We're continuing our studies in understanding Bible prophecy. Understanding Bible prophecy, we're looking at rules of interpretation, keys of interpretation in that subject. And now we've come to the necessity of knowledge of Old Testament history. Knowledge of Old Testament history. And the whole Bible is a historical book. You can go to the places where these events took place. not any kind of mythical places, but real places. It's amazing how God has blessed in the last 150 years to recover these places and find them. A lot of the biblical places have been lost as far as knowledge of where they were. It was in the 1800s. I read about an explorer there, one of the early explorers there, looking around, trying to find these places. And he was standing on Megiddo, and he was saying, I wonder where Megiddo is. Shut down there. But they'd been covered over with dirt, all these places. My wife puzzles with that. How did these places get covered over with dirt? And that will happen to Adelaide, you know? After a little, just dirt covers everything over. And then nobody knows where these places were. Even Nineveh was lost. Great Nineveh. But so much great research has been done in the last 150 years to find these places and dig up, do archaeological work. We live in a great time for that. But these are historical things. And so the Bible prophecies always take place within a historical background. For example, Isaiah 6-1 occurred in the year when King Uzziah died. Uzziah. So you've got to know, you've got to know your history of Israel. You've got to know your history of the kings. And who is this Uzziah? And why was it such a big thing that when he died, how did that affect Isaiah? Well, all of that becomes evident as we study and we understand that Uzziah was a godly king. And you know, there never was a, well, Hard to say this, but almost never was a good king following a good king. Almost always the sons were wicked, but that was the case here. Uzziah was a godly king, and his son who took his place was wicked. And the prophet Isaiah was there, certainly discouraged. What's going to happen was troublous times. You've got to understand the times, got to understand the Old Testament history. In Hosea 7, 7, they are all hot as an oven, have devoured their judges, all their kings are fallen. There is none among them that calleth unto me. Got to understand the history of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. And so this historical aspect is essential. And there's three things that are necessary to obtain this kind of knowledge. And that is, first of all, reading the whole Bible repeatedly. It's a very important exercise. to read the whole Bible, to read the whole Bible through in a year or two years. There's no law about this, but it's important because it's a book. It all fits together. And you've got to read and read and read to start putting this whole thing into your mind and then keep it in your mind as the minds leak, you know. And we put it in over here and it goes out over there. That's the way we are, some more than others. And so we've just got to read and read and read and read these historical things. And secondly, make your own Bible timeline. And I noticed a few years ago that with our people, we study a lot like this church. We study a lot. We have lots of teaching, lots of projects and things for the people to do. But I noticed that they, as much as they had read the Bible, they just didn't, some of them didn't have a clear outline in their minds of these events, what had happened when, you know, right along. And so we designed this project to make your own Bible timeline. That's when you really learn, when you start doing your own projects. But this is a serious project, but you can, The whole Bible history is contained in 13 books, and that is Genesis, Exodus, Numbers. Leviticus is not historical, it's the Levitical offerings. So Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, Deuteronomy is not historical either, and repetition of the law. But then Joshua judges, 1 Samuel, 1 Kings, and then 1 Chronicles is repeating those same events in a very important new way. But still, to just get the history, you just need Samuel and Kings, and then Ezra, Nehemiah, and that's it for the Old Testament. And then for the New Testament, you only need Matthew and Acts. to get the basic outline of New Testament history. Well, there's 352 chapters in those 13 books, and so the project can be done, depending on what you apply to it, in various lengths of time. But we explain that project here, and the goal is you're making your own Bible timeline, and you're forcing your mind into that project and it tends to stay with you. And then you have that knowledge as you come to the prophet background in your mind and can understand the prophets much, much better. Thirdly, the student needs to take a good Bible survey course so he can understand the major sections of the Bible and how they fit together. It's one of the first things that a new Christian should do, I believe. And so, You must understand Bible history to understand Bible prophecy. So we give the major events of Israel's history here in the notes, the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Genesis, the sojourn in Egypt, and then the exodus, which is the book of Exodus, and then the encampment at Mount Sinai, the Exodus, the wilderness wandering, 40 years of that, which is Numbers, described in Numbers, chapter 13 through 20, conquering the land, Joshua, and then the