Dennis, Karen, Eleanor and Joelle would love to come to your church to share with you.
TESTIMONIALS
Karen plays Silent Night
Amazing Gospel Magic presentation on the blessing of giving.
Stars “magically” appear in an empty bucket.
A fun object lesson demonstrating that we can not over rule God’s will by our power. A science contest that only God wins.
Dennis preaching at a pastors meeting. Short message on justification.
A Challenge To The Church To Separate From Worldly Lusts
A Presentation Of The Gospel
Amazing Object Lesson On The Trinity
Diamonds Under Pressure – Where Is God When I Have Troubles?
A Presentation Of The Gospel Of Jesus Christ With A Chemical Reaction
Should KJV Bible believers use the Greek and Hebrew Lexicons?
Here are two responses I received to this thought on Facebook. There is so much ignorance among so much of the KJV-Only camp because men like Ruckman and Gipp have convinced their followers to abandon scholarship. I encourage Bible believers to study into the words God uses to find the meaning he has for us.
When Are The End Times According To The Bible?
According to the Bible, the end times were during the lifetimes of the apostles. The end of the Jewish Temple age and the Old Covenant was the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. Jesus said, in Matthew 24, that the generation he was talking to would see all those things come to pass.
If you go into a Christian bookstore, there are probably more books on the shelves on Eschatology, than you’ll find on any other subject. Plus , you would find that this has been the case throughout the 20th century. If you were to go back 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years, you would see the same Bible verses being used today that were used back then to make the case back then that the end times was in their day.
There’s got to be something wrong with a methodology that is so dogmatic, yet based on a person’s particular time perspective that they get it wrong every generation. And what we as Christians need to do is stop trying to find prophecy fulfilled in the newspaper and get back to what the Bible says.
Prophecy in the Bible is used in order to account for the character of God as well as the authenticity of scripture. So if you can point to specific Bible verses and specific events that were in fact fulfilled to the letter and to the time, then you say, “Wow, this is great!” We need to see what the Bible says about predicted events.
We have to do away with the proposition of prophecies not being fulfilled 100%, which is what the Bible requires. Every single time throughout scripture, you’ll see that the bible has been vindicated based upon prophecy. But if you have a modern-day prophetic system that proposes to take the Bible literally and to make pronouncements about certain prophetic events and those prophetic events don’t come to pass the way that they’ve proposed them, then it seems to me that it turns the Bible upside down. Why would anyone want to believe the Bible when these prophetic pronouncements are made? And liberal skeptics have looked at Bible prophecy, especially in New Testament Bible prophecy and have made that very point.
Biblical prophecy must be fulfilled 100% accurately
Bertrand Russel wrote a book called “Why I Am Not A Christian.” And in that book, he took some of the prophetic pronouncements in the New Testament and used those against the veracity of the scriptures because he said that they did not take place as prophesied.
Modern day prophecy writers tend to to try to write them off. I will give you an example of this. If you turn to Matthew Chapter 16, Bertrand Russell used this particular passage, Matthew 16:27-28.
Matthew 16:27-28 “For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.”
And Bertrand Russell said, “Look, this seems to be indicating that this is a prophetic event that was near so near, in fact, that the, some of the disciples would still be alive when this event took place.” And if you read prophecy writers today, they would say that this has not taken place yet, but yet it’s very clear that Jesus is saying, that there were some standing there with him. He is not talking about here today here, but their here. He has a particular audience in mind and that this particular event has already taken place.
If you read contemporary prophetic literature, they say, “Oh, no, no, no, this hasn’t taken place yet because this refers to the second coming of Christ and this certainly hasn’t happened.”
Bertrand Russell said, “Jesus said he was going to come in some way prior to the last disciple dying. He didn’t, therefore the Bible isn’t true.” That was how he argued, which I believe is a pretty good argument. And then he also went to Matthew Chapter 24, verse 34, “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”
Each and every time the phrase “this generation” is used in the gospels, it always refers to the generation to whom Jesus is speaking and never refers to a future generation.
C.I.Scofield said “this generation,” (in Greek, genea), meant the race Jesus was speaking to. This was his attempt to make Jesus’ proclamation fit his eschatology. But never in the Greek does “this generation” mean “this race.” It means generation.
Jesus was saying that all of the events prior to verse 34 had to have been fulfilled prior to that particular generation having passed away. And Bertrand Russell saw that and said, obviously this didn’t take place given what modern prophecy people say about this passage.
They see all of this as an end time event and that these things have not taken place yet. And so Russell understood the argument. If you’re going to appeal to prophecy and you’re going to appeal to specific prophecies found in the Bible, and you’re going to use those to support the veracity of scripture, the truthfulness of scripture, then they must be fulfilled as stated.
Bertrand Russell said, “Jesus obviously was wrong about his messiahship. He was wrong about the nature of his coming. Therefore, Jesus was wrong about who he claimed to be.” And he used this as an argument as to why he wasn’t a Christian. That’s it. That’s a powerful statement to make. And in fact, you’ll find liberals today making the same kind of case.
And so the modern day prophecy writers look at a passage like Matthew 24. You also see it duplicated in some form in Matthew 13 also in Luke chapter 21 and they’ll say that these events have not taken place yet. I maintain that they have taken place because that’s what scripture says. When it says “this generation will not pass away until all these things take place,” you take Jesus at his word and that they have in fact have taken place.
Now the question comes down to how can you say this when there’s so many things here and in other passages? How can you say that Matthew Chapter 24 has taken place when it talks about wars and rumors of wars and earthquakes and famines and the Gospel being proclaimed in the whole world, the great tribulation, the sun, moon and stars be darkened, the moon not giving it’s light. The stars will fall from heaven, the appearing of the son of man, etc. How can you say that has already taken place?
One simple reason, Jesus said in verse 34, all of these things would take place before that particular generation passed away. That’s what you’re left with. If these things did not take place and within that particular time period, then Jesus was wrong and Bertrand Russell was right.
Trying to fudge these passages to say this is a mix of things taking place within that generation and things taking place in the future or there’s a double fulfillment to make it fit your view is bad exegesis. This particular passage doesn’t give any room for modification. It’s very, very specific. That particular generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
How do you fit all these things into that time period without twisting these passages? I don’t want to make something fit that doesn’t fit. And it’s very, very simple and it takes a little bit of skill and a little bit of a practice to do. And it’s something that most of us have never been taught to do.
Sadly most Christians are never taught how to study their Bible.
