven You know, we're going to spend eternity in heaven. And if that's true, then we're already also spending our temporal life in heaven. In this, we're a part of the heavens and the earth as they are now. But just note what is said here in the first several verses. Follow as I read Revelation 21. [00:02:09] John speaking now says, I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. Now, let me stop there and say that heaven here could not refer to the dwelling place of God. That certainly won't pass away. [00:02:41] He must be talking about the cosmos as we know it now. The heavens and the earth. Have you read some of the scientific observations of our present cosmos? If you go out on a summer night when it's clear, well I don't know about eastern Pennsylvania, do you have so many lights you can't see the stars? I know that in some countries where there isn't much light, the heavens are a lot more glorious. [00:03:17] but if you go out in the middle of the summer and look straight up you'll see what looks like an explosion and it is it's a supernova and it is 2,000 light years away so what we're seeing now All is about what was reality at the time of Christ. [00:03:50] And they're quite sure that by now it is possibly, at least, burned out. May not even be emitting much light anymore. But we're still seeing it. Awesome. The vastness of our heavens, which raises the question, what is beyond space? Is there a brick wall out there somewhere? [00:04:24] It would have to be blue or black. Black. And then you'd have to ask the question, what's beyond the brick wall? We have mind-boggling things like that, but here it tells us John saw the new heaven and the new earth And the earth didn't have seas, oceans And I, John, saw the holy city [00:04:55] The new Jerusalem Coming down from God out of heaven apparently the dwelling place of God prepared as the bride adorned for her husband and there you begin to think this may be an allegory of the church and I heard a great voice out of heaven saying behold the tabernacle of God the dwelling place of God [00:05:27] is with men and he will dwell, be at home with them and they shall be his people and God himself shall be with them and be their God and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying [00:05:57] and neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away and he that sat upon the throne said behold I make all things new and he said to me write for these words are truth and trustworthy faithful, true and faithful And I am Alpha and Omega, without a doubt the Lord Jesus himself, the beginning and the end [00:06:33] And I will give unto him that is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely And he that overcomes shall inherit all things And I will be his God and he shall be my son And then that awful, terrible contrast But the fearful, the unbelieving, the abominable, murderers, whoremongers, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars [00:07:12] Shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone Which is the second death He that overcomes will inherit all things. Isn't that amazing? I don't know how it is here in eastern Pennsylvania among our people, but I have been in communities where, and including our own, where parents died and left a very substantial estate. [00:07:53] and then the children got the fussing over it. And here it says someday we're going to inherit all things. Because when we are in the next dimension nobody will be greedy. I like what one person said one time. He gets excited when he thinks about the next dimension. The eternal ages because at that point everyone else is going to be as nice as I am [00:08:28] When we're at our best of course and even then better So nobody will be greedy There won't be titles We will just all together with the Lord Jesus inherit the new heavens and the new earth and it will make some of the most wonderful homes that man builds now and you have some dandies out here, we do in our area too [00:09:00] I think the richest man in Columbus a few years ago built a new house some years ago, 27 million dollars and he wasn't even married yet Then he married a German girl, he was 40 years old, and he married a German girl, and they had French chefs, a French company, cater the reception for 400 guests, and it cost some over $400 a plate at that reception. [00:09:45] But he will look like a pauper compared to what we're going to have. Have you got goosebumps? Think about it. That's what's coming. Well, let's get acquainted with some of the terms that are used when we talk about eschatology. Terms and definitions of them. I have not written the terms down, or the definitions down on the transparency. But prophecy has, in scriptural usage, has two basic meanings [00:10:22] And one is to foretell, meaning like preaching and teaching There's a sense in which this morning and now I'm doing prophecy in this that I am foretelling I'm telling truth and so on That's prophecy but prophecy spelled the same way is also a reference to foretelling to actually declare something to happen in the future that has not as yet happened [00:10:57] that's foretelling and our concern in talking about prophecy and eschatology specifically Focuses primarily on the foretelling kind of prophecy The things that scripture has recorded, spoken by man, in many cases by God in the first person through man Where many of the prophets spoke for the Lord in the first person [00:11:28] You know, like what I quoted this morning from Isaiah 11 Where the Lord said, I will set my hand again the second time to gather to this first of