All right. The goal tonight is to try to finish, try to clean up, try to make something productive out of everything that went wrong this morning. So for the first hour, I arrived and was ready to go, and then realized I did not have Basic Theology by Charles C. Reary, which I needed because we're kind of basing a lot on this. So then I was like, what do I do, what do I do? Typically, typically, my book bag is filled with like, you know, like here's the latest issue, the latest issue of the Sword of the Lord. There is a latest issue, a feature Bible study guide. So usually I have all kinds of things, but this particular Sunday. I didn't have any of that. I didn't have any of it. So I'm like, on the Sunday that I need, I don't have anything. And now I had just about an hour before I got here, I'd kind of rewritten what we were going to do the first hour. We were going to, and I kind of did it on the second hour. We were going to look at some of those Old Testament prophecies. We're going to look at the lectionary readings. But at that point, in that panic of the first hour, I was like, Well, do I try to do that now? Because in my brain, it was telling me, there's no way that those notes are going to suffice for an entire hour, right? Because I'm going to need the book. When in reality, that was a foolish way to think, because I could have used it for the first hour. But just in the moment, you've got to make a decision on what to do. So yeah. So the first hour kind of was, yeah, it was horrible. So the second hour, I think we accomplished a little bit. I think we accomplished a little bit. We looked at some Old Testament prophecies dealing with Palm Sunday, right? From Zechariah, from the Book of Psalms, okay? And what we realized immediately is if we believe Palm Sunday is a fulfillment of any Old Testament prophecy, then those Old Testament prophecies have to be understood as being Literal, okay, and that was a very important concept, right? Then we looked at the lectionary readings, which was Isaiah and Psalm 22. Once again, we believe those are prophetic, and if they're prophetic, they have to be understood to be literal, because they're pointing to literal things that happened to Christ dealing with his passion, his suffering, his crucifixion. So we started setting up a very important foundation of how to understand prophecy from a literal perspective, and this deals with hermeneutics, correct? So, in a roundabout way this morning, we kind of established a discussion about hermeneutics. Last week, we introduced a study, kind of a mini-study on eschatology, and we dealt with an introduction to eschatology, and we dealt with post-millennialism. And that discussion, we kind of dealt with the political hijacking of the church, which kind of then ultimately led to an entire week working on theonomy, okay? So in a roundabout way, in two weeks, we've set up the idea of a political hijacking of the church and the significance of hermeneutics. Now, in that discussion about hermeneutics, we kind of started our survey of amillennialism, kind of an overview of amillennialism, and we were gonna deal with hermeneutics, but then I kind of, begin to articulate something that I have been talking about a lot on the podcast. Some people may refer to it as a rant. Some people may refer to it, I just get on my soapbox. But it's a subject that has bothered me for a long time. Because in theory, and I've said this when we were looking at the book of Revelation and we've looked at eschatology in the past, I've said that all issues are ultimately hermeneutical issues, right? That's what I've always said. But now I'm beginning to change my whole way of thinking. I no longer think that all the issues are hermeneutical. I think all the issues are the idea of theology being imposed on the Bible, because if they were hermeneutical, it would be then everyone going to the Bible, everyone studying the Bible, but the problem is, is that we're looking at it from a different vantage point. So, since I kind of went on a rant, I'll get some emails saying, you're too emotional, and it was a rant, and da, da, da, da, da, da. All right, so to try to make this a little bit more academic, now this is gonna be when I do sermon reviews, Sometimes I always point out when a pastor has too much for one sermon, right, okay, and that it should have been broken into two or three, this is probably one of those situations, but to try to kind of make what I kind of talked about this morning more, and maybe some may refer to it as a rant, I'm gonna try to now use that to do something productive, and then we'll finish up our survey of amillennialism, right? So here's what I'm gonna challenge people to do on the podcast, anyone who wants to participate. Three things. Number one, I want people to make a list of all the theological and doctrinal conclusions they have. Make a list of all of the doctrinal and theological conclusions you have, because you have a lot of them, right? Right? Yes? Everyone should say yes. Everyone has them, okay? Let me just throw one out. Lord's Supper. Do you have conclusions about the Lord's Supper? Let's just ask. Do you believe it's sacramental, meaning it's a means of grace? Or do you mean it's an ordinance, simply symbolic? Okay, that's a conclusion, is it not? Do you believe in open, closed, or closed? Okay, if you believe in close, I believe in close. Okay, I believe in closed, obviously. Some people believe in open, all right? Well, guess what? That's a theological conclusion. Do you believe it's an ordinance only to be given in a church through the leadership of said church, or do you believe just anybody can grab some juice and bread and do the Lord's Supper? Well, a lot of people believe anybody can just do it. I don't even know why we even have a local church, okay? So, those are conclusions. Baptism. Do you believe it's by immersion, or do you believe it's by sprinkling? Do you believe it's for a believer? Do you believe it's for an infant? Those are conclusions, and you should make a list of all of your theological conclusions. You're probably gonna need two to three pages just to list them without even describing them. About the Bible, you have conclusions, right? Is it inspired? Is it infallible? Do you believe that the inspiration only pertains to the original documents? Or does it pertain to the translation? There's question after question after question. You've got all of these conclusions! Everybody does when it comes to eschatology. You have conclusions. You have conclusions about the Abrahamic covenant. You have conclusions about the Davidic covenant. You have conclusions about the Noahic covenant. You've got conclusions about the covenants. You've got conclusions about the dispensations. You've got conclusions about eschatology. You've got conclusions about soteriology. You've got conclusions. Everyone does. Right? So everyone should make a list. After you make that list, now here's where things get fun. Number two, go through that list and honestly write down where those conclusions were drawn from. Were they drawn from sermons? Were they drawn from books? Or were they drawn from personal, in-depth study of the text alone? are those conclusions drawn from a serious study of the text alone, not from sermons, not from articles online, not from a book, from the text alone. Now, I will argue that the majority of Christians, if they're even remotely honest with themselves, what will they have to say about most of their conclusions? They came from sermons, other sources. Now at that moment, now this is where my Catholic professors would be like, you tell those Protestants, okay? The Catholic would come along and say, you tell those Protestants. They would say at that moment, what then is your source of authority? Not the word of God. Even though you would claim It is. Then number three, write out a conclusion then about your theological beliefs. Write out just like a sentence or a paragraph of then what can you conclude about your theological beliefs? And guess what you're gonna have to conclude? Your theological beliefs are not based off scripture. They're based on what people told you about scripture and guess what you have done? You've taken what someone has told you about scripture and guess what you have done? You've placed it upon the Bible. So therefore, your difference is not a hermeneutical difference. Your difference is you have a different source of authority. So when people have argued with me in all these years, I was an idiot, because I thought it was just an argument about how to interpret