Revelation: Millennial Views-Part 2
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[00:00:00] Mike, will you open us in prayer? Yeah, absolutely
Father, thank you for today, and thank you, um, that the smoke had lifted a little bit in the, the valley, and we thank you that we, um, are all able to gather here today. We pray that you will, um, open our hearts to your, um, to your word and, uh, to Mike's teaching, Pastor Mike's teaching. And, um, we just thank you for, um, all the wisdom that is poured out to us here, and we pray that we'll have, uh, receiving hearts and, um, be, uh, humble to not necessarily understanding everything and also maybe being challenged.
Um, we thank you f- for,
uh, being our
Father in heaven and, uh, for also being with us here on earth, uh, as we walk and do our best to follow you. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right. So I always start out with a little bit of review, and we've got some new faces tonight, which is good. Um, but obviously we're going through the Book of Revelation, and technically we're at the beginning of chapter six, uh, the seals.[00:01:00]
So we, we talked about everything up to chapter six where, uh, Jesus is about to start opening the seals, but I thought it would be a good idea to kinda take a, a little bit of a... Not really a break, 'cause I think it's completely 100% related, but take a step back and just review the different millennial views.
So we started that last week, and, uh, we looked at premillennialism, and we'll do a little review here in a minute. We looked at premillenni- Well, before I do that, how many millennial views are there? Four. Three. Very good. I heard three, and I heard four, which is good because there are three main views, but one of them has two different views.
So you could count it as three or four, okay? So there's premillennialism, and premillen- premillennialism has what's called a dispensational version, but it also has a historic version, and they're, they're different. I mean, there's, there's plenty of significant things that are different in [00:02:00] those things.
Um, so that's premillennialism. What's another millennial view? Amillennialism, we talked about that a little bit last, last time. Again, we'll review it. And then the last millennial view? Post-millennial. Post-millennialism. All right. So if you take this form here, and everyone looks at that, and we'll do this via by way of review.
And this is just kind of a timeline outlining the different millennial views. And just so you know, there are schools of thought with each view. So for instance, uh, let's see. I don't even know if I have it on this sheet Yeah, look at premillennialism. And yeah, I think I left it off the sheet. Um, but, uh, a dispensational premillennialist, uh, there's three different views on when the rapture takes place, okay?
Um, I didn't even have it here. I'll kind of fill it in. I'll let you know when. [00:03:00] But, uh, so look at premillennialism. And, and again, the top one is more of a dispensational view, um, and we'll just start at the crucifixion. So the crucifixion happened around 30 AD. At some point in the future, it hasn't happened yet according to premillennialism, um, but Christ is going to return.
And when Christ returns according to premillennialism, there's actually three stages. There's actually three stages of His one return. Um, the first stage will start at some point in the, the future. He will return, and when He returns, that's when the rapture happens as understood by premillennial dispensationalists, okay?
So this is their view. Um, it's not my view. Um, but Christ will return and, and, and I'm not trying to be disparaging or anything, um, I'm just trying to use simple language. But Christ returns, but He doesn't come all the way. He stops about halfway down, okay? The [00:04:00] Church is raptured. Believers are taken. Uh, living believers go up in the air, okay?
It's visible. Uh, dead believers resurrect and join them in the air, and they go back to heaven with Jesus Christ, okay? And they're gonna go back to heaven for seven years, and during that seven-year period, there's going to be the, the great tribulation here on earth, okay? At the end of that seven-year period, and you can see it all on your handout, you, uh, you have Armageddon and Satan is bound, okay?
Jesus returns the rest of the way, okay? The saints who were raptured come with Him, and Jesus, according to this view, will set up a literal kingdom in Jerusalem. There'll be a rebuilt temple. Um, He will reign on the throne of David. According to this view, that's when He takes His seat on the throne of David, and He will rule on earth with glorified saints [00:05:00] given different assignments and different jobs, but He will rule for a literal 1,000 years.
At the end of that 1,000 years, um, Satan will be released for a short period of time. There'll be a big battle usually referred to as Gog and Magog, and then Christ will basically stop it all in a day. He will defeat Satan. He'll defeat Satan's forces. They will be cast into the lake of fire. There will be the great white throne judgment and then the new heavens and new earth Any questions on that view?
Did I go too fast or any-- If this is your first time hearing it, might seem odd to you, um, but any questions on the pre-millennial dispensational view? Got a few more things to add, but All right. The uniqueness about the premillennial dispensational view is dispensationalism, uh, basically [00:06:00] divides history into seven parts.
And in each of the seven parts, there's a different way of salvation. Okay? And again, I don't wanna be disparaging or anything, but the way dispensationalists understand it is, uh, God gives us these different ways of salvation to teach us that we can't do it on our own, because man fails in each dispensation.
And because man fails in each dispensation, God reorganizes it and gives man another way of salvation. Okay? Um, the other thing that's very, uh, distinct about dispensational eschatology is they make a very clear and distinct, uh, difference between Israel and the church. Okay? Israel received certain promises in the Old Testament that according to dispensationalism have not been fulfilled yet, even though it's on hold, because the dispensation that we're in right now, [00:07:00] according to this view, is the church age or the dispensation of the church.
Okay? Um, so Jesus, God is working with the church right now, but again, according to this view, He's not done with Israel. So when Jesus does return and the church is raptured, then the timetable, Daniel's quote-unquote 70-week timetable, will kick back in 'cause we're in this gap period. It'll kick back in, and God will start working with national Israel again and start to fulfill the promises according to this view that He hasn't fulfilled yet.
Okay? So that's one giant distinctive in the premillennial view. As far as the historic view, and I won't get into the detail 'cause you can read it for yourself, but if you grab that sheet And, and just so that you understand, this came out of-- I got a book of, uh, uh, Bible charts and graphs and all that stuff, so I, I got this out of that book.
It kinda-- There's a footnote [00:08:00] on the bottom letting you know. And I don't agree with everything they say on this, but I included it and I gave it to you because I think it's good to, to see another way of, of how somebody else might put it. But on the back of that, I've kinda spelled out the historic pre-mill view.