Israel from the four quadrants of the earth. That's God speaking in the first person. and non-eschatologically you have Ezekiel and Jeremiah and a few others recording for the Lord a variation of this particular statement you will seek me and find me when you seek for me with all your heart [00:12:03] Which means basically that our quest for God must be the primary quest of our lives Or we'll miss Him That's scary if you think about it I don't believe that God meant by that that we cannot have other interests And like when I was courting Mary Jane way back, you know, soon after the flood When I was courting her, she was a pretty important part of my life. [00:12:39] Of course, not since, but yeah, she still is. I don't think the Lord means that I should not hold Mary Jane as a high priority of my life. But even Mary Jane has to be second to the Lord. we will find the Lord when he is the priority of our lives God speaking foretelling [00:13:09] in that case that's a prophetic statement it will happen only when we make him first priority the term eschatology whenever you see ology on a word it simply means in its root meaning it means the study of and the study of last things Escha is a short of a word that basically means last things. So it's the study of last things or end time things. Ology also has come to mean one's position or a position regarding. [00:13:45] Like I could say to you, what is your eschatology? Are you premillennial, amillennial, postmillennial, or panmillennial? You just think everything's going to pan out all right, and it will. but that can mean also one's position regarding then you have this word apocalyptic which is sometimes used of events like the big cyclone in Myanmar [00:14:15] former Burma and also the terrible earthquake in China sometimes you'll see even in the newspaper you'll see events of that magnitude referred to as apocalyptic events and it has the idea of a very cataclysmic, very outstanding and usually a very altering event something that is so big that it really changes the scene in which it happens [00:14:51] in this case the world in which it happens so apocalyptic literature has to do with like some of the things prophesied by Daniel, Ezekiel and then the most apocalyptic scripture or passage or book would be the book of Revelation this word parousia it actually means something about well let me double check that I just did so earlier and then I thought I could remember it easily and now I'm wondering if I'm going to get Perugia and this other one mixed up a bit. [00:15:32] But the idea of Perugia would be, again, the gathering up of loose ends or the end of all things, that sort of meaning, if I can find my own notes to myself here after a bit. But, forgive me, just a bit of looking here. Yeah, I did have it mixed up, but the pneuma is the next one having to do with the gathering together of all things. [00:16:07] Perugia is more the idea of the presence of, the literal presence of the returning Christ and so it has the idea of the coming presence because now we have by his Holy Spirit the presence of the Lord and all of us as Christians I'm sure have at times had very definite experiences This is where we just knew the Lord was there, right? [00:16:39] You've had those kinds of things happen to you? Goosebump territory, if you please. That kind of experience of the presence of the Lord, and yet it's not the literal presence like it's going to be when we actually see the Lord. And the Bible says, every eye shall see Him. Every eye shall see Him. That's one of those prophetic scriptures that is very, very to the point, very literal. [00:17:13] Every eye shall see him. I'm not sure how you would try to explain that away in any kind of figurative or allegorical way. Just that's the way it is. Every eye is going to see him and every knee is going to bow before the Lord Jesus and every tongue is going to confess that he is Lord. That's just the way it is. That's the way it's going to be. [00:17:45] Denouma, which is the word that you see the E-N-T there is, or the M-T is not pronounced. It's actually a Greek word with some French involvement there. I think in its etymology it was first used among the French theologians way back. But denouement has the idea of the gathering in of the last events and so on, and the final end to everything, the final unraveling, [00:18:27] The final outcome, the final way things will be in the end of things Now those we don't use as much, Perugia, Enuma, Denuma, and even Apocalyptic However, these terms here, premillennialism, has also been called millennialism or millenarianism in history For a good period of time, it was actually, the favored term was simply millenarian, if a person was premillennial as we would say it today, he was a millenarian, or the position was millennialism, or even earlier, prior to the 5th century, prior to Augustine or Augustine, whichever pronunciation you prefer, [00:19:22] He is a 5th century writer. He did most of his writings in the first 30 years of the 400s, the 5th century. Died in 432. He is actually considered the father of Catholic theology, Roman Catholic theology. He wasn't as Catholics as the Catholics have become since then, if you know what I mean, using the term Catholic now of the Roman Catholic Church, as we know it. [00:19:56] But he did write a lot of things that are basic dogma with Catholicism, with which we could not agree, and we wonder where he got them. but he referred to Kiliasts and in his book The City of God where he articulates his view of history unfolding in the millennial era, the church era He