Usually, the first thing that happens when you become a Christian is you’re told to do two things. You read the Bible every day, have a quiet time, and pray. And you read, you get a devotional, maybe Oswald Chambers’ “My Utmost For His Highest” or “My Daily Bread.” You get a daily devotional. And that’s how most Christians end up starting their Christian faith. But they’re never really given the techniques on how to study the Bible. And yet, in any class you’ve ever taken, if you take a class in Shakespeare, what happens? You are taught how to interpret Shakespeare. No matter what type of literature class you take, you’re taught how to interpret that particular writer.
There are whole books on all this, but you had Christians who come into the Christian faith, rarely are taught how to interpret the Bible for themselves. Literal blood was shed over the proposition that you and I have the right and the obligation to study the Bible for ourselves. We need to allow the Bible to interpret itself, but we need to know how to study it for us to find the correct interpretation. And that’s what all of us should learn how to do. And my guess is that most of us have never been taught how to do it. So generally what happens is that people fall back on an already developed system. I’ll let the system be my grid by which I’m going to evaluate the Bible. And so we’ll pick up a bible with study notes.
I’m not saying you know, bibles with notes in them aren’t bad. But it’s very much like a crutch. You start reading the scriptures and you get to a difficult passage and what happens is your eyes immediately go down to the bottom and you let this guy or this group of guys tell you what they think this passage mean and you never get the practice.
Let’s look at a passage. Look at the book of Hebrews chapter five. You have to understand the book of Hebrews is dealing with how the New Testament fulfills what we call the Old Testament. The New Testament didn’t bring anything new. You have got to understand and believe that the New Testament didn’t bring anything new. That is one of the main points of Hebrews.
The Old Testament prefigured what was going to be fulfilled in the New Testament. Jesus comes in as the fulfillment of the Old Testament. In fact, if you just hold it there for a second, if you go to Luke’s Gospel, the very end of Luke’s Gospel and listen to what Jesus says, Luke 24:27 “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”
The Old Testament is not just a hodgepodge of stories that we take as moral lessons. How many times have you heard a sermon, for example, on the story of David and Goliath and heard this application? God will beat all of your giants in your life. We’ve heard that, but that’s no better than reading AESOP’s fables. If you read the Bible like that, you’re doing no better than reading AESOP’s fables.
AESOP’s fables has some great lessons in them, but that’s not why that story is in there. Why is the story in there? Who Was David? Why is David in there? Because he prefigures the coming of Christ. It’s the seed line. It’s going to take us to Jesus. What you find in his coming up against Goliath, of course is that if David dies, what happens to the seed line? If Israel is wiped out by the Philistines, what happens? It’s all over. And so David goes up against Goliath and there are some motifs earlier, all the way back to Genesis chapter three verse 15. It talks about the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent and talks about the serpent striking at the heel of the woman, but the heelof the woman comes down and crushes the head of the serpent.
David goes up against Goliath. This isn’t a moral story how God this defeats giants in your life, although God can do that. That’s not the purpose of the story. The purpose of the story is to show the how God is faithful to his covenant promise. And bringing the promised redeemer into the world to save us from our sins. And so David goes up against Goliath and he takes that early motif about what? Crushing the head of the opposition that’s gonna attempt to crush the seed line. And so David doesn’t go after the feet, doesn’t go after the hands, he goes after the head. He takes a stone, whacks him in the head. Then what does he do? He cuts off Goliath’s head with a sword.
You see, that story isn’t in there to teach some more or less than it’s in there to move us closer to the promises that are fulfilled in the New Testament. And you can see that.
In the New Testament. Jesus is crucified where? What’s the name of the place where he’s crucified? Golgotha and which means what place of a skull. And so the instrument that Satan believe he was going to use to defeat Jesus, that comes down literally on his head and crushes him. And the application of that to the churches in Romans Chapter 16, Verse 20 is God will soon crush Satan under your feet. You see, that’s, that’s the Bible.
Romans 16:20 “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”
The Bible isn’t bits and pieces of little stories that we use to enhance our life. This Bible is a story that tells us how God fulfilled his promises and brought us a redeemer that changes our life. We don’t change our lives from the outside in, by applying all of these moral stories to ourselves. We are changed because of what Christ did on the inside of us. So without these promises being fulfilled in Jesus, you and I don’t have a new life in Christ. That’s what this is all about. So what we have to do is practice figuring out what the biblical message is everywhere.
Too often today with prophecy, it seems to be more about us than about God.Prophecy teachers want to make the story all about us. e are self-centered and this approach sells books.
But the Bible is centered on who Christ is, not centered in on who we are. And I’ll even go a little further. It’s not centered on a people and a piece of land, which seems to be the focus of so much prophecy today. The New Testament’s focus is on Jesus Christ and his redemption, Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of all those passages.
Jesus said, “And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.” Luke 24:44
So it’s about him, not about anybody else. It’s not about any group of people. It’s not about a piece of land. It’s about who Jesus is. And you see those Old Testament prophecies, especially the one prophecy where God says “out of Egypt, I called my son,” (Hosea 11:1). The Old Testament applied to the nation of Israel, but in the New Testament, Matthew applies it to Jesus, (Matthew 2:13-15). It’s applied to Jesus himself because even Israel prefigures the coming of Christ. Israel brings Jesus into the world for our redemption.
Look at Revelation 12:1-4, “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.”
This woman, this isn’t a giant woman standing on a moon somewhere. This woman depicts something and it depicts Israel. How do we know that? Because of the way she’s adorned. She’s standing on the moon with the 12 stars overhead. Now what does that remind you of it? It reminds you all the way back to Genesis chapter 37. Joseph has a dream of the Sun, moon and stars bowing down to him. See this is about Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 5:11-14 “Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”
This is not about us and that’s why when you get to the book of Hebrews, the writer of the Hebrews goes to a point and it says here he’s, he wants to deal with Melchizedek again because Melchizedek points to Jesus. I would say today that the church has become dull of hearing related to the topic of who Jesus is because they are preoccupied with a prophetic system that moves the emphasis of scripture away from Christ and puts it elsewhere for that.
The writer says, “by this time you ought to be teachers. You have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God and you have come to need milk and not solid food.” Basically he’s saying, you should’ve picked all this up already. You should be teaching this stuff already.
The focus of history is Jesus Christ. It’s nothing else for everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is a babe, but solid food is for the mature who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. So here we find even very, very early on that the early church missed out on many things because they took the preoccupation off of Christ and put it elsewhere.
Probably not in a prophetic sense like so much today. But if you read the books today, they are dealing with prophecy. You’ll see the lack of emphasis on the coming of Christ, the first coming of Christ, which did everything. It’s as if there’s still prophecy to be fulfilled because Christ somehow didn’t finish it all. And yet one of the things Jesus said on the cross was “It is finished.”