And the biggest distinction in the historic pre-mill view is Israel doesn't really have a special place, okay? God still comes, or Jesus still will come back. He'll still reign for a period of a thousand years. He'll still reign over the earth. Satan will still be bound. At the end of that thousand years, Satan is still released.
But it is very different in its view of salvation, um, because they see only one plan from beginning to end. Um, and Israel, Israel may come to faith in, in a, in a large way at the end of time, and in that sense, they may still-- there may be something left for Israel, but they don't have any special [00:09:00] place or any special prominence, uh, over the other Gentile nations.
Does that make sense? All right, so that's kind of the big difference in the premillennial, uh, or the historic premillennial versus the dispensational. So if you go back to this chart, and please slow me down, ask me questions if I'm going too fast. But again, we're still in review. So, um, but the next-- or the next one that we did last week was the amillennial view, okay?
And again, we're talking about, in case you're not familiar with all the language and everything, we're talking about what is called eschatology, okay? It comes from two words, eschatos and logos. So it's the study of last things, all right? And even though in theology, eschatology is broader than the end of the world, that's what most Christians think about when we say eschatology.
We think about how's the world gonna end? Is Jesus returning? How does all that work, okay? So we're talking about [00:10:00] eschatological views. And historically, the church has had three main views. I s- I said this last week, and I'll say it again, dispensational premillennialism is novel. It is the most popular view today, but it's not even two hundred years old, okay?
And a lot of dispensationalists, and, and I'll, I'll say this too, 'cause I said it last week, I personally believe it is a heretical system. It has not helped the church, it has hurt the church, it is not good for the church. And, um, ten years ago, I probably wouldn't have put it that way. But today, I just-- I-- there's-- in my view, there are so many problems with the view, from different views of salvation, to misunderstanding the promises of God, to misapplying the promises of God, to basically getting the American church to pull out of culture, and look around you and see what's happened.
Um, but it is novel. [00:11:00] But many dispensationalists will argue, "No, we go all the way back to the early church," because historic premillennialism can be traced back to the early church, okay? Historic premillennialism, amillennialism, and postmillennialist views, you can find them all in the early church, all right?
But the distinctives of dispensationalism, you cannot find in the early church Um, but so that's why we're looking at it. So these are different views of how things end. So again, back to the amill view. Um, we'll start again at 30 AD, and, uh, what the amillennials believes is, um, that when Jesus-- or at 70 AD, when Jerusalem was destroyed and all that stuff, basically Satan was bound.
The amillennials believes that Satan was bound back then, so sometime in the first century. However, uh, what they [00:12:00] mean by that is that he can no longer deceive the nations. In the Old Testament time period, Satan pretty much deceived all but one nation, with a few exceptions. Nineveh was a brief exception, okay?
Uh, Melchizedek, uh, when he reigned in Jerusalem, and he did reign in Jerusalem, that was another brief exception. But for the most part, all the Gentile nations were kept in the dark, did not experience salvation, and it was only the Jewish people, for the most part, that experienced any kind of salvation.
Okay? But with the coming of Jesus and the ascension of Jesus, and when Jesus ascends, He takes His throne. He goes to the throne of David in the amillennialist view. And when He does that, Satan is bound. He's bound at some point in the first century. They're not as specific as postmillennialists are, but Satan is bound, okay?
And they believe that the millennium, the millennial reign of Christ, [00:13:00] begins at His ascension, okay? So obviously, they don't take the thousand years as literal. They see it as a figurative number. I think there's very good reason in Scripture to see it as a figurative number. I think there's very good reason in the Book of Revelation, that is a very symbolic book, to see it as a symbol- a symbolic number.
But they would argue that the millennium begins with the first coming of Christ. It begins at His ascension, and it ends with His second coming. Okay Going back just a step, what does it mean that Satan is bound?
What does it mean to us? What does it mean to the world, to the church? Okay. In the, in the amillennialist view, what it means is that the, the Gentiles are gonna come to faith. He is only bound in the sense that he can no longer blind the nations. So when we take the gospel to all the nations, we should expect some kind of [00:14:00] success, that people from every tribe, tongue, and nation will come to Christ.
They don't believe that the nations as a whole will come to Christ, but that people from all nations will come to Christ. Where in the Old Testament, you just-- you didn't see that. You didn't see it for a couple of reasons. You didn't see it because quite frankly, Israel was not obedient. Yeah. They didn't-- They weren't evangelistic, and they were supposed to be.
Okay? But also, it's because Satan had a hold on all the other nations. Okay? We see it in Daniel, I pointed it out several times, different demonic fallen angels ruled various nations. Okay? And again, we see a lot of that in Daniel, um, where it really comes to the fore. There's hints of it in, in other places.
I think there's hints in the Psalms and stuff like that. But, uh, the nations were darkened and blinded, and now Satan is bound in the sense-- According to amillennialist view, he's [00:15:00] still here, he's still roaming around, he's still causing havoc, but he simply cannot prevent the gospel from going to the nations
So where, where in scripture do we get that view? 'Cause it's, it's a, a viewpoint, you see that happening, but where does it say that that's- Okay. Again, the, the amillennialist would say we get that view i-in a proper interpretation of Revelation chapter 20, where Satan is bound, he's thrown into a pit. Okay?
Again, I'm giving you the amill view. When you get to Revelation chapter 20, um, s- and, uh, Satan is bound, okay, he's thrown into the pit. And remember, the amillennialist takes an idealist or a recapitulatory view of the Book of Revelation. Okay? So they see Revelation divided into seven parts, and each of the seven part takes you from the first coming to the second coming.
Okay? [00:16:00] So they would see that seventh section of Revelation as beginning with the ascension of Christ. When Christ ascends, Satan is bound. We read that in chapter 20. He's thrown into the pit, okay. But because you're talking about a spiritual being, but you're talking about a chain and a lock and a key and a pit, they interpret it symbolically or figuratively, so he's not really put away anywhere, but obviously he's restricted from doing something.