judges, 450 years, last judge being Samuel, and then the undivided kingdom, which was Saul, David, and Solomon, and then the divided kingdom, which is a major part of Old Testament history, which began with Solomon's son, Rehoboam, and Jeroboam, who rebelled and led the ten tribes, northern tribes, in rebellion against Judah and the throne of David. And that's a major part then of Old Testament history. Judah being the southern part, Judah, Benjamin, but Judah is what it's called. And then Israel is what is the 10 tribes are called Israel or Ephraim many times. And so then the Babylonian captivity, which destroyed the throne of David and the temple, and temple was built back for a while, but the throne of David is still fallen. And then the return from Babylon after 70 years, and you have Ezra, Nehemiah, and you have some prophets there, that is Zechariah and such, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. prophesying after the return from Babylon. And then you have 400, what's called silent years when there were no prophecies between Malachi and the coming of Jesus. That's a major Old Testament history. And you've got to have those major events in your mind and as many details as possible, which requires reading and studying. And then it just pays off. One part of the Bible interpreting another part of the Bible. and any work you put into it, it pays off, great dividends. And so what do we have to have to understand Bible prophecy? We have to have a knowledge, next, of major prophetic events, major prophetic events. Yes. The prophecies are oftentimes jumbled together, major events, they will be jumbled together in the same passage sometimes. And we need to have in our mind this framework of the major prophetic events. And we've listed those here, the Israel's worldwide dispersal, the suffering Messiah, the day of the Lord, the Antichrist, the regathering of Israel, the conversion of Israel, major prophetic events, Armageddon, the reigning Messiah, the ruling Messiah, the millennial kingdom, the great white throne judgment, and the new heaven, and the new earth, and the new Jerusalem, not mention much in Old Testament prophecy, but these are major prophetic events. And when I was a younger Christian and I had a Bible, I did this project that helped me a lot, helped me focus my attention on Bible prophecy, but I bracketed the passages in red that were future prophecies that had not yet been fulfilled. And so I had to focus and study and interpret and know what is going on in those passages. And then I used a color code to identify the major events. I used brown for verses pertaining to the day of the Lord and light blue for the messianic passages, and green for passages referring to the remnant, orange for the new covenant, dark blue for the regathering of Israel, yellow for passages describing the millennial kingdom and red for the second coming. That's what I did. But it helped me focus and study those prophecies as far as whether this is still talking about the future and then what event is it talking about? It was very helpful. And any kind of project like that you can do, you'll find it to be very helpful. And so you've got to understand the major events. We're going to deal with those, the Lord willing, in this conference, some of them at least. And then you've got to understand, we're talking about the interpretation of Bible prophecy, Old Testament parallelism to some degree. And there are many types of parallels, but this is a major important feature of Hebrew Poetry is this parallelism wherein one part of the verse explains or amplifies or completes or contrasts the other part. And it becomes a major, major teaching tool. And we just deal here with two types, contrastive parallelism and completive parallelism. And so contrastive. One part of the parallel, contrasting the other part, and then completing the education from that verse. Isaiah 118, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Contrast, contrast between our ugly sin and the cleansing through Christ's blood, white as snow. Isaiah 515, the mean man shall be brought down and the mighty man shall be humbled. And so we see this is a matter of interpretation. What is a mean man? Well, he's the opposite of the mighty man. So he's just a lowly man. Not mean like your husband or something, but you know, just... Or that kind of mean, no, just lonely. Opposite of mighty. Contrastive parallel, education. In Isaiah 45, 7, down here, in Isaiah 45, 7, I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. I, the Lord, do all these things. So there, God creates evil. Says so. Right. It does say so, but what does the word evil there mean? Well, it's very clear. It's the opposite of peace. Evil times. God's in control of everything. Not sin. Not evil like sin. God has nothing to do with creating sin. God told Adam not to sin. God never wanted Adam to sin. God is not the author of sin, but evil times, evil situations. God's in control of all of that. And so we see that through the contrastive parallel, light, darkness, evil, and peace, as opposed to evil. And then you have completed parallelism. One part completes the other part. And the second part, adding to, explaining, completing the thought. It's very educational. And you have to understand this and stop and look at this and learn from it. Learn from it. Isaiah 9, 6. Isaiah 9, 6, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. That's completive. And both parts of that parallel being an essential part of the