Then what else are you waiting for? That is essentially what the Bible is saying. So it comes down to methodology. What is the best approach? That isn’t even a good way of asking the question. The better question is what approach does the Bible give in terms of how to interpret the Bible? Have you used the Bible to interpret itself? That sounds so simple and so basic and sometimes the simplest and the more basic things are the right way to go. So instead of looking outside of the Bible, trying to figure out what scripture says, you look within the Bible itself.
And so when you get to a difficult passage, like Matthew chapter 24 or whatever it is, how do you figure out what this is saying here? Jesus tells us when these things are taking place for his immediate audience. Jesus tells us who will see these things he is proclaiming.
Look at verse six, “you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars.” Verse nine, “then they will deliver you up to tribulation.” Verse 15, “Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation. “
Matthew 24:6,9,15 “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)”
These are basic principles of Bible interpretation. When it’s dealing with prophecy. When does the Bible say something will take place?
Matthew 24:34 says, “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”
How do you figure out what this generation means? You go to other places in the Bible where this generation is used, especially you go within Matthew’s Gospel because you want to get Matthew’s use of a particular phrase or word and he uses it.
Many times you see how it was used in other contexts. You take that meaning and probably it’s going to have the same meaning. In verse 34, you figure out who the audience is. Who’s Jesus talking about. That’s important because this is primarily prophecy to questions that the disciples asked. Therefore, Jesus is answering them and he’s telling them, it’s going to happen to YOU, meaning those he was speaking to. The next thing that you do is you actually start comparing. Okay, where’s this found in scripture? If there are any places in the, in the New Testament where earthquakes are mentioned. Are there any places in the New Testament were famines are mentioned? Is there any place in the New Testament that says anything about a famine that would be significant enough to see this as being fulfilled.
Is there anything in the Book of Acts? If you read the book of Acts Chapter 11 it says there was a famine all over the world. That was then and so Jesus gives us a prophecy about a famine. Acts chapter 11 there’s a famine and what does Paul do? He thanks to churches for raising money. For what? For famine relief in Jerusalem. What about “wars and rumors of wars?” There’ve always been wars and rumors of wars. That can’t be a sign of the end if it’s so common. f
Look at verse 15 when YOU see the abomination of desolation. Now Verse 29, the sun, moon and stars, that language is right out of Isaiah chapter 13, so you use that.
Isaiah 13:6-11 “Howl ye; for the day of the Lord is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man’s heart shall melt: And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.”
The Bible helps you understand these things. When we see similar language in the w Testament, these Old Testament passages help understand what is being said.
Matthew 24:30 “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”
That’s straight out of Daniel. Daniel 7:13-14 “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.”
You have to allow the Bible to interpret itself rather than super imposing a certain prophetic system on the Bible. And you should be able to use it just with the Bible, with a couple of what I call biblical helps. A good concordance and a Greek and English interlinear are very helpful to help you figure out what these words mean because you don’t always want to trust translators.
To see the Bible tools I use, read my article here: http://godeeperbiblestudy.com/2019/01/five-tools-for-effective-bible-study
Let me give you a good example of this. If you look at Matthew 24:14 “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”
The problem with that is the Greek word that’s translated world there isn’t the usual word for world. Now you read that and so that certainly hasn’t happened yet because the gospel hasn’t been preached in the whole world.
But when you dig a little deeper and you look at a Greek text of this, you find out that the Greek word cosmos, the one you would expect, (we get the word cosmic out of it), that’s not the word that’s there. The word that’s there is oikoumenē. Oikoumenē basically means the inhabited earth and it’s traditionally been translated as the Roman empire or the known world.
In fact, if you go to Luke 2:1 “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.”
It’s the same Greek word. Do you really believe that there was a census that was taken over the entire globe? If the Romans did that they’d still be working on it. So when Jesus says the gospel will go to the whole world in Matthew 24, he means the known world. And Paul says it happened in his lifetime.
Romans 16:25-26 “Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith:” Again, Paul says that the gospel was made known to all nations. Not “will be,” but “now is made manifest.” It was finished then, not in the future.
Colossians 1:6 “Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth:” Again, as it is in all the world. It was a present and known thing, not a future event.
Read my article “When The Whole World Heard The Gospel: Matthew 24 Fulfilled” HERE.
What I’ve learned over my years of doing this study, the best way to interpret the Bible is to use the Bible to interpret itself. Just by using the Bible itself to kind of extract from the Bible what the Bible actually says in terms of fulfillment. What ends up happening is the bible is vindicated by this particular interpretation. And it also allows you to be the interpreter without having to depend upon a system. And this is the methodology that we all ought to practice doing.
And you don’t have to be a seminary student to do it. It does take a little bit of work, but what doesn’t? And eventually you’ll learn, you’ll learn how to interpret the Bible for yourself really quite well without using a system.
The Importance of Bible Inerrancy – Can We Trust The Bible?
As Christians, we want to be disciples who are shaped and formed by the Gospel. One of the distinctives of Bible-believing Christians is we not only believe the Bible is God’s word, but we also believe it is inerrant. There are a lot of Christians who don’t think that it’s inerrant, or that it is perfect. Their lives often reveal this, as they handily set aside any teaching of the Bible that goes against their desires.
Biblical inerrancy is the belief that the Bible is without error or fault in all its teaching.
We believe that we have a perfect Bible because we have a perfect God. We believe we have a perfect Bible because we have a perfect God and we believe we have a perfectly trustworthy Bible because we have a perfectly trustworthy God.
I think this is what First Peter is teaching in chapter one verse 13. Peter writes to these elect exiles who are in the dispersion and he says this, 1 Peter 1:13-25 “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear: Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God. Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.”
Verse 23 says, “since you’ve been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable seed through the living and abiding word of God for all flesh is like grass in its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower falls. But the word of the Lord remains forever, and this is the good news that was preached to you.”
Some of Peter’s audience here, in all likelihood, were at his sermon at Pentecost. So you think about this group of men and women who have seen Peter and seen his face, perhaps some of them were actually converted under his proclamation of the Gospel in Acts chapter two as he teaches the incredible grace that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ, and they come to this incredible knowledge of God, the salvation of God, this miraculous spiritual moment the Holy Spirit descends and thousands of people get baptized.
They believe Jesus Christ is Lord and he has died for the forgiveness of their sins. They’re believing in the gospel. They’ve seen the spread of the Gospel to the nations. They’re watching the gospel go from Jerusalem today, into Judea, to Sumeria, and ultimately to the ends of the earth. They have seen the power and might of God on display, but years have past decades have passed, trials have come. The storms of life have begun to creep in. Their life situation has changed perhaps for some of them, just life as it is every single day, unchanging. And they begin to look, Peter says to other stories of the world, other ways to make sense of their human experience.