said that in the first nine years after his conversion, and he was 31, 32 when he was saved, he was in a Greek family. [00:20:38] His mother had gotten saved earlier, and in fact I think she was half Jewish, but became a Christian and prayed for her children, specifically for her son, Augustine. And he was miraculously, it appears, he actually heard a voice from God, was miraculously saved in his early thirties and then he said for nine years he embraced the eschatology of Kiliasm. [00:21:11] Kiliasm Relieved in Gileasm which would be Millenialism, synonym to Premillennial [00:21:49] today or then after Augustine, it was either Millenarian or Millennialism But we now have come to use the term for some generation actually Pre-millennialism. Now, one of the things you should note is that the early church did not really, when the early writers wrote, and I think I've read about everything that's been translated into English. [00:22:25] I waded through the Antonicene Fathers years back and occasionally refer to them now yet and look things up but they would have in many cases spoken of Kiliasm positively and would have identified themselves in many cases as being Kiliasts And that basically means, for those of you who have not really done a whole lot of study in this area [00:22:57] Premillennialists, even if you leave the pre off, a millennialist or a premillennialist Believes that we are living now prior to a literal thousand year reign of Christ That there will be a literal kingdom of Christ on earth before the eternal ages That's the premillennial view, that's the Kiliast view However, I did not find anything [00:23:30] I have asked a number of people who are more educated in history than I And I have not found from any of them that any of the early writers would have declared themselves as believing in a pre-tribulation rapture of the church. And the term rapture again is not a biblical term but a biblical concept taken from 2 Thessalonians where he says that we will, the dead in Christ will rise first and we who are alive and remain at the coming of the Lord [00:24:07] will be changed in a moment at the twinkling of an eye and so on. And we will be forever with the Lord. That concept, the taking out of the dead in Christ in their resurrection and the change from mortality to immortality of the living saints, that will happen prior to the seven years of tribulation. or some believe it's in the middle of the tribulation [00:24:38] three and a half years of tribulation and then the rapture of the church and then three and a half more years of tribulation then there are the post-tribbers those who believe it will happen after the seven years of tribulation the difficulty is, let's just be honest about it The difficulty is, who can finally decide when the seven years start? That's going to be difficult. There are some possibilities as to how we would determine that by the unveiling of who the Antichrist is, but as many differences of opinion as there have been about that, that would be an uncertainty. [00:25:26] The wildest idea I ever ran into was not from a Mennonite but a Methodist pastor in Germany Near Augsburg, Germany I was sitting next to a Methodist pastor after a service in the morning And we had lunch, some of us had lunch there together And he and I were sitting next to each other And I'm a bit limited in German, quite a bit actually But I can converse in German But anyway, we were conversing and he did not know English so it had to be in German. But this would have been not too long after Jimmy Carter was elected president here in America. And we got to talking about eschatology and he was very clearly a premillennialist and kind of a, well he had a lot of liberty to conjecture about what's going to happen in the future. [00:26:21] He took more liberty with it than I could feel comfortable with. But he said, do any of the Christians in America think that maybe Jimmy Carter is to be the Antichrist? I had never heard such a thing. And I said, no, I've never heard that. What would make you think that? He said, well, we think here in Germany that Hitler was a bit of a precursor to the Antichrist. and some of those in the confessing church thought he may be the Antichrist [00:26:55] but now that we know Hitler wasn't the Antichrist Carter is starting out like Hitler did as a professed friend of Christians and the church and maybe he'll wind up being a dictator and wind up being the Antichrist I said I'm not really sure of any of that I would not identify him as such and I did something I had to repent of I said I'm not even sure he's a very good peanut farmer let alone president [00:27:28] as well as being the antichrist I said I don't see those kinds of gifts in this man at all but we've had all those kinds of conjectures that's about the wildest one I've heard but we've had all those kinds of conjectures And I have frequently been asked if I'm a pre-tribber, a mid-tribber, or a post-tribber. Meaning, do I believe the church will be taken out before, middle, or after the seven years of tribulation foretold? [00:28:05] And I say, I am by preference and by my understanding of the scriptures, I am a pre-tribber. I really think the church will be taken out before the actual seven years of tribulation. But should it not happen then, I will hold out for mid-trib. But then if it doesn't happen then, I'll submit to post-trib if I'm still living [00:28:38] If I'm of course going to be in that era Who knows? We don't know those times And when people go to setting dates Some of you are old enough to remember 1988, right? 