Scripture. No, it wasn't. No, it wasn't. Their source of authority was the Gospel according to Jesus by John MacArthur. That was their source of authority. And I thought the source of authority was supposed to be Because if their source of authority wasn't MacArthur, what would they have shown up with? No, if it wasn't MacArthur, they should have shown up with a Bible, a notebook showing that they have done their work. And then guess what we could have done? Then we could have figured out, okay, wait, you're interpreting that scripture that way. I'm interpreting the scripture that way. Why are we interpreting the scripture differently? Now, if it's based off scripture alone, then what could be the next question? Well, what hermeneutical method are you utilizing? And then I could explain my hermeneutical method. And then we could figure out where the dysfunction is, right? Conjunction, what's your function? We can figure out where the dysfunction was, right? We can figure out what went wrong. And then it may be just like, well, we're never going to be able to agree. Because you're using this hermeneutic, and I'm using this hermeneutic. That's, there's almost a, there's almost a relief in that, right? You can just shake hands and go, well, I can't, we're never going to agree. You're using this hermeneutic and I'm using this hermeneutic. There's no point in having, but it's never that. The argument always is, your source of authority is John MacArthur. Your source of authority is this, and that's the issue. You don't want me to be the source of authority because now you disagree with me. So because you disagree with me, you ran to the internet, looked up a couple of articles, parroted back what you heard on the internet, and then tell me I'm wrong, only because you're quoting a different source. So in that reality, it's like, You're quoting your Pope because you no longer want me to be the Pope. Do you understand how utterly foolish that makes us look? You know what that does to the Protestant Reformation? makes it an absolute waste of time. Luther shouldn't even have bothered. He could have found something better to do. It's an absolute embarrassment to what Luther did. Luther was a failure. The whole Protestant Reformation is a joke because it's not the scriptures. The issue is source of authority and the source of authority is your favorite theologian. That's what it turns into. So when people get on, and you've seen it on social media, when people get in an argument, this person is off Googling, and this person is off Googling, and then they're cutting and pasting, and it's a cut and paste war. Everyone quoting their... And even if they start throwing scripture, their interpretation of scripture, sometimes if you'll cut what they are using and then paste it in a search bar, you'll find the commentary they're quoting from. And you're like, you're not arguing with me. You're quoting. I can't stand when people do that. It's like, do you have any original thought? Any? Because all you're doing is quoting from someone. I can quote from someone else. So then guess what? Then all it is is your source of authority versus my source of authority. Well, what makes your source of authority any better than mine? You quote MacArthur, I'll quote someone else. Who's right? And guess who we determine who's right? Whoever we want to be right. Meaning that we should just take our Bibles and just go throw them in the garbage. Because we're not using them. And it's very difficult to get Christians to go, hmm, you know what? I have had these 30 conclusions most of my Christian life. Guess what I've never done? Actually set aside all of the books and go, what does the Bible have to say? And we know when to do that, is that fun? No, it's not. Is it tedious? Can it be frustrating? Because almost inevitably, what do we discover? It may not be as clear as everyone pretends that it is. Remember, I've told, I've said that so many times, right? Everyone's like, well, the Bible is absolutely clear. I mean, you start staying and going, what's so clear about that? It's clear because you read a scripture and told me that's what it meant. Well, it's clear if I just go with what you said it meant. But if I actually look at what's there, sometimes I'm like, I'm not so sure. So I really want, I don't know how many people will participate in that, but everyone should do that. Make a list of all their theological and doctoral conclusions, go through the list, and honestly write down where are the conclusions drawn from, sermons, books, or in-depth personal study of the text alone, and then write out a conclusion about your theological beliefs. And most of your beliefs are not based off scripture alone, they're based off everything else. Even though you wanna tell everyone, they're based off scripture alone. All right, now, that tells me That in theory, I want to say everything is a hermeneutical issue, but I don't think it's actually a hermeneutical issue. I want to believe that, but I'm modifying that. I believe we have a bigger problem before we get to hermeneutics. We can't even get to hermeneutics. Like, hermeneutics is sitting there going, hey, look over here, look, look, it's about me. But we can't hear hermeneutics yelling at us because there's all these other problems. And that's sources of authority, which is really, if you think about it, it's what the entire Protestant Reformation was about. And guess what, we didn't change it. What we said, Luther wanted this to be the source of authority, but all he did was make it that there were all kinds of other sources of authority versus the Catholic Church. We just replaced the Catholic Church with other sources. It's Calvin, it's Zwingli, it's Luther, it's this, it's the Book of Concord, it's this, it's the Augsburg Confessions, it's, I could just go on, it's the Westminster, it's the London Baptist. Now, all of those documents I think everyone should know and everyone should read. But the problem is, they become the source of authority. And they say, no, well, they're based on scripture, but guess what? All of those confessions would all claim they're based on scripture, and guess what? They don't agree, okay? They don't agree. So someone is obviously off, right? All right, so now, with all of that said, let's go back to amillennialism. What is the working definition I gave for amillennialism this morning? Amillennialism is a view of the last thing that rejects a literal reign of Christ for a thousand years in Jerusalem. Right? That's the part we went with. They worded it differently, but we went with that. We started looking at the doctrinal characteristics of amillennialism. What does amillennialism believe about the Bible? They believe in the authority of scripture. And that's how we got into that entire discussion that we just kind of covered, right? Because that frustrates me, right? Because what did we learn about post-millennialists? They believe in authority of the Bible. Guess what we believe about amillennialists? They believe in the authority of the Bible. Guess what we believe about pre-millennialists? They believe in the authority of the Bible. Well, something's wrong if all three disagree. So I originally was going to say the problem is hermeneutics. But the problem is, I think the theology precedes the hermeneutics and becomes the source of authority, but that's a whole different discussion, right? The Bible, then the millennium, when it comes to amillennialism, even though we say they, like it's easy to say no millennium, no millennial kingdom, but in reality, when it comes to amillennialism, what do they believe about the millennium? There's two views. One, that it's being fulfilled now by the church, in the church, through the church. Or two, it's being fulfilled in heaven through the life of the saints or the saints, okay? Those are the two. So in a roundabout way, they do believe in a millennium. They just don't believe in a literal millennium. I think that's an accurate representation. I think that's an accurate representation. Number three, concerning the covenants. All millennialists believe what about the covenants? Two things about the covenants, or two possible things. They're being fulfilled spiritually in the church, or the promises don't need to be fulfilled because they fail to meet the conditions, all right? Those are two views about the covenants. Those are drastic views, everyone understand that? Those are drastic views, all right? Next, the church. Yeah, it's basically, it's a spiritual kingdom, it's Israel. Basically, they see the church as being the thing that