Then you go on to read about nations coming to Christ. Okay? So that didn't happen before. So logically, they put it together as he was obviously bound from keeping the nations away from Christ. And again, their interpretation of Revelation 20, his binding starts at the first coming, his release is at the second coming or, or just before.
So that's-- And again, it's probably not overly [00:17:00] familiar to a lot of people if you've never looked at the book that way from an omnalystic view. Um, I don't remember, I won't mention any names, but the first time I did this class, uh, it was sweet and it was cute and I controlled my laughter. Um, but there was a, a, a lady in the class and I was going over this and she raised her hand and she's like, "Pastor Mike, are there any verses for any of this?"
And she was so sincere. It's like she had never heard this before. And I chuckled because my response to her was, "Yes, but it's all the same verses you refer to." It's just a different interpretation of those verses Does that kinda answer your question? Okay. All right. And then, um, so when Christ returns, uh, Satan is released, most likely that's Arm-- Sometimes they'll see that as Armageddon, Gog, and Magog all rolled up into one, and then, uh, the new heavens and the new Earth in the [00:18:00] eternal state.
Okay? Any other questions about that? So then the last one that we haven't covered yet Is the postmillennial view, that's the bottom one, and I'll do this somewhat quickly because that's what the rest of the night will be on, because that's the one view we haven't done. Okay, same thing in 30 AD, Christ is crucified.
However, in 70 AD, Jesus-- And I want to be really careful, um, so hear me out before you jump to any conclusions. Jesus returns in 70 AD, okay? But it is not the second coming. Post-m- Well, there is a school of thought in postmillennialism or in preterism, which is preterism is a view of how to interpret the Book of Revelation.
Okay, happens to be the view that I hold to, and those of you that have been coming, you know that. Um, but there's what's called full preterism and partial [00:19:00] preterism, okay? So there are some who are postmillennialists who do believe that the second coming took place in 70 AD, okay? But that's more of a minority view, okay?
Most preterists are what's called partial preterists, and they believe that it was a spiritual coming in judgment. And I've tried to show you several times from the pulpit, we talked about it several-- a couple of different times, uh, in this Bible study, that in the Old Testament, you can find multiple times where Yahweh comes to judge a nation, and it's described as Yahweh coming on the clouds, as Yahweh coming in the storm.
Okay, well, what does Jesus tell the chief priest at his trial? "Are you the Christ?" "Yes, and you will see me coming on the clouds to judge," I'm paraphrasing now, but to judge this nation. Okay, what does the [00:20:00] chief priest do? He rips his garment, and he accuses Jesus of blasphemy. And we've covered this in weeks past, but I have argued that Jesus meant what he said, and I've argued that the theme verse, Revelation 1:7, is that same verse, where in Revelation chapter 7, it's quoting, "You will see him come upon the-- Those who crucified him, those who pierced him," I think is the language, "will see him coming on the clouds."
Okay, so when I say that Jesus came in 70 AD, what I'm saying, what the preterist, what the postmillennialist is saying is that he came in judgment on the old covenant people because they rejected their Messiah. So he came in judgment, and he completely obliterated the old covenant system. There is no longer a temple.
There is no longer sacrifices. Modern-day Judaism, again, I don't mean to be disrespectful or anything, but it is not Judaism [00:21:00] Because Judaism needs a temple to work. Judaism needs sacrifices to work, and Jesus took all that away. Okay? So in the postmillennial view, Jesus came in judgment in 70 AD. He wiped out the, um, old covenant system, and that is when Satan was bound.
Now, there's two views in the postmillennial view. One view is the same as the amill view, that Satan was simply bound and could no longer deceive the nations, okay? The other view, which is the view that I hold to, is I believe Satan has fully been bound and he's out of the picture. Okay? He's doing nothing today.
I'm not denying demonic activity because there's hundreds of thousands of demons. If a third of the angels fell, and there's tens of ten thousands and myriads and myriads of angels, we're talking hundreds of thousands fell, okay? [00:22:00] Uh, Satan is bound, but there are still demons out there causing havoc, and it's the church's job as they attempt...
I believe, you can say attempt, but I believe ultimately will fulfill the Great Commission to, is to take more ground back from those fallen angels, from those evil forces, okay? So Jesus returns in 70 AD, a cloud coming, a judgment coming. Satan is bound. He is fully bound, and again, in line with amillennialism, the millennial begins, okay?
Uh, the big difference, and I forgot to mention this in amillennialism, even though the millennium, millennial reign lasts between the first coming and the second coming, the reign and the millennium all takes place in heaven, okay? On earth, basically you have two kingdoms. This is the amillennial view.
Basically, you have two kingdoms, the kingdom of evil and Christ's kingdom, and they grow kind of side by [00:23:00] side In postmillennialism, the period is the same. The millennium begins with Christ's first coming, it ends with His second. But according to this view, the Church wins on earth. Jesus rules and reigns on earth.
He uses His Church to bring in His kingdom, and the nations will be discipled according to this view, okay? At some time in the future, we don't know when it's going to be, but Christ will return, okay? Um, the standard, uh, postmillennial view is just before His return, and in my opinion, this is the biggest problem for this view, but just before the return of Christ, Satan will be released.
He will begin to cause havoc, but then Christ will come back, destroy Satan, the rest of his hordes. They will be cast into the lake of fi-- No. Uh, they will be cast into the lake of fire and great white throne judgment and the new heavens and new earth. Yes, ma'am. [00:24:00] Um, so, uh, if Satan is bound right now but the demons are creating havoc, what's the difference?
Either way you have Well, the, the difference is, um, th-th-there's-- The reason I, I, I chuckle within is because I'm still working through some of this. Um, uh, but the reason you still have, uh, havoc is because demons are doing things. But again, because the postmillennialist believes that the church wins on earth, what that means is we take back more ground.