88 reasons why the Lord's coming back in the fall of 88 Well, I saw the video of a televised interview with him. Immediately the red flags had gone up when some of our people read parts or not just parts, all of that book. [00:29:12] Got all excited about it. Then I got the book and I browsed through it and I had red flags galore. And I kept thinking that the Lord himself said no one knows. Well, he answered that by saying, he doesn't know the day or the hour, but it's going to be during the Feast of Tabernacles in the year of 1988. And the interviewer on the television program that an alumnus from Rosedale had sent me, the interviewer asked him, [00:29:46] What if we are still here in November of 88? And this was in the summer of 88. What if we are still here come this November? And he had the gall to say, If we are still here in November, the Bible is not true. And I said, I want our people to see that and hear that. [00:30:19] So we did a very unusual thing. We rented a TV video monitor and video player and I urged at least all the men to be at a service. And I played that video and I said, that is placing his interpretation and his calculations at such a high level [00:30:49] that if he missed it, the Bible is untrustworthy. The gall of that is the distraction from truth. And I do not put a lot of stock in strong arguments one way or the other on this one. We have not gone through the end time tribulation of which Jesus spoke when he said that that will be a time like never before or never again in all of history. [00:31:23] And if it happened, as some would say, in AD 70 and immediately following, when Israel went through a really tough time, but it did not include much of the church, it did some. If it happened then, at the very outset of the projections of how many people died at the hands of the Romans in the AD 70 era, when Jerusalem was destroyed and so on, terrible time, but several hundred thousand is the highest projected number of people who could have died and many think it was much lower than that. [00:32:11] How many died under Hitler? Many, many more. How many died under the influence of the philosophies of Nietzsche? And, well, Nietzsche's philosophies led to Hitler's political philosophy. And then you had communism. Not Christian communism, but dialectical communism. That gave birth to the Communist Party that took over Russia and then China and some other countries. But those two countries alone and the influence of communist, dialectical communist philosophy and Hitler's philosophy in the 20th century, historians would say on a moderate projection of deaths [00:33:10] The difference caused by those two philosophies is somewhere around 54 million people. It's just staggering. And yet, there seems to be a rather clear projection by prophecy in Revelation that a third of the world's population will die in the seven years of tribulation. [00:33:45] And should that happen soon, that would be two billion people. And Jesus said, it will be a time like never was before, nor ever again shall be. Now, amillennialism and postmillennialism, and there aren't too many postmillennialists anymore because the premise of postmillennialism is basically this, [00:34:20] that the millennium will come at the end of the Christian era, but it will just go on and on and on and what will happen is that the Christian influence in the world will become so pervasive that it will bring in a utopian era that will last for an indefinite period of time. Very optimistic when they thought that knowledge and science and all of that would finally usher in this utopian age. [00:34:54] And it was very popular toward the end of the 19th century and the first third of the 20th century, but it had a rather ignominious death for the most part when you reflect on the 20th century, which has the explosion, that's the 1900s, The 20th century had the greatest explosion of knowledge and technology of any century. We're now in the 21st, and if we live through a whole hundred years, it'll probably outdo the 20th. [00:35:33] But up until now, the 20th century's explosion of knowledge, the accumulated knowledge of man, and the explosion of technology is so much greater than any other century to where some would say that all of time prior to, all of human history prior to 19, pardon me, 18, no I'm sorry, 1900, prior to 1900, all of the accumulated knowledge and technology prior to that [00:36:10] does not equal what happened from 1900 to 2000. My generation's century, really. I'm getting a little glimpse into this one. but that century where the utopia should have been happening had more examples of the inhumanity of man to man [00:36:43] than any previous century. We killed more of each other than any previous century. The post-millennial concept just looks absurd and very few people hold it anymore, at least comparatively. Amillennialism, the A on millennialism is the same as the A on theism. [00:37:13] An atheist does not believe in God, a theist does. You and I are theists, not that we are theists in the sense that we believe God created men with fruit, but we believe God exists. Theism is the idea that God does exist but doesn't involve himself. But we are theists, meaning we believe in God, and atheists do not believe in God. Well, millennialists do not believe, amillennialists, I mean, do not believe in a literal millennium. [00:37:52] Amillennialists believe that we are presently in an allegorical, figurative, millennial age. This is the millennium. In the church age, we have seen the coming of Christ, of course, and the teaching, the death of Christ, and all