So here’s what you’ve got to catch. This is a group of people who are in danger of having had a spiritual experience at genuine, legitimate spiritual experience, but then untethering their lives from God and his word. This is a group of people who have experienced one of the most miraculous moments in human history, Pentecost. But Peter now warns them to set their hope on Christ because they’re living according to the passions of their former ignorance. So look at verse 13, “set your hope on grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your ignorance.”
Peter is saying, set your gaze, set your horizon, set your trajectory on the grace of God that’s coming for you in Jesus Christ in the future. Look towards this horizon. Do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.
What are these passions of your former ignorance? Well, for Peter’s audience, these were, we can maybe call them false stories or false ways of understanding the world. That was the stories that they believe to be true about the world before they had come to Christ.
It was these ways of making sense of the world before they had believed the gospel before Pentecost. It was these ways of making sense of the world, reference points of goals and priorities, and stories they wanted. Not so much to reject the Bible, but they wanted the Bible and something else.
They didn’t so much want to reject the gospel. They wanted the gospel and something else. They’re in danger of affirming the Gospel, but also affirming these stories or these passions of their former ignorance at the same time. So Peter is trying to warn them.
There is this phenomenon that a lot of pilots and underwater divers will endure. It’s called spatial disorientation. It’s this kind of phenomenon or this thing that when pilots take off if they’re not taught to use the instruments, what are you supposed to do? Keep your eyes on the horizon.
That’s right. You keep your eye on the horizon. You watch the horizon because the horizon is a steady guide to get you where you need to go. It will make sure that you’re not tilting your playing too far to the right or too far to the left.
It will ensure that you don’t set your trajectory too high and going into a tailspin. It will ensure that you don’t set your trajectory too low and crash and burn. Set your eyes on the horizon. But lots of pilots aren’t trained necessarily to use their instruments. You have a certificate to use the instruments.
The instruments are there so that when you can’t see the horizon in front of the plane, that you will be assured that you’re still on the right trajectory, that you’re still on the right course.
Because what will happen is, is during blackout conditions or whiteout conditions or the storm that has set in, or perhaps it’s just darkness and there are no city lights for you to see, pilots will tell you it’s one of the most disorienting times of their life because they genuinely do not know up from down or left from mine.
They could not tell you if the plane is pointed straight up to the air or straight down to the ground. It feels the exact same. They couldn’t tell you if they’re upside down or right side up. So there are tons of stories of pilots either emerging from clouds, totally upside down or emerging from clouds heading straight into the ground.
So if you’re not trained to set your eyes on the instruments, you’re in danger of setting your hopes, setting your trajectory on the entirely wrong thing.
So this is what Peter’s talking about here. Not so much spatial disorientation, but spiritual disorientation. That we who have experienced the might and the power of God are in danger of not setting our hope accordingly and properly so that when the storms of life begin to creep in when night has set in during blackout conditions or during blizzard conditions, we could be entirely disoriented if we don’t set our hope on God’s instruments of keeping us on the right trajectory.
So these passions of former ignorance for these people, for Peter’s readers and for us are these other ways of making sense of the world get. I call these false stories of the world, other visions of the good life, other ways of setting up priorities or goals for yourself. And I want to talk about a few of those that I think are, are so powerful for us.
There are all kinds of competing visions of the good life that are after your attention, that are trying to get you to live according to whatever story is being told. And these powerful stories have a way, like these passions of former ignorance, creeping into our lives without us even knowing it. So here are some of the false stories I think we can tend to live in.
The first false story is the story of Romanticism.
This is the story that tells you that you are your emotions. The more intense the emotion, the more real or true it is. The idea is your emotions, your feelings can be trustworthy.
So you are about living a life that is raw, authentic, and transparent because you just want to feel and you want to feel deeply. So you live a life feeling these romantic feelings, hoping that this is setting you on the right trajectory, that your feelings are the instruments that will ensure that you come out of the clouds right side up.
The next story is the story of consumerism.
This is the story that tells us that we are what we have. Worth is based upon the value and the quality of the things that belong to me. So we spend our entire lives accumulating more valuable things.
We’ll buy a car that’s a certain value, but in four or five years we’ll try to buy a car that is more valuable and will discard the car that we thought at one time was so valuable. Or perhaps it’s clothes or a bank account or your 401k.
We are about accumulating valuable things and discarding things that have lost their value. So romanticism and consumerism can derail our thinking.
The third story is the story of individualism.
Individualism. This is a story that tells you that you and I are at the center of all things. Everybody else is just a supporting actor. We are at the center of the stories that we are telling because we value and prize individualism.
The good life for us is the authority of independent individuals. So we’re gonna spend our entire lives trying to become self-reliant, self-dependent. We’re going to self-actualize ourselves. We want to be personally responsible and personally reliant.
The next false story is the story of progressivism.
This is a persuasive story and our culture today. This is a story that tells you things are continually getting better. That today is better than yesterday, that tomorrow will be better today that advancements in science, technology, economics are constantly improving the human experience. But what if the story is what if the world isn’t progressing and continually getting better? Are we prepared for hard times both physically and spiritually? Are we preparing our children?
The next false story is the story of American civil religion, Cultural Christianity.
I call it moral therapeutic deism. This is the story that tells you that Christianity should be compatible with American ideals. This is the story that wants to baptize Christianity into Americanism, but it ends up looking far more American than it does Christian.
We live in this incredibly persuasive story in our culture today of American civil religion that tells us that our Christianity should look far more American than it does distinctly Christian.
This is a story I think that many of us would want to reject, at least on its surface, but just to briefly show you how persuasive I think it is in our lives, is to be reminded of this. How many of us could confess the apostle’s creed and how many of us can confess the pledge of allegiance?
The final story is this. This is a story of perfectionism.
This is the story that tells you that something isn’t worth doing unless it’s done perfectly and according to your standards. You’re either going to do something perfectly or you’re not going to do it at all.
This story is characterized by our striving for flawlessness. The setting of, high-performance standards, setting self-critical evaluations, being concerned with how other people want to evaluate us.
What is this person gonna think of me? Are they gonna think I did a good enough job? Are they going to value me because I’ve performed this activity perfectly? Too many Christians live in this story. Their Christian walk is not walking close to Jesus, but trying to meet a standard so others will think you are walking with Jesus.
Can I remind us just briefly, none of those stories is the gospel.
None of those stories is the good news that’s revealed for us in scripture. But these passions of our former ignorance can so easily begin to seep back into our lives. They can so easily begin to influence the way we view God, the way we view ourselves, the way we view scripture.