fulfills all of the promises, right? Or I can state it this way, the church fulfills the promises. I'll just state it that way. All the Old Testament prophecies and promises are basically fulfilled in the church, not in a nation. Not in a nation. Meaning we don't need, so therefore we don't need, if it's being fulfilled in the church, the church has been here for 2,000 years, therefore we don't need a thousand year millennial reign because the church is here and the church fulfills everything. Does that make sense? All right, then we just introduced this. So there is a definition, there's the doctrinal characteristics, now the hermeneutics of amillennialism. The hermeneutics of amillennialism, all right? We're gonna go through six major points about them. I'll give you the six, when we get to it, we're gonna first introduce this subject, okay? This is very important, all right? Here we go. Unquestionably, remember this is how this paragraph begins, different millennial views result from different hermeneutics. Now, remember my problem is I believe it should be that way. At the top, it does work that way, right? These different systems are the result of different hermeneutics. But when you get away from the seminary, the pastors, and you start with the people in the pew, it doesn't derive from different hermeneutics, it's deriving from the different theologies. Does that make sense? Okay, so let's read what they have here. Premillennial use literal or normal interpretation in all areas of biblical truth. Whereas millennialists employ a non-literal or spiritual principle in the area of eschatology. Now, this is very important. All right. I don't know if you caught the key phrase there, but let me help you. Premillennialist holds to basically a literal interpretation, or I'm gonna use their exact words. They're gonna use their exact words. A literal or normal interpretation in all areas. That's a premillennialist. Literal or normal interpretive principles in all areas. Did everyone hear that? That means it includes what? Prophecy or eschatology, right? Prophecy. So for a pre-millennialist, if I see a prophecy, then I'm gonna say normative, literal, and I'm gonna look for a literal fulfillment, right? In every way possible. And I don't throw out a literal fulfillment simply because it hasn't been fulfilled yet. I just say, it hasn't been fulfilled yet, but still look for a literal. Or an amillennialist may say, it hasn't been fulfilled, and it's not going to be literally, but we can look for a non-literal. But now listen to the key phrase about amillennialist. Are you ready for this? This is where I get frustrated. Amillennialists employ a non-literal or spiritual principle in areas of eschatology. That's where I get frustrated. Now why do I get frustrated? Amillennialists Okay, do you have it? Okay, well, I'll just read it one more time just so everyone knows. All millennialists employ a non-literal or spiritual principle in the areas of eschatology. Now, why do I get frustrated with that? Literal here, non-literal here. And sometimes it will be like within a chapter. Like it'll be a prophecy about Jesus and they'll say, well, that's literal. God deals with his first coming. Then the next part, It's like in the same book by the same author. It's like within pages, sometimes verses apart. And then it almost inevitably, I can't always say, because amillennialists tend to be in the reform camp, and the reform camp, and look, maybe it's a stereotype, but sometimes stereotypes are based off some source of truth, right? Reform people tend to be arrogant, condescending, spiritual jerks. which you would think it should make us humble, but it tends to make us arrogant, because we're so smart. And so it almost is, well, you stupid, left-behind, pre-millennialist, you morons, if you knew how to actually understand theology, you would understand the nuance. And it's like, don't you, you sound smart, but sounding smart does not make one smart. Because my frustration is, and I've even had this argument with even someone who used to be in this church over this very subject. And it's like, so wait a minute. So who gets to determine when it's literal or non-literal? They do. Well, what a hermeneutical system. You get to open your Bible and you get to tell me, that's not the millennial kingdom, that's the church. According to whom? How many years of theological studies do you have? Do you even have a degree in hermeneutics? Don't need a degree, don't need seminary, don't need Bible college, don't need anything! I just need to be able to open my Bible and tell you, that's the church. Well, congratulations, I'm glad you're able to do that. I'm glad you're able to do, even though the text literally says Israel, okay? But hey, but guess what? But then if you back up a little bit, is Genesis 1 and 2 literal? Yes, Genesis 3 and 4, literal. Genesis 5 and 6, literal. 7 and 8, literal. 9, 10, 11. Now once we start getting to the Abrahamic covenant, well, now wait a minute, that's not actual land. Or it was actual land, but they lost the land, so now it's gonna be given to us, but it's not gonna be land that we get. But doesn't it say land? Okay, right. So then, isn't it weird how 11 chapters can be literal, and then you get to the 12th one, and all of a sudden, it becomes questionable? Does anyone? And then when you're reading Isaiah, so when it says they're going to go into captivity to Babylon, is that literal Babylon? Well, yeah. So, but when they come out and they're going to get all these promises, those aren't literal? How can the first part be and the second part not? That's where I lose my mind arguing with all millennialists. That's where I lose my mind. I got no problem with them looking going, hey, premillennialism has descended into utter chaos at times in church history. You know what? I got no problem acknowledging that. I got no problem. But the issue is just from a purely hermeneutical standpoint. And that's when you begin to realize it's not a hermeneutical issue. They're so committed to their theological position. They don't even want to have a hermeneutical discussion because then you even challenge them, which I did here in this church. We'll go look up every reference to the word Israel and get back to me. And would they do such activity? Yeah, they could have done it with us, right? But guess what? So at that point, what? At that point, it's no longer a hermeneutical issue, is it? It's a theological issue. They bought into a theology, and then guess what they go do? They hop online, look up some articles written by a millennialist, and then try to throw them at me. And I'm like, dude, do you not realize I went to a non-millennial school and had to write a paper on a non-millennial? I've read that book. So can you do something better than come to my house with something you printed off the internet? I can print it off too. But nobody wants to show up with actually doing the, And that's where my frustration is. I don't care if we come to different opinions. That's 2,000 years of church history. Don't play the game that you care about this, and I'm holding up a Bible, when in reality, you care about what? Now I'm gonna hold up a systematic theology. And don't tell me, and I'm going back to the Bible, this is your authority, when in reality, what is your authority? The theology. And don't tell me God is your authority. Your Pope is MacArthur or whomever. Now MacArthur's not obviously a non-millennialist, but whomever you're referencing at the particular time. That's where I get frustrated. All right, they go on to say, all conservatives, whether their eschatological persuasions use literal or normal interpretations everywhere except eschatology, They say all conservatives, whatever their views on eschatology, they use literal or normal interpretations everywhere except eschatology. So they say when it comes to conservatives, conservative theological perspectives, they always use a literal or normative in every area except eschatology. That right there, that should be a warning sign, shouldn't it? Why is it that when I get to this one branch of study, I abandon the literal normative? Now, they say all conservatives because liberal theologians have already, they don't even believe the Bible's infallible or inspired or, so yeah, so you don't even worry about that from that perspective, all right? Floyd Hamilton, an amillennialist, acknowledges that a literal interpretation of the Old Testament prophecies give us just such a picture of an earthly reign of the Messiah as the premillennialist pictures. So, there's an