of that. [00:38:23] and then we have the actual birth of the church in the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Now Augustine, when he wrote in the 4th century, he said this. He said the church prior to Constantine. Constantine was the 4th century emperor who embraced Christianity at least intellectually [00:38:55] and Christianity became the official religion of the western world in his and right after his rule but he set wheels in motion for the west to become a Christendom, a Christian kingdom And in that, Augustine writing about a hundred years after Constantine said this, that when the church was in her infancy [00:39:27] she could only invite people in but now that she is of full age she can now compel those who will not respond to the invitation and so they actually used force to bring people into the church and the catholic church although many now will recognize that it was a very dark thing and very very ill advised but the catholic church thinking they did God's service [00:40:03] would actually take babies from Jewish parents and baptize them and by that feel like they had assured that those babies could make it to heaven. But if that baby grew up to be a devout Jew and would not embrace Christianity, they persecuted him as an adult. But even then, later at least, they taught that after he died, he had to go to purgatory until he had made satisfaction for his rejection of the faith that was placed in him when he was baptized. [00:40:37] Anabaptized by a duly ordained priest that made him Christian whether he ever embraced Christianity or not. And so it would be a long time in purgatory before he could go to heaven. That's Catholic dogma yet to this day. They're not very vocal about it because it's so objectionable to evangelicals and they want to be very much involved in bringing things together in an ecumenical way. biblical movement but that's still their dogma today and constant pardon me Augustine [00:41:14] while for nine years he was a millenarian or Achilles whichever term you want to use he believed there would be a literal kingdom of Christ after the church age on earth changed his He opened his mind and said that he really believes that the Christian church will finally fulfill Isaiah's prophecy when he said that you will no longer say to your neighbor, know the Lord, that's evangelism, for everyone will know the Lord from the least to the greatest. [00:41:57] and in the 5th century, the 400s, after Augustine and even during his lifetime the church really thought that by baptizing babies and making them Christian and keeping on converting any of the intellectuals, the aristocracy that wasn't yet Christian that finally everyone would be Christian and the millennial prophecy would be fulfilled in the age of the church [00:42:32] but what they didn't know and Augustine died before he could see that so in fairness to Augustine he does not have our perspective we say now and it's very obvious if we look back over history that the marriage of church and state under Constantine was a very negative thing and the church became very politically involved and very corrupt and very powerful and very wealthy but they never got everyone into it [00:43:12] plus by the time they had a majority you have to wonder how many of them even knew the Lord including the clergy and so it didn't pan out but amillennialism meaning a figurative allegorical interpretation of prophetic scriptures specifically as it relates to the millennium [00:43:42] were interpreted to be the church age I want you now just to go with me briefly To Revelation and chapter 20, I want you just to see that kind of in fresh rehearsal, where he talks about the millennial age, and there is a progression in Revelation of this whole process of redemption, redeeming the individual from lostness is over against the final and ultimate redemption of the whole cosmos. [00:44:19] and Paul talked in Romans about the cosmos sharing with man the lostness, the effect of the curse. The whole creation groans and travails even until now, he said, waiting for the adoption, that is the redemption that God has planned. If you're with me in Revelation 20, it says that John says he saw an angel come down from heaven having a key to the bottomless pit. [00:44:53] And there's only one place that a pit can be bottomless and that is in the core of a sphere that has gravity. So it's either the core of the earth And man has not devised a way To drill down far enough With all of our technology We can't go there So it could be the core of the earth [00:45:26] It could be another sphere if God so wanted it I think it's the core of the earth And early fathers thought that So I'll stand with them at this point. But anyway, this angel, probably Michael, had the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. I remember J.C. Wenger asking me, he said, Walter, what do you think that chain was made of? Because see, he had the allegorical view and I had the... [00:45:57] It's not in the scriptures, so let's not put it there when it's not really discussed there. Now, this whole thing about allegorical and literal interpretation, I want us to have a bit more understanding of that. And so, let me just make a few comments about it. In the allegorical or amillennial view, what you have is every reference to things like Revelation 20, and so on that sound very literally like a kingdom to follow the church age [00:46:32] every such reference is given an allegorical application to the church now and what I read in Revelation 20 about the new Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven I've heard Amillennialists explain that as being a vision of the birth of the church The Church is the Bride of Christ. And so the New Jerusalem is the Church. [00:47:04] He's talking about an allegorical vision of the birth of the Church in Revelation 21. And so, you know, that's the allegorical way of looking at it, and then the more literal way. And I take some comfort in this, and I'm not alone in making this observation, that the overwhelming majority of the early church fathers from the time of the death of John the Apostle in 96 or 7 [00:47:37] from that time right up to the time of Constantine those Antonizine writers whose writings were still available and they've been translated into English And that's a series of books on my bookshelf about that long. Nine volumes, I think, in the Antonicene Fathers. It is very clear that an overwhelming majority of them were literalists. They did believe in a literal reign of Christ. [00:48:13] That is without real controversy. Now they did start in the 3rd century in Egypt at the school at Alexandria they did start allegorizing already before Constantine so there was amillennialism but there was a lot of other really deep, errant, deviant allegorizing as well [00:48:44] that we would have really big problems with. And so you can find antinicene fathers before Nicaea, 325. You can find antinicene fathers who were amillennial, allegorical. But the majority, and all of the earlier ones that I know of, were more literalistic. And I would just remind you of something, as I have done numbers of times in conversations with people, Again, I'm referring to a devotional, a chapel address at Rosedale [00:49:23] where the ascension of Christ was the focus and he just briefly in passing referred to what the disciples said to Jesus this is now the glorified Jesus after the resurrection led them out on the Mount of Olives outside of Jerusalem looking down over the city if you've been there you can know about where they were and then the disciples said to him [00:49:54] Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom? What was Jesus' answer? Yeah, not for you to know that time but you go and wait in Jerusalem until you receive power from on high and then you'll be my witnesses he did not say and here's where I had a little fun the speaker that morning, an Amillennialist [00:50:27] he was a saved one don't get me wrong he was not a liberal theologically he was a saved brother But he said, the disciples had it all wrong. They misunderstood the kingdom entirely. And afterward I said to him, I appreciate the chapel, but I have a question. If Jesus would have felt about the disciples' mistake in understanding the kingdom like you feel, [00:51:05] You said they just did not understand the kingdom Well, they didn't, he said I said, yeah, but he never addressed that In fact, he gave it credence by saying it's not for you to know when that's going to happen Now, that's not exactly how he said it but it's not for you to know the times and seasons So he inferred, did he not infer? that it's not for you to know when that's going to happen But your job is to go back to Jerusalem and wait till you receive the Holy Spirit [00:51:40] and then go out and turn the world upside down, right side up. But you know what I'm saying. But for you to know the time and seasons, no, that's not giving you. And he had said to Daniel, seal up the book. and in the time of the end I think he's implying there it will be understood it may be beyond our time I'm not sure [00:52:10] let me share with you now if I can do it in the next 12 or 15 minutes so that we have a reasonable length of time here this is kind of a bad time of day, isn't it? a few of you look just a little glassy-eyed and I understand that Your lazy boys are beckoning at home and your tummy is full of good Mennonite cooking and all of that. I want to share with you some of the basic prophecies that focus the eschatological differences between amillennialism, the allegorical view, and premillennialism, the more literalist view. [00:52:50] Nebuchadnezzar's image taken from Daniel 2 and then you later have Daniel's own visions of four beasts that represent kingdoms but we'll talk about that a bit this evening we'll not have time I don't think for that today as it's afternoon but you also have the 70 weeks that Daniel was given and Daniel was given a lot more detail than any other Old Testament prophet when it comes to events of the future. [00:53:26] And he was told that there are 70 weeks determined on your people. If I have time, I'll discuss that some this evening. I'm not sure about the time factor, though, for other things. But the image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream as revealed to Daniel and then interpreted by the Lord through Daniel is one of those factors that really focuses the difference between the allegorical and the literal [00:53:59] as does the 70 weeks thing and then end time universalism or globalism as it's discussed both in 2 Thessalonians 2 and Revelation 13 We really don't have time, yet we really ought to take time for a little bit of, just very quickly, let's go to 1 Thessalonians and in chapter, no pardon me, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. [00:54:30] Let me just point out something very quickly there. In 2 Thessalonians 2, you have a clear reference to the future that is really quite scary. He's saying to them, first verse, I beg you, brothers, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto him, sounds like the rapture, doesn't it? that you be not soon shaken in mind