Okay? So we-- The church, Jesus uses the church to defeat demons. Okay. So the other thing, again, this- He wouldn't use the church to defeat Satan? I think he did, but he did it in the first century. Okay. Here's the other thing,[00:25:00]
and I, I've shared this a little bit, and I know some of this is probably new, and some of this is like, "Who is this guy?" Um, but this is not novel. It's new maybe for you guys, but it's not novel in church history
Every time you read in scripture that Satan is the prince of this world and he's the ruler of this world, I don't think it means the whole world. And I've tried to demonstrate that at some Bible studies in the past. It's referring to the world of the Roman Empire. I believe that by the time we get to the first century, and I'm actually gonna comment a little bit of this on Sunday, but by the time we get to the first century, Satan is the ruler of Israel
And Satan is defeated because Israel is defeated. So what I'm saying, and I know this runs counter to what you've probably been raised with, Satan is not as big a deal as you think he is. Satan is one [00:26:00] of many demons, but he happened to be the prince of Israel. And because Israel was defeated, and because Israel had become wicked, Israel had become a harlot, Israel had become, you know, Babylon, Israel had rejected her Messiah, and Jesus-- Moses promised, "You do this, and eventually Yahweh is gonna deal with you."
So Jesus comes on the clouds, deals with Israel, and in dealing with Israel, and we read this in the New Testament, specifically Ephesians, but elsewhere, He also defeats rulers and authorities and dominions. He defeats the demons, okay? Specifically the demons that were ruling Jerusalem, Israel. And now the church age.
So the church's job is to go out there and finish what Jesus has begun. And just again, so you know, [00:27:00] the first century church believed that. They believed it wholeheartedly, and that's why the Roman Empire became the Holy Roman Empire only 200 years later, because they believed they were supposed to win.
Unfortunately, today, with the advent of dispensationalism, we think we're gonna lose, and that's how most Christians act. They act as if we're the loser, and we're just waiting any day now for Jesus to come back and rescue us from all this. And so my view is, until that changes, we are gonna lose
That help make sense a little bit? A little bit. I know it's new. I still have questions. I know. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mike. The way I see it is, like, we captured and killed Bin Laden, right? Right. [00:28:00] We continued to go to war for years on end to fight folks that supported Bin Laden. And it just, it falls into the guerrilla warfare aspect of it.
So looking at the Satan concept and then all the demons, they still have, uh, a concept and id- ideology or ideology on what they're wanting to fight against, and that's everything against Yahweh. That's just what they're bred to do, is to destroy everything he loves. So they don't need Bin Laden or Satan to tell them that they need to do it.
So the guerrilla warfare-- I just, I see spiritual warfare as guerrilla warfare. The war has been won, but now it's just little pieces and segments of these guys that hate everything about us. That's how I visualize it. That's actually a very good, uh, illustration, for example, um, because, uh, you, you could even say that in many ways Bin Laden's still leading.
Yeah. The dead [00:29:00] guy's still leading because they still buy into his ideology. So even if you think I'm wrong about Satan being the prince of Israel, and even if you think that, no, Satan was the prince of the world, that analogy I think is helpful because they're, they're still following that mindset. The demons are still following that ideology.
They're still-- I mean, think about it. James tells us demons are way smarter than us. They know they're gonna lose, but they're still fi-- 'cause even if pre-millennial dispensationalism were correct, they still lose in the end But for whatever reason, they hate God so much, they're gonna cause as much problem as they can along the way.
That's kind of their attitude. So- Suicide bombers ... and Satan knew it from the beginning. Satan knew he wasn't God. He wanted to be God, but he knew he wasn't God, and his ego got the best of him, and he fell. And, you know, he fought God for a certain amount of time. He knew he was gonna lose, but he still did it 'cause he hates God so [00:30:00] much.
Okay? Um, so thank you. That was a really good analogy, so I like that. All right, open up your notes. I have a question- Yes, ma'am ... sorry, before you move on. The second coming and postmillennialism, the second coming and judgment, so if the judgment already happened, was that, that first judgment only on Israel?
Yes. And so the second judgment will be on- The rest of the world, the Great White Throne Judgment. Okay. Okay? But we're gonna deal with something, another problematic issue with, uh, the postmillennial view. Um, so if you look at your notes, postmillennialism, um, I, I won't get into A, but I just ask the question: Will the Great Commission be fulfilled?
Um, Matthew, the end of Matthew 28 verses 19... Does it-- Some- somebody wanna read that for me? Matthew 28 verses 19 to 20. You can go 18, 19, and 20. Anybody that wants to look it up. 18, 19, 20? Mm-hmm. [00:31:00] And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth." How many, how much?
All. Okay. Like all. So some? Just all. Are you saying some authority's been given to him? More. Okay. All. All right. All. Just making sure I'm hearing you right. "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.
And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Okay, so the one thing that I want you to hear in that language, if we're just honest, I've said this so many times, if you were just honest, just let scripture say what it says. He doesn't say, "Go make disciples out of the nations. Go make disciples among peoples of all nations."
Who does he say [00:32:00] to make the disciples of? The nations. It's not just people from the na- He wants the nations discipled. He doesn't expect us to disciple just people, but the whole people group. So one of the things that got me interested in studying eschatology and studying postmillennialism is this simple question: Will the Great Commission be fulfilled?
Will the command that Jesus gave His church after He said, "I have all authority, and by the way, I'm gonna be with you till the end Is that gonna fail? And the more I studied, the more I studied that, the more I studied Psalm chapter 2, the more I studied the rest of scripture, it's like, no, Jesus can't fail.
Am I looking at this right? So I started delving in, I started looking at these other views, okay? Now, one of the things that postmal- postmillennialism teaches [00:33:00] is that when Jesus returns for the final, the actual, we call the Second Coming, what the, uh, like, the Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed refer to as the Second Coming, he'll come again to judge the living and the dead, um, what kind of a world will he return to?
