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.