Here is one of the greatest challenges that you and I face. It’s the challenge of realizing that these persuasive stories are so persuasive because we don’t realize they’re stories. We just think they’re reality. You live in these stories, and I live in these stories because I just take them every morning as I get out of the bed as default reality.
I’ve forgotten that these stories, along with me have been crucified with Christ and I’ve been raised to walk in new life, not the old life.
So which one of these stories do you live in?
One of the most challenging aspects of discipleship in the 21st century is beginning to identify these passions of our former ignorance and be reminded that these are false stories, not true stories.
This is absolutely essential for you to get because Peter’s readers were in danger of doing the exact same thing that we’re in danger of, of having a genuine spiritual experience, but then living lives that are untethered from God and untethered from his word.
They and we are in danger of flying through the storms of life, flying through our exile, flying through a cloudy night or through the darkness of night and we can no longer see the horizon. We can’t see the grace of God that’s coming for us in Jesus Christ in the future.
And so we’re not looking to the instruments of God and his word, but rather we’re looking to these other instruments or these other stories to help us make sense of the world.
And this is why the doctrine of inerrancy is so important because Peter is trying to tell us that God is giving us two reference points or two instruments that are absolutely trustworthy, that are absolutely perfect, that we can put all of our hope and faith in, that one day we will emerge from the clouds having trusted the instruments set on the grace of God and Christ that’s before us.
All that is an introduction to sharing about these two instruments that are totally trustworthy, God and his word, we have a holy God, and we have a holy word.
“But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:15-16
So Peter’s first reference point is the holiness and the trustworthiness of God.
He’s saying if you’re flying through the storms of life, if you’ve been disoriented, if you’ve lost your way, the first place you look is the holy, trustworthy character of God. He is your instrument. You look to his trustworthiness.
The term holy is used throughout the scriptures. So you can think of Isaiah chapter six, “Holy, Holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.” Jesus is described as the holy one of Israel. What does it mean for God to be holy? The most fundamental thing that Peter’s listeners would have heard is this. God is completely different than any other relationship you’ve ever had before. He is totally set apart. He is totally pure.
So the psalmist says it this way. In Psalm 12:6 “the words of the Lord are pure words.” There is no impurity in the word of God. There are only pure words.
The Bible also describes God as perfect. The word it uses to describe God’s perfection is the word “Teleios.” It means that God doesn’t meet some standard of perfection. It means that he is the standard of perfection. There is no external standard of perfection that God somehow measures up to, but rather he as the holy one is the standard of perfection.
What Peter is trying to do when he shows his readers that God is holy is he’s trying to show them he is holy trustworthy. That when you set your gaze on the holiness of God, you’re setting your gaze on a trust where the instrument you’re setting your gaze on is an instrument that will get you through this storm, that will get you through the darkness of night.
A W Tozer says it this “Why do I insist that all Christians should search the Scriptures and learn as much as they can about this God who is dealing with them? It is because their faith will only spring up naturally and joyfully as they find that our God is trustworthy and fully able to perform every promise He has made.”
So many people, and I understand this because it’s been me too, are afraid to learn more about God because they’re afraid that they’re eventually going to learn something about God that they don’t like. They’re afraid that if they really dig into that book in the Old Testament, if they really dig into to these portions of scripture that they’re not as familiar with, they may find something that they just don’t know how to deal with. They just stay with the books of the Bible that are palatable to their sensibilities.
But I’ve really good news for you today. You will never learn bad news about God. You will never find something about his actions or his character or the way he engages with us in a way that isn’t pure and perfect and lovely. Why? Because he’s holy.
He is the trustworthy one. But I understand why we question entering this relationship with God. It’s because every single human relationship that you and I have had up until this point hasn’t been like this.
That’s what it means for him to be set apart and holy and completely different. I know that for many of us thinking about trustworthiness is challenging. Why? Because you’ve trusted in the past and you’ve been hurt. You’ve been lied to, you’ve been deceived, you’ve been abandoned, you’ve been neglected.
People had their own motives in mind, not yours, not your best interests at heart, and more often than not, at least in my life, sometimes the people that we put the most trust in will also hurt us the most.
The people that we say, this person’s got my back, or this person will never leave. This person will never forsake me. This person has me. When they don’t, what happens? We grow skeptical, cautious, cynical,
Peter understands that. He understands what it’s like to be engaged in human relationships and to not be able to trust, which is why he’s trying to point us back to the holy, trustworthy character of God saying there is nobody else like him that you can have a relationship with. He is the one who will always be holy.
- Consider these other scriptures
- 1 John 1:5 “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” He’s never shady. God is never shady in his dealings with you. There is no darkness in the God of Israel.
- Look at Psalm 93:5 “Thy testimonies are very sure: holiness becometh thine house, O Lord, for ever.”
- 1 Peter 2:22, speaking of the incarnation, “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.”
I want you to hear this. God has never been deceitful. He has never lied. He has never abandoned. He has never neglected. He’s never left anyone that he loved. He is the holy, trustworthy God of Israel.
He isn’t this far off distant God who has kept his holiness himself, but rather he has engaged us. We are to address him as “Father,” and he calls us sons. And one of the closest, most intimate relationships possible is that a father and sons and daughters.
We can now set our gaze, our instrument on this trustworthy father who is totally wholly, who is totally set apart, who is pure and who is perfect and we can do so how without caution, without skepticism and without reservation, not because of who we are, but because of who he is.
He is the holy one who is holy, trustworthy, but Peter doesn’t just say that. He doesn’t just say, look to God. He says what? Look to God’s word because God’s word reflects his character. God is holy and perfect and his word is holy and perfect. Look at 1 Peter 1:23 ” Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.”
The grass withers, the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever. In this passage here, Peter is reminding us that there is no such thing as a spiritual life that’s untethered from God’s word. Look what he says right there at the beginning of the passage in 23 “you’ve been born again through the word of God.”
There is no spiritual life that’s untethered from God’s word. We are born through God’s word and we are sustained through God’s word that all of the Christian life is sustained by the Holy Spirit in God’s word.
There is no true spirituality outside of the word of God. There is no true spirituality that’s untethered from God’s authoritative and inspired word, but he also says it’s imperishable living and that it endures forever.
So what does it mean? It’s kind of some interesting words, right to use for God’s word. What does it mean that God’s Word is imperishable?
Peter is again connecting the nature of the Bible with the nature of God. To say that God’s Word is imperishable or incorruptible is to say that it has experienced no decay. It is not perishable. It is not fading away just like God is imperishable. His word is imperishable. So here’s the application point there. What scripture says, God says, this has not decayed or perished in any way.