or troubled neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us [00:55:08] meaning false letters that the day of Christ is at hand the Greek I'm told gives you more the idea is just right upon us so he was saying in that second generation of Christianity The day of the Lord is not just right upon us. Let no man deceive you by any means, for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. [00:55:54] Remember you not that when I was with you I told you these things? And now you know that what withholds or restrains that he might be revealed in his time Then he goes on to say the mystery of lawlessness, iniquity, is already at work Only he who now allows will do so until he is taken out of the way Whether that's a reference to the church or to the Holy Spirit, I don't know, or for sure what it is [00:56:29] But then this statement, verse 8 Then shall that wicked one, that's the Greek, wicked is capitalized in King James One is left out, it should be there The wicked one, amen, will be revealed whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. Even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders [00:57:02] and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them who are perishing, the Greek text, because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved and so on. It's a scary concept there. If we don't receive the love of the truth, we are open to deception. That's what he's saying. Here he is talking about an end time ruler. Talk about globalism. That is a big, big factor right now. [00:57:37] And in a very short time, we could have global government, global money, global economy, and all that. Another thing that really focuses, another passage is in 1 Thessalonians 4, and I didn't go to Revelation 13. And there you have even more detail about the Antichrist and the false prophet, the religious ruler. [00:58:11] But this is an interesting one. I ran into something in Florida, and I do occasionally go down there, Ernie, for a little while. So I haven't shuffled yet. I've kept away from that sin. But, no, I'm just kidding. And I didn't waste, I don't waste time down there. It's usually a bit R&R and some work that I've taken along. But in any case, I ran into a Mennonite brother there who is a mechanic, and I had to have some work done on one of our vehicles several years back, and he was telling me that a monk from up at Tampa had transmission trouble with the monastery's car there in Sarasota, and wound up at his place. [00:58:59] Someone sent him there to get his transmission fixed and he couldn't fix it that day and so he said, what can I do for you? He said, I can't get to it until tomorrow, it was toward evening. Well, he said, I really need to get back to the monastery tonight up at Tampa. How can I get there? And Elmer said, well, just give me about an hour and I'm going to close shop and I'll take you there. So he got into the car with Elmer, a good Mennonite brother, and was thinking, I'm going to have an hour to talk to a Catholic monk. [00:59:39] I'm going to find out where this guy is. And so he asked him. On the way up, they shared a bit of introduction to each other, and then Elmer said, tell me, as a Catholic and as a monk, He probably will be able to identify the Antichrist, if not the Antichrist, the false prophet, because he said, I think the next pope will be the false prophet. Elmer said, I was so shocked I almost wrecked. [01:00:15] I couldn't believe that a Catholic monk, and here he discovered that he was reading, had a lot of interest in prophecy, and wound up agreeing on almost every point with what Brother Elmer believed. And he and I didn't find anything we disagreed on. And he was saying then that the Pope previous to this one was a conservative And the liberal wing of the Catholic Church is just biding its time until he dies [01:00:45] So they can vote in a conservative, a liberal, but they didn't get it done This one is a conservative too, as far as we know In any case, he went on just to talk about the globalism and he believed, the monk believed, that there will be a world ruler who will be the Antichrist there will be a world religious leader who will be the false prophet, Revelation 13 [01:01:19] and that it could very well happen in the next decade and that's been about 6-7 years ago The rapture is another case where it really focuses our differences How you allegorize 1 Thessalonians 4 Where the trumpet of God will sound, the dead in Christ will rise And we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with the Lord and so on We should comfort one another with these words [01:01:52] How you allegorize that I'm not sure The liberal allegorists would say that is a picture of what it's like to die, but it won't be an historical event. The Millennium, I read that from Revelation 20, that thousand year reign of Christ when the devil is bound and he can no longer deceive the nation, that focuses the difference. [01:02:23] Those five things I have seen over the years as being the areas where our differing conclusions about what is meant by these things can really be focused And I will then this evening, probably early at the evening session, just give you some explanation of the image of Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel They're from Daniel 2 Now, let's just note a few historical factors here, and I must bring things to a close soon. [01:02:59] Many Antonicene fathers were Kiliasts. I've already said that and driven that home quite strongly. And I say that with a good bit of confidence. I've done the research, the reading myself. I've also