revelation, talking about Christ. He's called a child. It said he's a child that is born and as a son is given. And the exact wording is very important theologically. And as a child, Jesus was born in a manger. As the son of God, he was given. He has no beginning. That's very important theologically. As a son, it doesn't say he was born as a son, but as a son he was given. But his humanity, as a child he was born. He had a beginning, the incarnation has a beginning. It's very important. But this is parallelism, a major part of Hebrew. Poetry. Now, we want to deal with the perspective of prophecy. The perspective of prophecy refers to the time element, but it's often jumbled. And it can be confusing if you don't understand it. And it's called also double perspective, double perspective. And so that oftentimes, many times, prophecies of near things or events that are right happening right then will be right directly connected with prophecies looking out thousands of years. And so it's been likened to a mountain range. And you look over a vast Kathmandu Valley where we live. The valley floor is about a mile high. little less. And you look to the north, and there are mountains there about 10,000 feet high that surround the valley. And you look to the north, and there's these white peaks back there. And they're like, you know, up to 28,000 feet, 20-something thousand feet up there. But you only see the tops of those, of the Himalaya. Himalaya means snow house. You see the tops of those mountains, and you see the near mountain, but there's a lot of valleys and things between. You can't see them at all. And that's the perspective of Bible prophecy. and 1 Peter 1, 10 and 11, Peter tells us that the prophets themselves did not understand this. 1 Peter 1, 10 through 12, 1 Peter 1, 10 through 12, of which salvation, 1 Peter 1, 10 through 12, of which salvation The prophets have inquired and searched diligently who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you, searching what or what manner of time, manner of time the spirit of Christ which was in them did signify when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. They didn't understand it. They saw the, Christ is going to suffer. Christ is going to be glorified. Christ is going to die. Here he is ruling. What is this? They didn't understand the time element, unto whom it was revealed that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost, sent down from heaven, which things the angels desire to look into. And so the prophets themselves did not understand the manner of timing of these things, but we do. Everything now is clear because of the revelation, church age revelation, the mysteries. We can understand all of this. The prophets themselves did not understand. We have great benefits today. It is to the church, it was to the church of Ephesus that God revealed his eternal plan for the first time to anybody. a church, a New Testament church in Ephesus, that wicked city, but it called out a group of redeemed saints. And that city had the privilege of being the first ever in the history of the world to hear God's eternal plan revealed. And now we have it in our Bibles, great privileges. Here's some examples of the perspective of prophecy. many of the messianic prophecies. They describe the first coming, second coming of Christ in the same passage, even though they're two events separated by thousands of years, as we now know. A major example of that is Luke 4, 16 through 21. Jesus at Nazareth, coming back to the synagogue at Nazareth, major thing to see in Israel is the brow of Nazareth, where his city folk tried to throw him off, wanted to throw Jesus off and kill him. It's a deadly place. It's a steep, treacherous cliff. But he's there in the synagogue in his hometown. And in Luke 4.16, he read the scriptures there. He came to Nazareth. where he had been brought up. And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written. And so he found exactly what he wanted to read. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book. He closed the book. And he was reading from Isaiah 61, 1 and 2. But he stopped at partway through verse 2. It's verses in our Bible, verse 5. But partway through that part of the prophecy, he stopped. And he said, this day is scripture fulfilled in your ears, verse 21. This scripture right here that I've read, he said, It's fulfilled in your ears where He grew up, Nazareth. And that Isaiah 61, 1 and 2a, it's talking about the coming of Christ, the Savior, preaching the gospel, setting at liberty, preaching the gospel. And His first coming, He came to seek and to save that which was lost. was his purpose in his first coming, to suffer and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, that today's the day of salvation. Now, now, this church age, now it's time to be saved, Gentiles. The acceptable year of the Lord. You've got to be saved in this acceptable time. You can't just say, well, I'll be saved later. You don't know about later. So that's what Jesus was preaching. But the rest of Isaiah, if you start, continue reading in verse two, it's talking about the vengeance of the Lord and the comforting of Zion, new covenant. And that wasn't fulfilled then. So he stopped at the right place and said, this day, this is fulfilled. And it's still being fulfilled today 2,000 years later. It's time for salvation. It's time for preaching the gospel. But it's not time yet for the vengeance of God and the comforting of Zion. But they're in the same little passage, in the same verse in our verse of fine Bibles. No division at all between these two great comings and great events. Got to understand that. It's very clear in this passage. So in Isaiah 61-2, we have prophetic events that are separated by at least 2,000 years. In Isaiah 9, 6, and 7, verse 6 refers to Christ's first coming. Verse 7 refers to His second coming and the establishment of the kingdom with 2,000 years at least between. Malachi 3, 1 through 4, The first coming of Christ described in verse 1, second coming in verses 2-4, Malachi 3, 1-4. Malachi 3, verse 1. Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. He did, he did, he came to his temple. But then, beginning in verse two, who shall abide the day of his coming? what? He came to seek and to save that which is lost. Yeah, but not now. This is pointing to His coming in judgment, the day of the Lord. Who can abide it? Who shall stand when He appears? So verse 1 and verse 2 are talking about two completely different prophetic events. We have to understand that. It's called the perspective of prophecy. God does that for all of the reason he knows things. Secondly, God's promises to David concerning his son apply both to Solomon and to Christ. And that's even true in 2 Samuel that we looked at. 2 Samuel, don't look at your Bible. What chapter? Chapter seven, smart people. Chapter seven. where God gave the covenant to David, but he's also talking about Solomon in there. And sinning, Christ doesn't sin. But Psalm 72 is an example of this. It's called a psalm for Solomon. But really, it's a psalm for Christ. And obviously, David is looking at the kingdom of Christ way beyond the kingdom of Solomon. Thirdly, and third example of this, the prophecies of judgment upon Gentile nations often include judgments that are now past as well as judgments that are yet future. So the prophecies of the nations, and we give a couple of examples of that, Isaiah 13 through 24 are major prophecies pertaining to the Gentile nations. Damascus, Syria, Damascus, that's in the news quite a bit, Isaiah 17. But verses 1 through 5 are historical, and verses 6 through 8 are future, yet future. And then Ethiopia is prophesied about in Isaiah 18. Verses 1 through 6 are historical, and verse 7 is future and entire. entire Isaiah 23, verses 1 through 17 are historical, verse 18 is future. And then we give the example of Isaiah 24. Isaiah 24, which are the prophecies, another major prophecy of the day of the Lord, day of the Lord, and the humbling of man and the exalting of and Christ's kingdom. And so these prophecies of the day of the Lord and Christ's kingdom, they're interspersed here with prophecies regarding the nations. You've got to understand that, the perspective of prophecy. Fourth, the prophecies pertaining to Babylon. They have application to ancient Babylon as well as in time Babylon. For example, Isaiah 13, it's a major prophecy about Babylon. But verses 17 through 22 are a prophecy of God's judgment on ancient Babylon, has been fulfilled. But verses 1 through 16 look ahead to the day of the Lord and in time Babylon, the Antichrist kingdom. Fifthly, we're talking about the perspective of prophecy. double perspectives. Daniel 12, 2 is a description in one verse of the resurrection of the just and the unjust. And for a long time, and in many churches still, they believe there's going to be one general resurrection, but there's not. And these two resurrections are divided by a thousand years. We read about it in Revelation. It's very Thousand years. But they're in one verse in Daniel, the resurrection of the just and unjust. Sounds like a general resurrection, but it's not. And so the perspective of prophecy is essential to understand. And then distinguishing Israel from the church. We've dealt with this some already. So we won't spend a lot of time here. But it's called, there's a heresy called replacement theology, which puts the church and has the church receiving the covenants of Israel and being the new Israel and this kind of thing. We've seen that this is one of the errors of the Roman Catholic Church. that it got from one of its four doctors, Augustine. It was also one of the errors of Protestantism, as we've noted. One of the heresies they brought out of Rome, did not reject, was this replacement theology. Many of the cults claimed to be a continuation of Israel. in one form or the other, such as the Worldwide Church of God at Herbert W. Armstrong. When I was a new Christian, I was trying to find some good Bible teachings, so I was listening to the radio, and I heard this guy with this impressive voice, really a preacher voice. and sounded pretty good. I ordered some of his materials, Herbert's materials, and very quickly God showed me this is not right, this is heresy. But they claim to be a replacement of Israel. And then you've got Stephen Anderson of more recent days, independent Baptist guy down in Texas, and he has taught a He's taught a version of replacement theology and confused a lot of people, especially his video, Marching to Zion. And he claimed that Israel that returned to the land in the 20th century and established the modern state is not the Israel of the Bible. I don't know who they could be. Rather, they came out of the nations and stuff, but it's not the Israel of the Bible. But God's finished with the nation Israel. The New Testament believers are the true Israel. He's confused a lot of people. That's Steven Anderson. YouTube cut him off. That was good, but it was because he was talking