You can’t have a view of God and a view of the Bible that are disconnected. What the Bible says, God says, because it is the imperishable word of God. We don’t get to have a relationship with God, which is disconnected from his words. So what we’re saying is this, we are saying that to believe God’s Word is to what? Believe God.
To disbelieve God’s word is to disbelieve God, to obey God’s word is to obey God and to disobey God’s Word is to disobey God. The imperishable God has given us an imperishable word. And this word, Peter goes on to say, is not just that what you’re born through and sustained through, it’s also living. To say that God’s word is living, Peter is trying to tell Christians something very, very important.
It is alive. It is active communication from God in the Bible. It is meant to spark communion with God. But this isn’t just some book revealing God’s acts in the past. But it is God actively meeting us here by the spirit that it is sharper than any two-edge sword. That it pierces our hearts, that it pierces our soul, and that it gives us the bread of life.
Matthew 4:4 “But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
You cannot have a healthy spiritual life if you’re not eating. You cannot walk with Christ if you’re not devouring and eating and being nourished by his word. This is the living word of God. But I also think Peter uses this word living really intentionally.
Are you the kind of disciple that comes to God’s word for good advice or for an encounter with the Living God? When you open your Bible, are you looking for a quick piece of wisdom or to be confronted with the Holy God of Israel, Jesus Christ.
We demonstrate a high view of the Bible, not just with our words, but with our lives. We demonstrate that we trust God’s authoritative word, not just with our words but with our actions, not just when we say yes, I believe, but when we live according to this story, it’s not simply enough to have a high view of the Bible with your mind. We can’t just read the Bible, we must be readers of the Bible, but we also have to let the Bible read us.
When was the last time the word of God read you? When was the last time you were confronted by this God and forced to be transformed and changed? When’s the last time you said, “oh, this is a hard teaching and I’ll follow?” We can’t just master the message of the Bible.
We have to let the message of the Bible master us. In other words, I could care less if you tell me you have a high view of the Bible, if you don’t even bother to read it and be read by it, that’s what we’re after with the doctrine of inerrancy.
I could care less if you tell me you have a high view of the Bible, if you don’t even bother to read it, much less be read by it. So a simple question is this, do you want to follow Jesus? Do you want to follow Jesus? If you do, you can’t just love Jesus and neglect his word.
If you love Jesus, you must love his word. Why? Because his word gives life. There is no life in Christ apart from his word. Peter goes on to tell us not only that God’s word is imperishable and that it lives or that it’s living, but that it endures forever. God’s word endures forever. It talks about the flesh being like grass. The flower of grass is withering and falling and fading.
What is Peter saying? He’s saying all these former stories of ignorance, all these false stories, American civil religion, materialism, perfectionism, or perhaps it’s a totally different one for you that I didn’t even mention. These are the stories that are fading and disintegrating away, but what story will endure forever?
God’s word, the story that God is reconciling the world to himself. In the person and work of Jesus Christ. In other words, what Peter is trying to teach us and tell us is that the Bible is not an assistant for your old way of life. It is the doorway to your new life in Christ.
If the Bible is simply coming along in order to support whatever life you want to live for yourself, you’ve misunderstood what the Bible is. The Bible crucifies these former visions of the good life and gives us a good life in Christ that these former visions of the good life are fading away. They’re falling away like the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord willing, doer forever.
Your old way of life is dead, but the word of God remains. The extent to which the Bible has authority in your life is the extent to which God has authority in your life and that is really good news. Perhaps it’s convicting, but you know what else it is. It’s good news because we have an instrument in the midst of life’s storms in the midst of the darkness.
We can look at this and say, as best I can, I’m believing and obeying the Bible. I’m putting my trust in Jesus Christ. We can know, we can know, that this is God’s will for our life to shape and form us into the image of Christ.
Because as we set our eyes on the trustworthiness of scripture or setting our eyes on the trustworthiness of God himself, we have a perfect Bible because we have a perfect God. We have a perfectly trustworthy Bible because we have a perfectly trustworthy God and this is really good news.
1 Peter 1:18-19 “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers. But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”
Peter is reminding us that these false stories that have such an easy way of creeping back in our false stories and he’s trying to tell them, you have been redeemed. You have been bought back. You have been bought back out of your bondage and your slavery. It is not up to you to ransom yourself again out of these false stories, but to simply look to the cross of Christ where you have already been ransomed.
God has set his affection and his love, not just on us, but on you. You have been redeemed. It’s not up to us to ransom ourselves out of these futile ways, but to simply trust in the blood of the spotless lamb.
What he is trying to do is to remind you that it’s now not up to you to live into God’s story, but to simply look into God’s story. In Christ, friends, there’s only one true story of the world. It’s the story that the triune God is the king of the universe and that for our sake and for our salvation, the son of God put upon human flesh.
For our sake, he was crucified, buried, resurrected, and ascended where he now reigns in the heavens as the living Lord, and he will come again in the future to do what? To judge the living and the dead.
The reason inerrancy matters is because it’s trying to perfectly preserve this story for us, this story of the Gospel which is immovable, unchangeable that God has set his affection and love on you, that you’ve been bought with a price.
In other words, Biblical inerrancy and authority is not some kind of a dead doctrine. It’s a life giving truth that the inerrant perfect word of God, Jesus Christ suffered for your sake, that he became sin so that you might become the righteousness of God.
Martin Luther said, “We need to study the Bible because it tells me not what I must do, but what Jesus Christ, the son of God has done for me.”
You do not study the Bible in order to find some kind of a truth or check off some kind of a box that you’re supposed to do now, but rather to look to the saving activity of the Triune God on your behalf. We look at this perfect story, not so that we can learn what to do, but rather learn what God has done for us and proclaim it to the ends of the earth.
Biblical inerrancy has everything to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Pilots will tell you that there is nothing more relieving and in the midst of spacial disorientation of what feels like flying upside down, but trusting your instruments to emerge from the storm, to emerge from the darkness to emerge from the whiteout conditions and see that the whole time I was trusting my instruments when I was having to put faith and trust and he’s trustworthy instruments that felt so disorienting. It felt like I was flying upside down, but I trusted my instruments. It is so relieving to emerge from the clouds emerged from the storms and the whole time. Where have you been? Right side up.
This is the good news of the Gospel, of the holiness of God and the holiness of his word, that as we set our lives according to God’s trustworthy instruments, the storm will pass. Darkness will give way to dawn and we will emerge from the clouds of this life and our hope will be set on the horizon of God’s grace and his faithfulness and his gospel.
God has not left us here according to our own visions of the good life, but rather he has invited us into his perfect story, this story of the spotless lamb of God suffering for our sake and for our salvation.