And what postmillennialists teach is that he will be returning to a Christian world. Because the Church wins in time and in history, the nations will be discipled, so when Jesus finally comes back, he will return to a Christian world, okay? However, along with that, most postmillennialists would argue, and I've said this, you've heard me say it before, I've seen your eyes roll, um, but what most postmillennialists believe is heaven will be vastly more populated than hell.
There will be an infinitely more larger, [00:34:00] bigger, greater number of people in heaven than will be in hell, okay? But most people, because of the influence of dispensationalism, don't believe that. So open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 7
And what I wanna do is I wanna look at the verses that most people that I talk to, this is where they will turn to, to try to prove that hell will be overpopulated and there'll be all kinds of vacancies in heaven. Okay, so Matthew 7:13-14. Okay? Matthew 7:13-14. "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction."
Does anyone's, uh, translation use a different word other than destruction? Nope? Okay. So again, "Enter through the narrow gate; [00:35:00] for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it."
Okay, so most people will appeal to this passage, and they'll say, "See, Jesus His- Himself says many are gonna fail. Many are gonna go through the, the wide gate of destruction, and only a few are gonna go through that gate that leads to eternal life." Okay? Um, but let me ask you a question. Think about this, and if you gotta flip back through your Bible, that's fine.
What's the context of Matthew chapter 7? What's going on here?
Sermon on the Mount. This is in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. So, uh, who is Jesus addressing? [00:36:00] Ah. He's addressing old covenant members The disciples Okay. Well, he's talking to the disciples, but there were, I don't know, a couple hundred, couple thousand that were there that he was preaching to. And so he's just- No.
I'm kidding. Okay. Don't mess with me, Rhoda. Okay. So the context is the Sermon on the Mount. The context is Old Covenant members, and he's talking, and this is really important, he's talking to Old Covenant members as Old Covenant members. And it w- when it comes to Jerusalem, 'cause Jesus knew what was gonna happen.
When Jesus approaches Jerusalem right before his crucifixion, he's weeping, "Oh, Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem. How I wanted to gather you as a mother hen gathers her chicks, and you would not have me." And he's weeping before he enters the city, okay? Um, he knows what's gonna happen
The gate is [00:37:00] wide and broad that leads to destruction, and many are going to enter through it. The gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life. This old covenant way is not going to save you. It's the same message as the book of Hebrews, okay? Now, turn to Matthew chapter 8
Listen to Jesus' words here: "I say to you that many," that's the same word that's used in Matthew chapter 7, "Many are gonna enter through the gate that leads to destruction." He uses the same word, "Many will c- " Oh, Matthew 8:11-12. Sorry. I get excited. Matthew 8:11-12, "I say to you that many will come from the east and the west and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven."
Who's he [00:38:00] talking about? Now let me give you the context. If you back up and you read the beginning of chapter eight, it's the story of the Gentile centurion. Mm. Remember the centurion that comes to Jesus? When he comes to Jesus, he says, "My boy," or, "My servant," or scholars disagree on who exactly the r- what the relationship is, but obviously somebody that this guy loves, and he's sick, and he's dying, and he says, "Jesus, I want you to heal him."
And when you put all the Gospels together, Jesus says, "All right, let's go. I'll heal him." And he says, "No, I am not worthy for you to come into my house. All you need to do is command it." A little bit more to the story, but Jesus says He commands it, and then He turns to His disciples and He says, "I've not seen faith like this in Israel."
Let me paraphrase. I've not seen faith like this in the old covenant people. Okay? That's the context. He's dealing with Gentiles. Now He says in verse 11, "Many will come from the East and the [00:39:00] West and recline at the table with, uh, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." He's talking about the Gentiles.
How do I know that? Look at verse 12. "But the sons of the kingdom," the old covenant people, "will be cast out into outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Mm. So if you interpret, uh, broad is the way that leads to destruction and there are many who will go through it, and you say many means a whole lot of people, then you have to interpret the same word many in Matthew chapter eight as a whole lot of people.
And the context is different. The first context is the old covenant people who Jesus knows is gonna reject their Messiah And what's the church now? Think about it. The Bible refers to the church as the Israel of God. The Bible says in Romans chapter, uh Drew a blank. It's nine, 10, or 11. Uh, [00:40:00] somebody, if you remember, let me know.
But nine, 10, or 11, he says that the church is Israel, and the Gentiles are grafted into Israel. The Gentiles never replaced Israel. The Gentiles were placed into Israel, and Israel grew But there's more Gentiles in Israel today than Israelites. There's more Gentiles in the church today than Israelites.
Okay? Now, I think that's for two reasons. Number one, Israel rejected her Messiah, and God judged them. But number two, because she rejected her Messiah, she's just one nation among many. So obviously, there's gonna be more Gentiles than Israelites, just like there's more of everybody else than just Mexicans.
You know, if you join all the nations together and you compare them to Mexico, there's more of everybody else than Mexico. Okay? So it's just-- it's the same thing. All right? When you put [00:41:00] all the nations together and compare it to any one nation, there's gonna be more of them than the one nation. All right?
But he makes it very clear in Matthew chapter eight that there are gonna be many, and they are gonna come from the east and the west. Okay? But the old covenant people, at least in the first century, they've been rejected. Turn to Matthew twenty-two. And as you're turning, if anyone has a question, ask now or forever-- No.
Then I'll ask now. Um, I think I follow everything except I don't understand in, uh, Matthew seven, it says, "Enter by the narrow gate." So then he's-- And then, and then it starts out in fourteen, "For the gate is narrow." Is that, is that the two same gate?
Okay. Yeah, yes. Those refer to the same two gates. So enter through the narrow gate because the wide gate leads to [00:42:00] destruction. Yeah. Okay? For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life. So are you saying- So they're the same gate. But- He's telling the people, "You need to go through the narrow gate."
Yeah. Okay. Okay? You're trying to go through the wide gate. You need to go through the narrow gate. Okay. And then he distinguishes the two gates. That makes sense. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. All right, Matthew 22:14. This is another one that people will refer to and say, "See? Hell is full, heaven is empty."