had others who've done the reading who would agree with that. Reminds me of a time when I was preaching in a Mennonite church again between the oceans and poles Where on a Thursday night I stayed at the pastor's home [01:03:29] And I knew he was a very strong amillennialist And on a Thursday night after the meeting I said to him I would love to preach tomorrow night from 2 Peter 3 And I said, I'm quite sure that your eschatology and mine are on opposite sides of the issue. But if I have your blessing, I will promise you that I will not preach an overtly premillennial interpretation of 2 Peter 3. [01:04:07] I will simply try to do an exposition of the passage. for the reasons given there to challenge us to holiness and a detachment from things in this world. And you know what? Getting older helps with detachment. It really does. If I should live another 20 years, and the past 20 years went so fast. That was about 20, Matt. But it is such a short time that having things, money, what's money, you know? [01:04:48] What are things when we're going to inherit all things? And this body is getting too old to enjoy a lot of stuff anyway, you know? And it's going to get older and it's going to die. But anyway, in talking about that kind of detachment, I said I would like to preach from 2 Peter 3. Oh, he said, I invited you to come and preach, you have my blessing, you want to make it even overtly premillennial, that's fine. [01:05:22] The congregation hasn't heard that. After I preached Friday night then, one of the brothers said to me, I cannot recall a sermon on the second coming of Christ in his memory. But after Friday night, when we sat there chatting at his home, the bishop said to me, Walter, he said, how do you reconcile premillennialism with scripture and history? [01:05:56] You're a history buff, he said, and now he was more honorable than that, he called me a historian, I'm a history buff But anyway, he said, you're a historian and premillennialism is only about 150 years old I said, who told you that? Well, he said, I read it. Then he told me the author, the Mennonite author, and I knew it. I said, well, he does not know history. [01:06:28] He has not read the Antonisbeam Fathers. I said, I'm here to tell you that the early fathers were millennialists. Tilia, almost without exception. And then it began to change in the third century and by the fifth century, millennialism was dead. They were all amillennialism. Amillennialism, forgive me for saying it, but amillennialism is the eschatology of the Catholic Church. It's what it is. [01:07:04] and it came over into our circles early on for two reasons eschatology was not the focus of the problem in the 16th century and secondly we had a couple crackpots in the first generation that wasn't very nice, crackpots, radicals in the first century a first generation of Anabaptism like the Munsterite debacle debacle, that thing that was premillennial but it was a terrible perversion of premillennialism [01:07:43] and so on that basis there was an early reaction to anything literalistic prophetically and there was just a blind acceptance of Catholic eschatology and it was that way in American Mennonitism until the last half of the 19th century after the Civil War when some American Mennonite Bible scholars began to apply their biblical literalism in other areas to all of scripture and came to pre-millennial understandings and now today we still have the process and it's far from over I'm sure. [01:08:26] But many of the anti-Nicene Fathers were Kiliaths. Early Kiliaths were not pre-trib rapturists. That really did not come up. I think they would have thought in terms of when the church is taken out, 1 Thessalonians 4, that's the end of the church age and the beginning of the millennium. Post-Nicene Fathers, meaning after 325, were predominantly opposed to Kiliasm. There were still Kiliasts around, but most of them were opposed to it. [01:09:00] The current issues are this, that theological, the current factors are, that theological conservatives, speaking of the general evangelical scene in Western Christianity, Theological conservatives are predominantly pre-millennial. Theological liberals are predominantly amillennial. But that leaves you with this dilemma. In the Mennonite circles, the more conservative ones are predominantly amillennial, and the middlers are predominantly pre-millennial. [01:09:43] and the liberals are again Amillennial. My Amish bishop when I was growing up, Mary Jane's grandpa, was Amillennial and he had that in common with liberal Mennonites then and now. So on both ends of the Mennonite spectrum in America we are Amillennial and in the middle The dynamics are very different than in other evangelical groups. [01:10:21] The dynamics are historical and we simply are hanging on to the 16th century position still in something of a reaction to the Munsterite debacle there and so on. It is not because of liberal persuasion until since the Second World War. In the last 25 to 50 years, American Mennonite liberals, some of them are amillennial, because they are theologically liberal. [01:11:00] I'll probably give time this evening for some questions at the end, or if you have questions, that you would like to raise with me, feel free to do so. Write them out so that I'll not forget them. If you would, write them out and give them to me if you can after the service today or before the service tonight, and I'll try to answer questions that you might have and take it on from there. With that, I think we should bring things to a close, and I'll turn it back to the moderator.