about killing homosexuals and stuff. But anyway, they cut him off, I think, to cut down his influence quite a bit. But he had a great influence. I was just amazed at the influence all over the world and people in independent Baptist churches being confused by that, going out there online to see what's out there, not being strongly grounded in the Word of God. What could go wrong here? Because every heresy in the world is out there. What great dangers there are theologically on social media. My. Anyway, that's what's happening. And there are other men teaching this now. But it's contrary to the entire Bible. We've already looked at major passages pertaining to it. Very fundamental passages. And these are all you need to refute this because these are clear passages that are talking about this very subject. What about Israel? What about Israel and the church? If you want to understand Israel and the church, you go to major passages, clear passages that are answering that question. and then you settle your doctrine, and then it's settled, and you interpret it, anything that seems to be obscure, you interpret that by the clear teaching. This major passage, Romans 11, 25-29. Wonderful. I loved it. I go back to it all the time. Acts 3, 18-21. We looked at that. We studied that. believed that the fulfillment of all those prophecies would come at the coming of Christ, not during the church age. And then Acts 15, 13 through 18. Let's look at that. We haven't looked at that. Acts 15, 13 through 18, this conference at Jerusalem. where it was settled that the doctrine of justification by faith alone without works was hammered out here. And in Acts 15, 13, we read a little bit about this conference. After they had held their peace, James answered it saying, men and brethren, hearken unto me. Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. And to this agree the words of the prophets, as it is written. After this I will return and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down, and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things unto God are known unto God, are known unto God, are all his works from the beginning of the world. And Simeon, Peter, is talking here in this conference, and it was for the purpose of deciding the issue of whether Gentile believers must follow the law of Moses and be circumcised and whatnot. That's the error of many Messianic Jews so-called today, the keeping of the feast and whatnot. No, that's not for us. And if you're saved, you're no longer a, well, you're a Jew, but you're a saved Jew and you're like Paul. But they didn't make a clear distinction between Israel and the church. They don't, many of the Messianic Jews, which we're talking about. And so the determination by the apostles and prophets was that they were not so obligated. They were not obligated to be saved and then keep the law, because they said the law of Moses is a heavy load, yoke, it was a heavy yoke, whereas salvation is by God's grace, Acts 15, 10 and 11. And Jesus said, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And so they understood that the purpose of this present time is for God to take out of the Gentiles a people for his name, Acts 15, 14, which is a description of the church age in a nutshell, summarized in these beautiful little summaries that God is able to do. The great things summarized in a few words, that's the dispensation of the church age, the gospel being preached to every nation and tribe and language, and calling out, giving. Mostly what we do when we preach the gospel is give people an opportunity to be saved. And Jesus himself said most won't be. but the gospel is to be preached to every single soul to give them an opportunity to be. If they don't hear, then they can't possibly be saved. Calling out, and as that gospel preaching is done, the Spirit of God is calling out a people for His name, for Christ's name, a special body of people that's not Israel and is associated with Israel. All saved people will be associated, but but two different bodies, two different groups, two different purposes. Anyway, that's the church age. And as we saw in Romans 11, 25, Paul speaks of the fullness of the Gentiles coming in, the fulfillment of the church age. Finally, there's going to be one last person that gets saved, and then the rapture will happen. And so this tells us there's an end of the church as far as who belonged to it, There's no end to the church itself. It's an eternal thing. Ephesians 3.21, unto him be glory and the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. So the church is eternal, but there's an end to the church age as far as this present age and what God is doing. And so in his summary, James shows that this is conformable to the teaching of the Old Testament prophets, is what he's doing. And he quotes Amos to show that the prophets taught that God would restore the house of Israel after the house of David, Davidic covenant, after it was fallen down and would rebuild its ruins. And at that time, there would be Gentiles who call on the name of the Lord. And so James is not saying that the house of David is restored in the church. To the contrary, he's saying that it will be restored in the future, and that when it is restored, there will exist saved Gentiles, which is us, the redeemed of this age. And it implies the salvation of Gentiles before the restoration of Israel's kingdom. Anyway. So that's the teaching of Peter. Now we want to stop here this session and then conclude in the next session.