"For many are called, but few are cha- chosen." Many are called, but few are chosen. See? So many are gonna hear the gospel, but few are chosen, few are gonna accept it. Okay? But there's a couple of problems. I'm just gonna walk you through it, and then please go back and read the, the chapter and read the context on, on your own.
But the audience, we find out who the audience is. You'll just wanna jot this down in chapter 21, verse 23. This starts all the way a chapter earlier, which this is why I tell you we need to learn to [00:43:00] stop proof-texting. We need to go back, and we need to understand the context. So this whole discussion, what's going on here, begins all the way back in chapter 21, and the audience are the Jews at the temple, the chief priests, and the elders, the people that in a matter of just a few days were gonna be screaming, "Crucify him.
Crucify him Okay? The context
The context is, uh, and this is found in chapter 21, verses 23 to 44, and the context is the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the elders and the chief priests are questioning Jesus's authority, and they're trying to trap Him. Okay? And Jesus starts to tell some parables. He tells about the two sons. One is obedient, one is disobedient.
He tells about the landowner that goes away, and then he sends some servants to, to get his produce. And what do they do to the servants? They kill them. [00:44:00] So at the very end, he says, "Well, I'll send my son 'cause surely they'll respect my son." What do they do to the son? Kill him. They kill him. Okay? And when you read that in context, the Pharisees understood who he was talking about, and they weren't happy with Him.
Okay? He talks about... He quotes Psalm 118 towards the end of that, the stone which the builders rejected. So again, all of this is being directed to the old covenant people as old covenant people. Many of you are called. I've been preaching for three and a half years. I've been standing at the temple for this whole week, day after day, preaching, pleading with you.
Many are called, few are chosen. And what happens at the end of it in chapter 21, verses 45 to 46? The chief priests and the Pharisees sought to seize Him. Then in chapter 22, He begins to tell the parable of the wedding feast, and He's describing, again, [00:45:00] old covenant members because what does He say? This guy's putting on a feast for his kid who's getting married.
He invites everybody. Nobody comes. It mimics what Jesus is doing. I'm offering you a feast. I'm offering you salvation. I'm offering you the narrow gate, and nobody's going through it. Wow. So look at Matthew 22, verse nine
This is all leading up to when he says, "For many are called and few are chosen." But listen to Matthew twenty-two, verses nine and ten. "Go therefore to the main highways." And again, read it in context. Go back. You can read it later. Go to the Gentiles Go therefore to the main highways. And as many, and that's just a word, it's a comparative pronoun, it's a word that means as, as many, okay?
Get as many people as you come, invite them. Go therefore to the main highway, and as many as [00:46:00] you find there, invite to the wedding feast. Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered together all they found, both evil and good. And what was the wedding hall? And the wedding hall was what? Filled.
Filled. It was filled. But nobody from Israel wanted to come. They go out and they start inviting Gentiles. The wedding hall was filled with dinner guests. So again, you-- there's a difference between what Jesus is saying there. You old covenant people in the first century, many of you are called, few of you are gonna choose.
Okay? But here's another thing, not to get too far ahead, but even the, the few were in the hundreds of thousands, if you understand it. But that was still relatively few compared to all the old covenant people alive at the time, because the majority of them rejected their [00:47:00] Messiah and took the wide gate That's why he's gonna go to the, the Gentiles, and the wedding feast is gonna be full.
Now look at verse 11, because this is one of those verses that's, that's weird. "But when the king came in to look over the dinner guests," the full wedding feast, "he saw a man who was not dressed in wedding clothes." Okay? Somehow a Jew had snuck in, and he wasn't dressed in the proper attire. And again, you'll have to go back, you'll have to look at the context, but Jesus uses this idea of new and old, of proper clothing and the wrong clothing.
He uses this throughout his parables. This was somebody not dressed in wedding clothes. This is somebody that is still tied to the old covenant. And what does he do with this person? Throws him out Many are called, but few are chosen. That is directed to the first century old covenant people that rejected their Messiah.
Nowhere does the Bible teach [00:48:00] that only few people are going to heaven. We, we live in a time
We live in a time, if I'm honest, we live in a time where we allow the headlines to determine our theology instead of allowing the scriptures to de- determine our theology. We live in a time where, let's face it, the church in America is shrinking. The numbers prove it. The church in America is shrinking.
In fact, I heard a statistic today, and I don't wanna blow the, I don't wanna blow the number of years, but it was a relatively short period of time, something like 30 years from now, if the trends keep going, there will be more Christians in China than in America And we allow what we see and we allow what we read in the headlines to determine our theology instead of going to the scriptures and letting it determine our theology.[00:49:00]
And we tend to focus in on proof texting, and we tend to read chapter seven of Matthew, and then we put our Bibles down and we go about our day. And that's okay. You don't have to read the whole book of Matthew every time you sit down, okay? But we read a couple verses, we put it down, we push it away, and then we come back the next day as faithful Christians, and we read the next few verses, and we forget that those things are tied together.
So we read chapter seven. We read, "The gate is wide, the way is broad that leads to destruction and many go through it. The gate is small, the gate is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it." And then we forget when we get to chapter eight that it's using the same language and the same words, but it's addressing a different group of people, and we don't put them together.
So we interpret chapter seven in isolation, and we don't interpret it in the context of chapter eight. And the, and the one thing that I would challenge everyone here, and it's not easy, and I'm not saying you have to do it every day or every [00:50:00] time you read the Bible, but at some point throughout the year And, and I would keep doing this and keep choosing new books, but read a whole book.
Now, some books are easy. I'll read Phi Lehman every day. Okay? Um, but-- And I'm not saying do that with the Psalms. The Psalms is a different kind of book anyway. But, you know, at some point sit down and read the entire book of Matthew Okay? And then go back to your regular reading plan, and then maybe the next month or something like that, read the entire book of Romans.