amillennialist that says if you read it literal, you have a literal Messiah literally reigning. but they would just say that it should not be read literally. And that's literally, it drives me crazy. Not because I disagree with their hermeneutic, it's because they then will apply the literal four verses later, five verses later, 10 verses later, and I can't, that's where I get frustrated. The amillennialist, of course, does not accept that picture of the future because they employ a different hermeneutic in the area of prophecy. Although writers generally do not detail their hermeneutics before detailing their commentaries or develop their theologies. Now I love, now listen to that again. Writers usually do not detail their hermeneutics before detailing their commentaries or developing their theologies. Meaning what comes first? The commentary and the theology before they discuss the hermeneutics. Why? Because nobody cares about hermeneutics. Nobody cares because nobody wants to do what? Nobody wants to study. Bible study is the biggest myth of Christianity. It is. It's a myth. It's a complete, it's a facade. It's a fraud. Everyone says they want to study the Bible. Nobody wants to study the Bible. Nobody wants to. Because if they did, then it would just be people buying Bibles and notebooks and reference tools, and there would actually be engagement in actual Bible study. Now, there have been groups who have worked hard to try to fix that. There are groups out there in ministries that have tried their best to say, hey, we're going to meet at a church, we're going to spend eight hours on a Saturday, and all we're going to do is engage in serious Bible study. But those groups don't last long. It's a novel idea, and people go, ooh, that sounds fun, until you're there going, wait, what are we gonna be doing for four hours? Well, we're gonna do an observational outline on Leviticus chapters one through six. What, that's what we're gonna do? Yeah. You're gonna have a Bible, a concordance, and that's what we're gonna do. So get busy. Well, that sounds fun until you're sitting there for four hours doing what? An observational exercise, or observational outline, and then you're gonna be like, I would rather go to a church where It's not that way. And I can understand that. Look, I got no problem with that. Just stop pretending then that we actually want to study the text. We like to read and listen to everything about the text. We don't want to actually do the work in the text. I've been doing this too long. I know that that's a reality. So even here they admit, generally what happens, writers give you their commentaries and their theologies before they detail their hermeneutics. Oswald T. Alice, I guess, A-L-L-I-S, does discuss the hermeneutical principles he employs in interpreting prophecy. I want to summarize his ideas about how to interpret prophecy and briefly interact with them. So, they're gonna take this writer, who's gonna give us one, two... three, four, five, six, how does he, they describe them? Hermeneutical principles. Now I do, we're gonna go through these hermeneutical principles. As we look at these hermeneutical principles, here's what I want you to ask yourself. Are these hermeneutical principles that would lead to amillennialism? I know earlier I said I was gonna give you six that deals with amillennialism, but we'll just do this in kind of a more, hypothetical way, right? So I'm gonna give you six hermeneutical principles. When we look at these principles, I want you to tell me which way do you think these principles would lead you, to an amillennial view or a non-amillennial view. Does that make sense? All right, I think we'll do it that way. That'll be a little bit more fun. All right, here we go. Number one, according to this individual, He says this, this individual first seeks to establish that both the literal and figurative methods of interpretation have their proper places and their necessary limitations. All right, so let me go through that again. He says that we need to establish literal and figurative methods and make sure they have their proper place but a necessary limitation. So trying to establish When should it be literal? When should it be figurative? And where is the proper place? And what limitations do we place upon them? That sounds good, doesn't it? Doesn't that sound good? Right? Literal, figurative, where's the right place? What limits do we place on it? That sounds good. But according to this book, listen to what he does. However, he seems to place all the limitation on the literal and not on the figurative. So this is where we always run into a hermeneutical principle. So this is a good lesson here. Are you ready? So this first hermeneutical principle is to establish the proper place for the literal and the figurative, and then figure out where the limitations are. That sounds good. But whenever we talk about proper place, our limitations, where do our problems begin? In hermeneutics. Stephen just pointed to the right direction. Because who determines the proper place? And who determine the limitations? We do. So at that point, is it the hermeneutical principle guiding us? Or is it us guiding the hermeneutical principle? Well, in that case, who would be guiding the hermeneutical principle? You would be. Because Bobby could say, no, no, I think that's literal. And Diane could be like, no, no, I think that's figurative. And then Bobby said, well, so once they're arguing over literal and figurative, then Sarah could step up and go, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I think we need to put the limitation on the figurative. And Bobby's like, no, I don't think we should. And then Stephen could come in, and then guess what? You would have? No agreement. You would have no agreement. Because even though you have the principle, the principle is too what? Well, the principle is too open for individual to now push it which direction they want. Because look, I can say, hey, that sounds so good. Look, I can be an amillennialist, right? And you could be a premillennialist. And we come in and you're like, you know what? That sounds like, I agree to that hermeneutical principle, that we will establish where the literal and the figurative should be and what limitations it should be. And it sounds good, right? As an amillennialist, what will I do? When we get to a text that I think should be figurative, I'll just say, this is where the figurative comes in. and I won't add any limitations to it, or you'll be coming in going, guess what? No, no, no, no, that's where the literal comes in, and I don't take any limitations. So at that point, the principle becomes what? Just be honest. Useless. It's a useless principle. It's a useless principle. Because something has to guide where you put the literal and the figurative, right? Now, in theory, what should guide where we find the literal or figurative and what limitations we place upon it? What should be the thing that guides it? The text, basic reading, right? How we read it. So what would be some things? As you're reading a text and you come across a passage, right? And we're gonna go literal or figurative. What should be your clues to try to decide which direction you could go? Forget if you're, see now this is where at that moment, what can you not be at that moment? You can't be a non-millennialist. You can't be a pre-millennialist. You can't be a post-millennialist. You can't be anything except what? a student of the Bible. And see, when I always say throw out those presuppositions, everybody gets nervous with me, right? But you have to do this, right? So then based off the text, what would we look for in the text to determine literal, figurative, and what limitation we should place upon it? What would we look for in the text? Well, let's start with genre of literature. If it's poetry, Okay, it's poetry, so there's gonna be the use of figurative, where the text is written more from an emotional standpoint, not a literal standpoint. When you express emotions, do you do it literally? Now, you may use the word literal. I'm literally so angry, I could kill someone. You probably aren't literally that angry to kill someone, hopefully not, right? But you speak from your emotions. Emotions are not to be dissected and to be understood, what? And hopefully not. I mean, there's always someone out there going, come on, you know, just stop. Okay. I'm trying to express my emotions. I don't need you to correct me right now. Correct. Right. And that the worst thing to have someone try to correct you when you're speaking from an emotional, let