We are grateful for your scriptures that we are not left alone without a word from God, but we have an authoritative inerrant Bible that we can look to for our source of hope are a source of encouragement, are a trustworthy guide. As we wait for the grace of Christ that’s coming, let us read the Bible, love the Bible, and to be transformed by its message.
What about the variances in the manuscripts the Bible is translated from? Can we be sure we have God’s Word today? I wrote an article about this and you can read it HERE.
Is Preterism Biblical? What Do Preterists Believe?
Preterists argue that their views are completely consistent with Jesus and his disciples. That is, the ideas which are represented by preterists were the views of the New Testament writers themselves, who expected the fulfillment of all biblical prophecy to take place in their generation. So, we feel that we are in good company!
But what about the church leaders after the original Apostles? Actually, there are very few extant writings from the early church before AD 200, and fewer still that commented on eschatology.
So, we really don’t have a comprehensive understanding of what they were thinking. Interestingly, the terms “Second Coming” and “Second Advent” do not appear in the written record until about the year AD 160 when Justin Martyr invented these terms. But we do know that the early church fathers held differing views on eschatology, including the preterist view.
Author Douglas Wilkinson showed that many of the early writers believed that the prophecies of Daniel as well as the Olivet Discourse were fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Works by Gary DeMar, Francis Gumerlock, and Kenneth Gentry, Jr. verify that the preterist view was part of the early church, and may have been the dominant view.
Multiple writers in the early church expressed beliefs that certain other events associated with the Second Coming were fulfilled by AD 70, such as the abomination of desolation, the great tribulation, the last days, the end of the age, the arrival of the kingdom, the arrival of the new heaven and new earth, the arrival of the New Jerusalem, the preaching of the gospel to the whole world, the general resurrection of the dead, the destruction of death, and the cessation of charismatic gifts.
So, the basic outline of full preterism is found in many writings of the apostolic fathers. Eusebius of Caesarea (born c. AD 260/263; died c. AD 339/341) was an important witness. Eusebius is considered the Father of Church History and became the Bishop of Caesarea in about the year 314. Given his preterist testimony and influence as a historian, it is likely that his thinking was influenced by unrecorded preterist writings before him in the early church.
In his work EcclesiasticalHistory, Eusebius specifically belittled the millennialist views of certain early writers, thoroughly rejecting the idea of a corporeal reign of Christ on earth during a literal millennium.
Among Eusebius’ other writings are these two works: The Proof of the Gospel (“DemonstratioEvangelica”) and Theophania. In these books, he touched on various aspects of fulfilled prophecy. By tracking the thread of eschatological comments throughout his writing, we can reasonably conclude that Eusebius believed that, at least, all the following things were fulfilled by AD 70:
- the Second Coming of Christ (at least in some sense)
- the Great Tribulation
- the Abomination of Desolation
- the Day of the Lord
- the Days of Vengeance and judgment upon Israel
- the “time of the end”/ “end of the world”
- the ushering in of the new covenant/kingdom of heaven
- the Great Commission (gospel having been preached to the whole world) ( Romans 16:25-26 )
But, given that the New Testament writers were preterists, it is a legitimate question why we don’t have more confirmation of the preterist view from the post-AD 70 church fathers.
Here are some considerations about this:
The so-called Great Apostasy (Matthew 24:10-12; Luke 18:18; Acts 20:29-30; Romans 16:17-18; 2 Corinthians 11:13-15; 2 Peter 2:1; etc.) had a greater influence on the early Christian church than most people might suspect.
Matthew 24:12 indicates that a majority of Christians turned away from their faith. This apostasy was a result of false prophets, immorality, and persecution. So, the faith became distorted and confused in the decades after AD 70.
The Hellenization of the church had a great influence. In Romans 11 Paul explained that the make-up of God’s people was in transition. It could well be that because of the Gentile influence in the church, an understanding of Old Testament Hebraic apocalyptic language was lost.
It should not be too surprising that the early church fathers may have misunderstood the nature of the Second Coming, just as the Jews misunderstood the nature of the First Coming. It was right there in front of them, but they still missed it!
There was disagreement among the early church fathers on crucially important issues such as the nature of God as well as justification. Justification through faith wasn’t fully accepted in Christianity until the sixteenth century.
Even today, Christians, from sect to sect, are all over the map on justification. Other important topics on which Christians have misinterpreted (or disingenuously twisted) the Bible include slavery, abortion, homosexuality, evolution and other aspects of science such as geocentricity.
James B. Jordan wrote, “We have to remember that we only have a few Church Fathers to draw on. Often Christian scholars have strained mightily to build on evidence from these writings, writings of men clearly not familiar with the facts in other instances. Many of the Fathers were new converts to the faith who wrote apologetics, and who did not know much about Christianity (as can be seen when we compare them with the teachings of the New Testament). What we don’t have are reams of sermons preached by pastors in local churches during the first two centuries, and that is the kind of material that would give us an accurate picture of the early church. Finally, though the Church Fathers are ‘fathers’ in a sense, and are of real value to us, they are also the ‘Church Babies’ in another sense. All this should be born in mind when it comes to their haphazard testimony .”
Doctrinal issues can be misunderstood by a large majority, and such misinterpretations often get stuck in the church’s psyche. Just consider the questionable views of Roman Catholicism, including the veneration of an ever-virgin Mary, purgatory, infallibility of the Pope, transubstantiation, and so forth. Catholics think they can trace many of these doctrines through tradition all the back to the early church!
Persecution would have made it very easy for the first Christians to hope for some sort of earthly relief. This would easily explain why they would have read this hope into the Bible. The human mind, being what it is, can turn desire into an illusion of truth.
Ultimately, it does not matter what the early Christian writers said. What matters is what the Bible says.
For more information on this view, see my article 3 Secrets To Understanding The Book Of Revelation
Also see What Happened In 70 AD? The Book of Revelation Fulfilled.
3 Secrets To Understanding The Book Revelation In The Bible
“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John,” Revelation 1:1 is a revealing. The Greek word translated to “revelation” is apokalypsis, so sometimes the book is called “the Apocalypse.”
The meaning of apokalypsis is a revealing. Jesus in the Book of Revelation is revealing something to John. This means the message given to John to give to the seven churches of Asia was not a mystery. It was not in the least confusing to those who received it. It was meant to be understood.
To understand Revelation though, we must apply good exegetics, good Bible study practices.
SECRET #1
First, we must ask ourselves who was the book written to. The book was not written to the 21st-century church. It was preserved for us and we can learn from it, but it was not written to us.