It's amazing what will jump off the page at you when you read the entire book. Because even when you're not doing it on purpose, we tend to proof text because we always break it up the way we read it. Okay? Um, so, uh, I'm gonna move on, but this is my argument, um, for the idea that I think [00:51:00] when we read Psalm 2, when we read the Great Commission, when we read these passages, when you read the parables, go back and read the kingdom parables.
You have this mustard seed, the smallest seed in the gardens back in those days, and it grows to the biggest plant. That's the kingdom of heaven. It's not paltry. It's full, and it's vibrant. And we live in a time and a period where Christians are being disobedient. I believe the church is under judgment, and we're just-- we're not seeing this, so we have a hard time believing it.
But what do the scriptures say? All right. Um, uh, if you continue in, on your notes, um, I think the next one after, uh, I didn't-- I don't think I labeled it, uh
I didn't give you the [00:52:00] definition, did I? The fill in the blank
Yes. Okay, on B, on that, that first page, this page here, page eight, I forgot to give you the, uh, um, definition, and I probably didn't tell you that some of this other stuff was in your notes. But, uh, Christ currently reigns. This is the definition of postmillennial- millennialism. Christ currently reigns, and we will increasingly experience a time of peace and prosperity called the millennium.
This will be followed by Christ's return. Okay? And the one thing that I've explained in the past, and I'll just touch on again today, is I believe that the world will become more Christianized, and the kingdom of God will flourish and take more and more and more dominion. But I don't believe in this It's more like
This. It keeps increasing, but there are dips along the way. [00:53:00] Okay? I had a really good, uh, seminary professor once describe it this way. Even a guy that wins a prize fight comes out beat up and bruised. Okay? But he still wins. Okay? So God doesn't say that, you know, it's all gonna be peachy, creamy, you know, gummy bears and pudding along the way, okay?
Because unfortunately The church has periods of disobedience. The church has periods of, "Hey, things are going really good. Uh, we can relax now." And that's when you get that dip. Okay? We see it in the history of Israel. We've seen it in the history of the church. So, um, so then, uh, I talked about audience and context, but I probably didn't tell you it was on your notes.
And then, uh, uh, you can see the little chart there on page nine, the little diagram at the bottom, we went over that. So technically, uh, we're on page 10, and page 10 talks about some of the proponents who held to, uh, [00:54:00] postmillennial theology. So just look at that list. Does anyone recognize any of the names?
Mm-hmm. Okay. Strong and Sproul. All right. I would say R.C. Sproul is a, uh, uh-- I think he surprised a lot of people 'cause he wasn't always postmillennial. But he actually wrote a book on it, okay? Um, Loraine Boettner, you may not be familiar with that name, but I mean, I tried to use, uh, and I use this w-with every view, but I tried to use the best of the best of the people that h-held these views.
B.B. Warfield, um, Strong, you mentioned him, and trust me, there are more that I could put in. But notice below that, these are some of the ancient church fathers that held a postmillennial view: Origin, Eusebius, Athanasius, August-Augustine, John Chrysostom. Okay? Another one, even though I don't think this is a good church, but the Orthodox Church in all of its different, [00:55:00] uh, I'll call them denominations, they actually hold to a postmillennial view.
That's a view that the Orthodox holds to. Okay? Didn't Jonathan Edwards also? Yes. Yeah. Thank you. I was gonna-- My, my brain was
So again, this is not new, this is not novel. It goes all the way back to the early church, and there are some very competent theologians who held to this view. Um, on the Matthew twenty-four, do you have a fill in the blank? Yeah, the Olivet Discourse. So that's your next fill in the blank, the Olivet Discourse.
And we're not gonna take the time to go over the Olivet Discourse. We will touch on it the next time we meet because I've created a chart that I wanna give you that lines up the Olivet Discourse with the seals that Jesus is gonna start opening in the Book of Revelation. Because remember, for those of you that are kinda here for the first time, I take a preterist view of the Book of Revelation.
So basically, uh, I would argue that the [00:56:00] majority of the book was fulfilled in seventy AD. Okay? So when Jesus is opening up those seals, He's starting to release the judgment upon the first century Jerusalem And what's interesting, and I've said this before, and I'm rapidly running out of time, but, um, the Olivet Discourse is where Jesus sits on the Mount of Olives and, you know, the three, I think it was James, John, Peter, maybe Andrew was there.
At least they're the ones that are mentioned by name. And, "Hey, when are you gonna come back and establish your kingdom? And when are all these things gonna happen?" And Jesus starts telling the story, you know, there'll be rumors of war, and there'll be famines, and there'll be this, and there'll be false messiahs, and the moon's gonna turn black, and the, the stars are gonna lose their light, and all this stuff, and the abomination of death, all that stuff.
There's only one gospel that that story is missing from, [00:57:00] and it's the Gospel of John. Okay? And I would argue it's missing from the Gospel of John because he devoted a whole book to it, and that book is Revelation. So he does give the Olivet Discourse, but it's in the Book of Revelation, and it explains why it's missing in his gospel.
Same author. All right. E, um, the Book of Revelation, uh, the preterist view. Um, and we've covered some of this, so I'm, I'm gonna do this pretty quickly. But the preterist view, um- There's obviously a debate on when the Book of Revelation was written. The more popular view is the late-date view around AD 95, um, but there is strong evidence for what's called the early date, which is AD 64.
Uh, in fact, I would tell you right now that most of what you hear about the dating of the New Testament, um, is just bogus. I mean, most scholars wanna [00:58:00] say that everything was written late, okay? Now, most scholars, even unbelievers, will say it was all written by, say, 95, 97 AD. But they'll tell you Matthew didn't write for 40 years, and Mark didn't write for this long, and Luke...
There's no reason to believe it, and there's no proof that these things didn't come out right away, all right? In fact, Paul, I believe, quotes from the Gospel of Luke, and most scholars agree that Paul's are some of the earliest writings, but he's quoting from the Gospel of Luke. So I believe that every single book
of the New Testament was written before 70 AD. And I also believe that the last book of the New Testament written was not the Book of Revelation, but actually 2 Timothy. That Revelation was written sometime around 67 AD. Paul would've died shortly after that, after the writing of the book, and his last book was 2 Timothy, okay?