me get my emotions out. Then we'll be rational at the moment of expressing emotion. I'm not trying to be irrational, right? That's why Job didn't need his friends to come along and try to offer rational arguments because he was just trying to express his emotions. Okay, so the genre. What else? Context, right? Yeah, what's being described here? If it's naming places and countries, you may go, okay, this is obviously very literal. If, especially when it comes to prophecy, if the prophecy has something that we know has been fulfilled, then all we have to do is go look at that fulfillment. If we know that fulfillment was literal, then we would think that anything that follows There we go. That's what we look for. And guess what? If that goes against your amillennialism, or if that goes against your premillennialism, you don't care. Because guess what you should never have in Bible study? A team. You're not supporting a team. You're not wearing the jersey. Let's go amillennialist. Let's go premillennialist. That's the only way to make it work. Because if you don't do that, then guess what you're gonna do with those principles? You will use the principle to the advantage of your theology. Your theology has to die. Your theology has to be taken out back and put down. If you have a theology when you study your Bible, you're not studying your Bible. You're simply reading your theology into the text and you're doing what? You're putting your thumb on the scale. So that sounds like a great plan. We got to figure out the proper place for the literal, the figurative, and we got to figure out its limitations. Sounds good. And what does that individual do? He removes the limitations from what? He doesn't place any limitations. He places all the limitations on the literal and none on the figurative. So even in his own principles, he violates his own. In a sense, he's not violating the principle. He's simply doing what? Manipulating the principle. We cannot do that. All right, everybody got that? Here's principle number two. All right, here we go. Some of those limitations on literal interpretations include the following. Here's the limitations they place on the literal. You ready? Number one, the presence of figures of speech that cannot be interpreted literally allows us freedom to interpret them in other ways. So the presence of figures of speech that cannot be interpreted literally allows us freedom to interpret them in other ways. So what would they look for? They see a figure of speech and they'd be like, can you interpret that figure of speech literally? And you would have to say, no. And they're like, oh, now then we can come along and we can basically do whatever we want with it. See where they remove the limitation? The limitation is not what they can do with it. But we would argue, well, wait a minute. A figure of speech, that doesn't give you freedom just to do whatever you want with it. What should we do with a figure of speech? Try to figure out why the figure of speech is being utilized, right? What are some of the different ways figures of speech can be utilized in anything written, but we'll go with the Bible. What are some ways figures of speech can be utilized? To accomplish what? Well, it can be utilized first to convey emotion. Right? Do you not use a figure of speech to convey emotion? Right? Yes. The Psalmist does that, like all, like how does he say something about all night he basically flooded his bed with tears? Well, he doesn't flood his bed with tears, right? That's a figure of speech. What is it conveying? You can't just do anything with that. Just conveying sorrow. It doesn't mean, right, there's a limitation to it. They're saying, well, hey, since you can't convey, since that figure of speech can't be literal, we can do whatever we want. No, you can't. What are some other things a figure of speech could convey? It can convey emotion. What else could it convey? What do you think? Okay, it could just be, just being used as an illustration to convey the point. In other words, you'd have to look at what the figure of speech is about and just say, it's just using this language in order to convey the point that's being made. It's not supposed to be trying to convey something that's necessarily literal, right? It may be conveying intensity. It may be conveying Obviously we got emotion, but it could be conveying something along those lines. The intensity of something, how bad something is, and it's not necessarily meant to be taken in a very wooden, literal way. So you just have to really look at what the context is trying to say. But that would limit what? What you can do with it. You can't go make it, turn it into something else. You're just like, wait, wait, wait. This is just using a figure of speech to explain this situation. It doesn't mean that I have to then turn it into something spiritual. It just means, oh. They're expressing this right here. Does that make sense? Yes? All right. Okay. So according to these principles first, The first principle was seek to establish both the literal and figurative and then determine the limitations. We talked about the problems with that. This one, some of the limitations on literal interpretations include the presence of figures of speech that cannot be interpreted literally, allows us freedom to interpret it in other ways. And we talked about the possible problem with that. Second, the fact that the main theme of the Bible is spiritual gives validity to figurative or spiritual interpretation. So because the Bible is spiritual, they argue that gives validity to figurative or spiritual interpretation. That is a stretch, is it not? Hey, the Bible is spiritual, so guess what? Then you can make everything figurative and you can make everything spiritual. Well, again, if you take that, you see where you're gonna run into a wall, right? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the morning and the evening was the? Well, I mean, the Bible's spiritual. So that's not a literal first day, right? I mean, hey, Eve's talking to a snake. I mean, come on, the Bible is spiritual, so that's not a literal snake, right? I mean, they fell into sin. I mean, come on, does that mean everyone's born a sinner? It just means, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then you can go on and you can just, you see where you can go? But see, once you remove, once you start removing those limitations, you see where it can go. But where are they removing the limitations from? Well, in that case, they're opening it up there, they're removing the limitation, no limitation on the figurative or the spiritual there, right? They're placing none on the figurative or the spiritual there, right? So I'm gonna read that one again. The fact that the main theme of the Bible is spiritual gives validity to figurative or spiritual interpretation. Three, the fact that the Old Testament is preliminary and preparatory to the New Testament causes us to expect that the New Testament will interpret the literal Old Testament prophecies in a figurative manner. So since the Old Testament was preparing for the New, then we should read the New Testament referring to the Old Testament, then it's interpreting it in a figurative way. Once again, removing any limitation from the figurative. Do you see exactly? Now, these are hermeneutical principles, but where are all these hermeneutical principles gonna lead you to? On millennialism. These are hermeneutical principles, though, but from an Amillennialist perspective. But do you see, but where did it all start? Hey, literal and figurative, I got no problem saying they're both there, but guess what? I get to decide where they're at and how they're utilized, and what does he immediately start doing? He's basically getting rid of the literal, and he's opening the door that you can do almost anything you want with the Bible spiritually or figuratively. All right, everybody got those two? And I know those are sub points under that. You may repeat anything, right? Here's, okay, then they have, they're gonna have an explanation here. All right, here we go. No literalist denies that the Bible contains figures of speech. We should all say amen, right? But he insists that they depict very literal truths. So if the Bible is describing something in a figurative way, we still believe it's pointing to something literal. Still pointing to something literal. Now that means then, now Ryrie's coming in and what is he doing? He's now putting a limitation on how far you can take. the figurative, and now he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. There