“John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;” Revelation 1:4
The book was written to the seven churches. It was written and then sent out by messenger to be read to the seven churches and most likely copied by them. When we read Revelation, we are reading someone else’s mail. To understand Revelation, we must understand it as the original audience would have. When interpreting any scripture, we must determine how the original audience would have understood it. So we know there are no helicopters or microchips in Revelation because we know that those things would not have been understood by the original audience.
We know that when the churches in Asia received John’s letter, they did not think, “Wow! This is great stuff that the church 2000 years from now will experience.” No, it was written to them.
Are the churches “church ages” as some teach? No and a thousand times no. The members of the church of Laodicea would not have read, “And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.” Revelation 3:14-15, and thought, “Willikers! In 2000 our little church here in Asia will be lukewarm.” No, Jesus was addressing them about their spiritual condition.
Many preachers today erroneously proclaim that we are in the “Laodicean church age.” But, no Christian writers in the 1800s said that they were in “the Philadelphia church age.” Neither did Puritan writers 200 years ago claim they were in “the Sardis church age.”
The idea that the seven churches are actually seven church ages is an invention of the 1800s and has no foundation in scripture. The Book of Revelation was given to John to be sent to and understood by the seven churches of Asia in the first century AD.
SECRET #2
Once we know who the scripture is written to, we need to ask ourselves if there are any time indicators in the text. Has God revealed when things prophesied will happen? In Matthew 24, Jesus made it clear that the destruction of the temple would happen in that generation, and it did, in 70 AD.
“Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.” Matthew 24:34
Another time indicator was given in Matthew 16:28 “Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.”
When the Jews went into captivity and the first temple was destroyed, God told Jeremiah the exile would last 70 years. Daniel found this prophecy near the end of the 70 years and knew that they would be going home soon. The time indicators made it clear when God would act.
“Everyone who interprets a passage of the Bible stands in a present time while he examines a document that comes from a past time. He must discover what each statement meant to the original speaker or writer, and to the original hearers or readers, in their own present time.” A. Berkeley Michelsen, Interpreting the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1985), 55
Are there any time indicators in Revelation?
Yes. In the very first verse of Revelation and then again in the third verse, Jesus gives time references.
“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:2 Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. 3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.“ Revelation 1:1-3
Jesus in the last chapter repeats that “the time is at hand.” “And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.” Revelation 22:10
“Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.” Revelation 22:7
The hearers and readers of Revelation would have no other understanding than that the things that were written would happen soon. “Shortly come to pass” and “the time is at hand” can be understood no other way.
Peter wrote, “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” 2 Peter 3:8
The Psalmist said the same thing, “For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night,” Psalms 90:4
Some folks, trying to put the Book of Revelation in the future, (2000 years in the future), use those to verses to say that “soon” to God did not mean what it does to us. This is however bad exegesis.
Peter is making a theological statement. He is saying God is not restrained with time. It is a statement about the nature of God. He is not saying that when God says something will happen in a specific time that God is actually saying that God will get around to it when he does and the time reference means nothing.
Certainly, Daniel didn’t read where Jeremiah recorded God’s promise that the exile would last 70 years and wonder if God meant 70 real years, or 70 years meaning thousands of years.
Neither would the original audience have understood Jesus’ words that the things recorded would shortly come to pass to mean anything other than the things recorded would shortly come to pass. To interpret Jesus’ words any way other than how plainly he stated them is pure foolishness. Jesus could not have made it any plainer when the churches should expect the revelation was to come to pass.
SECRET #3
To understand the Bible, we must understand the language of the book. I am not talking about learning Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, I am saying we must understand phrases and expressions as the writer meant them and as the original audience would have understood them.
If my wife tells me to “break a leg” when I am going to preach, she is wishing me good luck. “Break a leg” is a term that came out of vaudeville. There were times when vaudeville shows would have too many acts available. A performer only got paid if he went on stage. “To break a leg” meant that the performer’s leg went past the curtain and on stage. It was a term meaning good luck.
But, if someone from another culture heard my wife tell me to “break a leg,” he would believe she was wishing bad luck on me, not good luck. Similarly, we need to understand the phrases and terms John uses in Revelation as the early church would have understood them.
Consider Isaiah 24:1-5 “Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof. The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word. The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish. The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.”
This certainly sounds like the end of the world. This passage was about the Assyrian conquest of the Jews. God was proclaiming how he would use the Assyrians to conquer the Jews and they would be scattered abroad. The entire planet was not made empty, nor did it fade away. These are strong prophetic statements against the Jews.
Isaiah 34:1-8 “Come near, ye nations, to hear; and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all things that come forth of it. For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter. Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcasses, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood. And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree. For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment. The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for the Lord hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea. And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness. For it is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion.“
This sounds a lot like the Book of Revelation, but notice, it is about God’s judgment coming on Edom, (Idumea). A judgment so severe and complete that the land is desolate to this day. Isaiah said, “And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll:” The heavens referred to here were not God’s heaven or the earth’s atmosphere. It was referring to the government of Edom. Terms like heaven and earth very often refer to earthly governments and earthly people in prophecy.
Now notice Revelation 6:14 “And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.” Same phrase. So are we to believe that when the Book of Revelation was being written, it referred to the atmosphere being rolled up like a scroll literally, or is it talking about the government being judged would be destroyed?
Zephaniah 1:2-3 “I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the Lord. I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked: and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the Lord.”
Is Zephaniah predicting a time when God will destroy all men, animals, birds, and fish? Is this a literal destruction of all living things?
No. Zephaniah was predicting the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. In Verse 4, it is made clear that the “earth” in verses 2 and 3 were Judah and its inhabitants. Some translations have “earth” here instead of “land.
Zephaniah 1:4 “I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.”
Matthew 24:29-35 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”
The stars here are the leaders and high priests of the Jewish nation. The powers of God’s heaven were not going to be shaken, no the Jewish nation was to be shaken. It would happen in the generation Jesus was speaking to, (first century). In 70 AD Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed. The Jewish nation ceased to exist. Many Jews were killed and many more taken away into slavery.
When we understand the language being used, we can see the amazing fulfillment of God’s words. But when we try to take prophetic language literally, then we get the idea that these things didn’t happen, so they must be future. Or, as many atheists try to say, Jesus was wrong and the prophecy failed.
We need to let the Bible interpret itself. When you see phrases in the New Testament, see if they were used in the Old Testament.
With the three simple “SECRETS” I have given you here, you should be able to start understanding the Book of Revelation. Remember, it is not a mystery, it is a revealing.
For more about what happened in 70 AD, check out my article HERE.
I welcome your questions and comments, but I will not entertain dispensational ideas or eschatology. Thank you. Dennis