So I believe that all of the New Testament books [00:59:00] are early, and I think the internal evidence of the books themselves bear that out. So the preterist view, uh, the time is near, and I've given you... Have I given you any verses? Yeah. Gave you a few, but that's because we've covered it. And one of the things that I've done, and, uh, if this is your first night or you haven't been coming, I would really highly recommend listen to the tapes, because one of the things that I've spent a lot of time on is I've attempted to prove from the book itself that John-- everything John's talking about was near, not thousands of years away, but near.
And in the Olivet Discourse, and I think I put this on your notes, in Matthew twenty-four thirty-four, Jesus says, "Truly, truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place." And I've [01:00:00] given you a few references, but I believe, if I remember the numbers, Jesus-- Matthew uses this phrase, "this generation," thirteen times in the Book of Matthew.
Nobody argues. Every single time that phrase is used, scholars and commentators will tell you he's talking about the generation that's listening to him, except for this one. Because the language freaks them out. We've talked about the language in the Book of Revelation. We'll talk about it again in chapter six.
This idea of the sun gets black, the moon turns to blood, the stars lose its light. In fact, Revelation says the stars are gonna fall to earth. If that was literal, that's where the book would end. If a star fell out of heaven to earth, it's over, okay? Obviously, it's not literal. It's symbolic. And I've, I've tried to explain that there are multiple times in the Old Testament where [01:01:00] that language is used of the fall of Egypt, the fall of Babylon, the fall of Tyre.
It is language that describes the end of an empire. Jesus uses that language in chapter twenty-four, and then he turns around and he says, "All of this is gonna take place before this generation dies out." He uses an exact same grammatical expression that he's used twelve other times in the gospel, and nobody debates.
But we want to debate it here because we don't understand biblical language. And it's the same language that John uses in the Book of Revelation with seal number six. When Jesus opens the sixth seal, you have all these cosmic things going on, sun getting black, mer- moon turning to blood, stars falling, and all that.
And then you open seal seven, and we have this pause Well, if the sun turned black and all this stuff, there ain't no pause, the world's over [01:02:00] Unless you understand it as a nation's gonna fall, a kingdom's gonna be destroyed, which is how the Old Testament uses it. So the time is near. I've spent a lot of time trying to, uh, talk about that.
Um, and then the-- I'll just read the theme verse again, and that might... And then we'll go in, go into problems, I think. Actually, we'll probably just end 'cause I don't wanna go into-- No, geez. Um, the theme verse, those who pierced Him, okay? And in Revelation 1:7, and I've said this is, I think, the, uh, thesis of the book, "Behold, He is coming on the clouds," it's a reference to Daniel chapter 7.
"Behold, He is coming on the clouds and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him, and all the tribes of the land will mourn over Him." So just a couple real quick things. He's citing Daniel chapter 7. What happens in Daniel chapter 7? One like the Son of Man approaches the Ancient of Days, and He receives a [01:03:00] kingdom.
And I've tried to walk you through Daniel. There's these five kingdoms. Yes, sir. When he says,
"Those who pierced Him," does he mean those who, uh, didn't believe in Him, or hated Him, or the Jews? He meant those who actually crucified Him. So exactly those people. Yeah, and I would s-- That would include the Jews and the Gentiles because the Book of Acts makes it very clear that they came together and crucified Jesus, okay?
But it was-- it wasn't us. I've always had that verse explained, well, my sin took Jesus to the cross, and that's true, okay? But again, let the scripture speak because he's already quoted Daniel 7. In Daniel 7, Jesus comes and gets His kingdom, and when you read the Book of Daniel, you have Babylon, you have Persia, you have Greece, you have Rome, and then you've got this kingdom cut without hands.
It's this rock, and it grows to be the biggest kingdom on earth, and there's no gaps unless you arbitrarily put one in. There's no gap between Babylon and Persia. There's no gap between Persia and [01:04:00] Greece. There's no gap between Greece and Rome, but we wanna throw this gap between Rome and the Kingdom of Christ.
That's not what Daniel presents, and it's the same language here. And when Jesus ascended, He ascended to receive His kingdom. He's coming on the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him. Yes, the ones who crucified Him. Nobody sitting here crucified the Lord physically. He's talking about the ones who physically crucified Him.
And then, "And all the tribes of the earth," this is the word tribes, is a word that refers to the tribes of Israel, and it's used consistently that way in scripture. And this word earth, and we gotta be really careful here, it's the Greek word gay, okay? And it can be translated earth or land. And in the Book of Revelation, contextually, it typically refers to the land.
So a better translation of this passage is, "Behold, He's coming with the clouds." [01:05:00] Every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, even those who crucified him, and all the tribes of the land. And that's language that anyone reading it would have known he's speaking about the 12 tribes of Israel. All the tribes of the land will mourn over him.
So it is to be. Amen. And then I think I, I don't know if I put this on your notes or not, but you can look it up later, John 19:37. Um All right. Uh, why don't we end? Um, there are problems with every view. I'm not trying to dodge the problems. If you wanna ask me about the problems, you know, feel free to ask me about the problems.
Um, but every view has some problems. Um, I don't think they're insurmountable. So, um, Neil, will you close us in prayer? Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for our ability to, to study and to, to challenge our understanding with, uh, what we grew up with and what we're learning now. [01:06:00] And, uh, we just thank you, Lord.
We thank you for this ability to, to fellowship and just come before you with open hearts and understanding minds to, to learn more about you so we can just serve you better and understanding that your kingdom was won. So help us to, to know that, to live that, and to just, uh, carry your flag so in, in confidence that, uh, this world has been dominated and we are bearing your flag for it.
So we thank you for this, uh, ability to, uh, train and study. And yeah, we just lift the rest, rest of this day up to you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