is figures of speech, but I'm gonna put a limitation there. Now, now guess what? We have one hermeneutical principle, and now we have two individuals all trying to put the stop sign where they want it. Do you see then how, why Christianity can't come to a conclusion? Because Ryrie's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, there is figures of speech. They're saying I can basically then do whatever I want with it, and Ryrie is saying, no, no, no, figure of speech, but it has to point to a literal truth. Now, he goes on to say, but he insists that they depict very literal truths. For example, the best roses grown in the part of the country where I live grow in Tyler, Texas. Tyler roses are famous. Now, if I see an advertisement that says, use such and such brand of fertilizer and you too can grow Tyler roses, I do not understand this to mean that I must live in the city of Tyler, but that wherever I live, I can grow the same kind of magnificent roses that are grown in Tyler. In other words, that advertisement's using somewhat of a figure of speech, not saying that I have to literally live in Tyler, but that I can literally grow similar roses. Does that make sense? So there is a figure of speech, but it is pointing to something literal, but in a certain way. Does that make sense? I think that makes sense. I think that's a good discussion there. Okay, now they go on to say, and the figure of speech has very literal and plain meaning about the actual roses I can grow. Tyler roses means roses, not tomatoes, But Tyler roses also stands for roses that are outstanding whether they actually grow in Tyler or not. In other words, you can't make the roses tomatoes. You can't make the roses something... They are roses! that can be grown anywhere if you buy this particular fertilizer. It's not saying, then, you have to take the fertilizer and drive to Tyler, Texas, that you can plant wherever. Now, obviously, there would even be limitations to that, because some areas, the climate would not be conducive to growing roses, right? OK, you get the idea. So in other words, it's figurative, but there's very literal aspects to it, where the other person wants to say, well, since that's a figure of speech, all bets are off. It can be the church, right? So there's the problem, right? Now here's number three. So number one, this individual first seeks to establish the both the literal and figurative methods of interpretation and have their proper places and their necessary limitations. The only problem is the individual is determining the proper place and the limitations. Secondly, he begins some of those limitations on literal interpretation include, and then we look at the different things he does with literal interpretations. So Ryrie comes in to try to push back and try to put the limitation, go whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. The other person doesn't want any limitation on the figurative. He wants the limitation on the literal. Ryrie wants to put the limitation on the figurative so that there is some control of it. The problem is, who gets to be the ones to determine it? It's the individual. It's the individual. And the person sitting in the pew doesn't even care about these hermeneutical principles. They don't even know they exist. But guess what? Whether they know they exist, they utilize them. And what's frustrating when you're, when you, let's say you've gone to school for theology or hermeneutics and you have a discussion with someone in the church, you just wanna lose your mind because you're like, they don't even understand what they're saying. And so then you'll try to ask, well, have you read a book on hermeneutics? And then they take offense to that. But it's not trying to take offense. It's like, we can't have this conversation unless we get to the hermeneutical principles, because we have to determine what we're doing with the hermeneutical principles. But then we can't even get there because the theology is so taken its place. But number three, if his first two theses be true, so now Ryrie's coming on. Okay, if those first two are true, Then the question naturally arises, how does one know whether to interpret a passage literally or figuratively? This author's answer is, whichever gives the true meaning of the passage. So, how do you know when to use the literal or figurative according to this author? Which, Whichever one gives you the right answer, right? So again, so let me read that again. His answer is whichever gives the true meaning of the passage. Whichever gives the true meaning of the passage, that's how you know whether to use literally or figurative. And I love what Ryrie, you know what Ryrie writes after that? Comment unnecessary. Because he's letting the reader realize what? How ridiculous that is. Everybody understand why he says no comment unnecessary? That's ridiculous, right? Hey, how do you know which one to use, the literal or figurative? Well, whichever one gives you the truth of the text. Well, then who's going to... The reader is making the determination of whether to use the literal or the figurative, and the reader is the one determining what? The truth of the text. Oh my goodness. That makes me want to drive to a liquor store. That just makes, it just shows you so much of what we do, it's just one big game. It's just a big game. I'm the one who determines what the truth of the text is, so therefore I'm the one who determine if I'm going to use literal or figurative, and then I'm gonna determine which limitation I place upon it, and I'm gonna determine when it's literal or when it's figurative, therefore I'm God. Yeah, I mean basically you become God. And nobody wants to say they're God, but that's exactly what Christians do when it comes to the Bible. And then not only will we determine that, then what will we say? Bobby, you're wrong and I'm leaving your church. There you go, I showed you. I'm gonna go find a church that understands where the literal and the figurative is because they agree with me. And they're all happy and everything's wonderful and great until... They don't agree with that, pastor. And it's all such a game. When we all run around saying, the Bible's the word of God, the Bible's the authority. Give me a break, man. Just walk around saying what? This makes you want to just give up on hermeneutics. This makes you want to give up on everything, right? Number four, this author continues by saying that the only way prophecy can be understood literally is when its literal meaning is clear and obvious. The only time, according to this, when is the only time you can understand prophecy literally? When the literal meaning is clear and obvious. But once again, what do you come back to? Who determines when it's clear and obvious? Because I guarantee you, we could read some passages and guess what we would conclude? That it's clear and obvious. And the Amillennialists would say, it's not clear and obvious, so therefore you can't use the literal meaning. Once again, who's making the determining factor? The individual, that drives me crazy. It says, now they go, now Ryrie puts in here, almost all prophecy is filled with figurative and parabolic language, which must be interpreted accordingly. So in reality, most, okay, no, I'm sorry. I thought Ryrie was coming in. He's still quoting from the author. So let me read it again. Well, the only way prophecy can be understood literally is when its literal meaning is clear and obvious. Almost all prophecy is filled with figurative and parabolic language which must be interpreted accordingly. So in reality, most prophecy will be interpreted non-literally. So most, and please note it says Most, meaning then there are some that will be interpreted literally. But again, who's gonna be the one who makes the determining factor? The individual. So if you really think about it, now, just looking at these hermeneutical principles that this person has put forth, these hermeneutical principles, if we're gonna be reality, I can summarize all of those points. The reader is the hermeneutical principle. and nobody wants to acknowledge it, but that's exactly what it turns into. Number five, to interpret and understand a prophecy correctly and fully, its fulfillment must also be known. All right, so to understand a prophecy correctly and fully, its fulfillment must also be known. Okay, I see possible danger with this, but we'll see. Where would be the possible danger with this? Yeah, because if you were walking around reading the Bible at a specific time in history, and it kept talking Israel, Israel, Israel, Israel, Israel, Israel, Israel, you may have concluded there's no Israel, therefore it can't be literal. All right, so that's where, let's see what they do with this, all right? Every prophecy ever given was given before its fulfillment was known. We can all say amen to that, right? Otherwise, it would not have been a prophecy. If we allow this principle, then no prophecy could ever have been or will be understood until the fulfillment came. Now, this is where Ryrie kicks back and he pushes back. Wait, if you go with your view, Then we can never understand any prophecy until after it is fulfilled. And then after it's fulfilled, then we can say, oh well, it was literal. Or, oh wait, it wasn't literal. Well, that's not, prophecy then would be what? Prophecy would be what? Useless! It would be useless. Or you would have to run around and go, for everything that has not been fulfilled, you could then make an argument for a non-literal interpretation, which then would be advantage whom? Advantage to the amillennialist because he can make the argument hermeneutically. We can interpret all of these prophecies as being non-literal because they have not been literally fulfilled. What? That's like playing with a marked deck. You know what I'm saying? You're like, well, what about this scripture? It hasn't been fulfilled yet. And they're like, well, exactly. Therefore, it has to be. Non-literal, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life, all right? No Israelite needed to have been, to have, okay, no Israelite needed to have taken the prophecies about the coming Assyrian or Babylonian captivities literally because he could not be sure the prophecies would be fulfilled literally until the captivities actually happened. Well, that would be, that would be useless, right? Hey, I know you're saying we're gonna go into captivity, but I mean, it hasn't happened yet, so I can't take it literally. Well, then... Yeah, I mean, I can't take Jesus coming back literally because he hasn't... I mean, do you see how that would just destroy anything with Bible prophecy? I mean, that's ridiculous, all right? Do I? Well yeah, basically, he's prophesying this stuff and the people are like, things are going good! Things are going good! They were completely wrong, exactly. The people who didn't believe Noah, they were wrong. The people who didn't believe Lot, or the angels, were wrong. Like, over and over and over, the people who didn't believe the literal idea were wrong. Right. I know, this makes no sense to me. That makes no sense to me. I completely agree. I'm just as baffled by it. It's always easy. After the fact, it's always easy to be right about everything. I can be right about everything. I'm like, well, I told you they were going to win the game. Well, it's after the game, right? I told you who was going to win the election. If I wait till after everything, I can be right about everything. I'm just like, don't argue with anybody, and then when something happens, like, I tried to tell you you were wrong, okay? And like, but you didn't say a word. Well, because I'm right after the fact. I mean, that's just, I don't even know, I don't even know how this even works. They go on to say, by such a principle of interpretation, what force would those prophecies have had? But you see, and all millennialists want to be able to claim that we cannot be sure that the Old Testament prophecies concerning the millennial kingdom will be fulfilled literally, because no such kind of fulfillment has yet come to pass. But since the church has some similar characteristics to the kingdom, the church must be fulfilling those prophecies. So see, hey, we got prophecies about the millennial kingdom, but that hasn't happened yet. So you can't be sure that it's literal, but what does exist? The church does exist. So then that must fulfill those prophecies in a spiritual way. That's like making rules for a game that guarantees you're going to win. That's like me walking up to people in a church saying, let's play trivia. We'll pick trivia about music. I should win that. We'll pick trivia about film analysis. We'll pick trivia about professional wrestling. And then like, what's wrong with you people? You're all dumb. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The rule's this. Well, when did you make that rule? You just made it five seconds ago, right? Okay, so that's hermeneutics based on whatever works for me. But do you see even how hermeneutical principles in some cases are just a disguise for what? I'm going to read the Bible and I'm going to read it and create principles that will agree with my theology. Meaning the theology preceded the hermeneutics and you've developed a hermeneutical system that works with your theology. That makes me want to just cry. Oh man, I didn't know we're already over an hour. Okay, someone should have told me something. Okay, well, I'll just give the last one. As if to reinforce his idea that we should expect a vagueness in how to interpret prophecy, throughout his discussion of hermeneutics, he characterizes prophecy as indefinite, even deceptive, filled with symbols, imprecise, and subject to various interpretations. So in other words, his hermeneutical principle is that basically, when it comes to prophecy, You just can't know. It's imprecise. We can't really know it, right? It's even deceptive, symbols, imprecise, subject to various interpretations. These are his phrases, not mine, Ryrie points out. But of course, those alleged characteristics are truly only if the interpreter abandons the principle of literal or normative interpretation. So in other words, he comes on basically like, hey, you can't figure this. You can't figure it out. So it's so vague, it's so enigmatic, it's so, we just can't quite understand it, that guess what? The non-literal's the only thing we can do. And trust me, I know that, because I never said it that way, but I would have used that same line of reasoning when I leaned more towards a non-millennial perspective. Because guess what I could say? 2,000 years of church history. People have been trying to interpret Bible prophecy for 2,000 years. Does anyone have a clue? No, even pre-millennialists. What's MacArthur's favorite little, his little saying he used to say? I'm a pan-millennialist, it will all pan out in the end, right? Which you can understand because there's so much confusion. So once you throw out there's so much confusion, then what's the go-to? Well then just take it in a non-literal way and then it just be fulfilled spiritually. Now, that's easy to say if you don't do what? Don't actually go to the text. But once we start working through the text, then what happens? Or at least for me, then I realize... I got to do something here. I can't just say that's the church, right? I just can't. And even back then though, I always admit, remember I admitted that you would have one group that sees everything as the church and the other group that sees everything as the millennial kingdom, right? I mentioned that multiple times back then, but it's all easy when you're not near it. But once you're like, okay, well, hey, let's start working on some Isaiah. And then all of a sudden you're like, well, I got to do something here. I can't just say, well, this is so difficult and vague and symbolic that, Well, we'll just make it spiritual, right? Well, that sounds good if you're not actually studying the text, but if you're actually working through the text, the text demands more than that, right? Because when you're dealing with Isaiah, look at Isaiah chapter one. What do you find almost immediately? I think it's Isaiah chapter one is a good example of this. I could be wrong here. No, you're gonna find something else at the beginning of Isaiah. Or I could be wrong. Oh yeah, Isaiah chapter one, the vision of Isaiah, the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. All of those are what? Literal people! Okay, so immediately I'm confronted with literal things. It's giving me a literal time frame, literal people, literal places. It mentions Judah and Jerusalem. If I interpret all of that literally, Well, then that starts setting me up. Then, well, wait a minute, I can't get five chapters later and go, hey, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, that's not Judah, that's not Jerusalem, that's not Israel, that's the church. That's not the millennial kingdom, that's all happening in the church. And then you're gonna look at me going, so in the church right now, the lamb is laying down with the lion and there's peace and everything is wonderful and tranquility. And then you would look around going, you're out of your mind. And well, guess what? I can understand why you would say that. Now I can come across in a condescending way, well, if you understood these hermeneutical principles, but all I would be doing is utilizing the hermeneutical principles simply to silence you, and then I would put my thumb on the scale that it would lean which way? To my theology. But when you decide to take your theology and do what with it? Toss it, and then you go, well, this first verse at least establishes some very literal things, does it not? Okay? And then when it starts talking about a sinful nation in verse four, a people laden with iniquity and seed of evildoers, well, who's that sinful nation? We'll go back to verse three. The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider. Now we know we're dealing with Israel. Now, then we have to figure out, is Israel being used as specifically about the Northern kingdom? Or is it a generic term referring to both North and South, or is it just being used in a general way that can refer to the South as well? Then we have to, so then guess what we start doing? Are we getting now very literal? Yeah, we're getting very literal. Now that's when my problems begin, because the longer you go that way, then how can I then jump in and go, Now Israel's not Israel, Judah's not Judah, Jerusalem is not Jerusalem, and this is the church, and it's all happening now. And you'd be like, that's not happening now, there's just no way. Well, it's happening in a figurative way. And then I don't have to explain it? Now in some ways that's freeing, right? I don't have to explain anything. So to conclude, what did we learn about all these interpretive principles that was given? And again, the name of the person who he's quoting from is Oswald T., and I'll just spell the last name, A-L-L-I-S. All right, that individual gives us hermeneutical principles that can be summarized in what way? Bible hermeneutics is simply an individual determining what the Bible says. And they determined what the Bible says in agreement with their theology. And all of those principles favor which side? The amillennial or the non-literal view. And if I got a book written by someone who is premillennial, who was gonna give us their interpretive principles, it would favor the literal or the premillennialist. Meaning then, what is not the authority in any of that? The scriptures. Man, does that make you happy? That drives me absolutely crazy. Now what would be the only way to get to this? Let's say we're going to study the book of Isaiah. And guess what? We don't care. We don't care if we offend the reformed people. We don't care if we offend the non-reformed people. We don't care if we offend the premillennialists, the postmillennialists, the amillennialists. I don't care. Now, the minute you say that, you'll lose your church. You'll lose your church. You just will. You'll lose your church. A pastor cannot do what I just said, because instantaneously what will happen? Conflict. Even before you finish. Maybe in the middle of your sermon. You can't finish. Because they, no, no, no, no, no, no. It has to be this. Well, can you let us finish? Can you let us finish? Can I finish? And instead of arguing what should be done. So what should we be studying now? What are we doing? Okay, I'll work, I'll work. So we're going to be in Isaiah 1. I'm going to do an observational outline. I'm going to do a chapter summary method. I'm going to do... But nobody's going to do that. They're going to go home and do what? Oh wait, I think he's disagreeing with amillennialists. I'm going to start doing... I'm going to do some reading. And they always tell me they're doing some reading, meaning they're just going to find a book that's written by an amillennialist to argue against. a possible view. At that point, we're not even being a church. We just will put a sign up that we're a part of a team, but that's really what you do. You put up the sign of which team, and then you tell everyone, hey, you don't need to worry about anything. I got your back. I'm gonna make sure all my sermons do what? Agree with your team. and I'll make sure it's three points, and I'll make sure I don't go way after 7 p.m. on a Sunday night. And then everyone will be happy. Oh, there's coffee and donuts in the back, and next Sunday we'll get together, you know, for an ice cream social, and we'll hold hands around a campfire and sing Kumbaya. And then everyone will be happy. Now to me, that sounds like torture, and sounds like I don't want to be a part of Christianity. Because guess what I'm not doing? My whole reason I wanted to be a part of Christianity is I believe there was this thing called Truth, and I believe this book supposedly contained it, and I wanted to spend my life doing what? Studying this book. And I thought that if I spent my life studying this book, there would be all kinds of people who would want to study this book. And someone in seminary didn't tell me that I was an idiot. Well, probably they didn't tell me I was an idiot. That's probably true. No, they didn't bother to hear my great method of how I was going to do church. If they would have heard my method, they would have been like, dude, what do you think this is? Do you think this is Christianity? This is churchianity. This is the way to make a church work. You don't care about truth. You don't care about theology. You give the people what they want. Just do a song and dance. Kiss some babies, shake some hands, and have some activities. And I'm like, that sounds like torture. That sounds like conformity. I don't want to conform. I want to push and figure it out, right? Because truth never is, I don't think truth is ever confined into a nice little box. In fact, as soon as someone puts truth in a box and says, here it is, Just laugh at them. They don't have truth. Truth cannot be contained, especially the truth of an eternal all-knowing God who gives us his revelation in 66 books, and 2,000 years, no one's figured it out, tells me it cannot be put in a little box. I'm all for creeds and confessions that try, but they only establish what? Parameters. But our job is to then, whenever we study the text, is to lay aside those things and figure out the text. So our study of amillennialism tonight was really a study of how hermeneutics and sometimes is a facade. But what we do see, it's Palm Sunday and all of the passages that we say are prophecies about Palm Sunday, we believe were fulfilled literally, a literal man, whose true God, true man, on a literal donkey rode into a literal Jerusalem with literal people saying, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Believing that he was the literal Messiah. And then they literally got upset and literally had him literally killed. And he literally was buried and literally rose the third day and literally ascended to the right hand of the Father where we believe he will literally return. And we believe that there's plenty of other promises dealing with a return and dealing with Israel that need to be literally fulfilled because they have not. There we go. That seems to me to make sense, right? Okay? And all the other prophecies we believe have been literally fulfilled. And if they haven't been literally fulfilled, then guess who gets to determine the fulfillment of it? We just get to. And we can just say, that's the fulfillment of it. You can be like, well, that's a rip off. That's the fulfillment of that? Really? I was hoping for something a little more than what you're giving me. Because the church is the fulfillment of all those millennial promises. It's the worst millennial I have ever been given. And to tell me that Satan is bound right now, well then, I want my money back on the whole thing. Now, if you can prove to me that's true without your weird hermeneutical system, then I have to accept it whether I like it or not, because we can't go based off what we like either, right? All right, we'll stop there. Lord, God, we come before you this evening. Lord, thank you for an opportunity to challenge hermeneutical principles. And Lord, just forgive us because everyone in this room, we've all been guilty of it. where our doctrinal and theological conclusions are not based off the study of your word, but are based on other things. Forgive us for that. Forgive us when we put our thumb on the hermeneutical scale to make it go the direction we want it to. Forgive us and help us be more students of your word and less being committed to a particular team. And we ask this in Jesus' name. And God's people said,