All right, for this morning, we were going to go back to our kind of survey of eschatology. We did a introduction to eschatology. We did a survey of postmillennialism. Then we did a survey of amillennialism. So that brings us to... No, we did post. We did premillennialism. Yeah, we will look at a survey of premillennialism. systematic theology or basic theology. What he does is he does a survey of premillennialism, then he covers specific things that would relate to premillennialism. So, but he kind of starts with kind of an overview of premillennialism. So, I think premillennialism is the one that I think most people are familiar with. Most people know it. It's kind of the kind of the default position throughout most of Christianity for a very long time. Obviously with the resurgence kind of reform theology, we started seeing a resurgence of amillennialism become more and more prominent. I think one of the reasons why that happened is you could, I mean, you could kind of, if you want to kind of look at how trends happen in the church with kind of the explosion of mega churches, seeker-sensitive, purpose-driven, that type of thing. Whenever something goes in one direction, there's almost always a pushback against it. So the pushback against a lot of that was an explosion of Reformed theology, where people were looking for something with more substance, more depth, more maybe related to church history, more theological insight. And that pushback not only kind of led them to, you know, try to reject the emergent church and many of those concepts, It was called the Young Reformed Movement. As that began to explode, I think what happened, and it's almost inevitable that it occurred, if you're pushing a back against something that appears to be shallow, surface, not really academic, then the pushback is going to go in the direction of being in-depth, being academic, and going to go that direction. And so, when you start that, there's one area where you're going to probably greatly begin to question it because the you know, dispensational premillennialism became more associated with things like the Left Behind books, you know, really bad movies that were not very good, and just a very kind of shallow thing. And premillennialism was also associated with lots of false predictions about when Christ was going to return, and you know, who is the Antichrist? I was listening to an old message from Chuck Swindoll yesterday, and he was making a joke of, People saying, you know, the Antichrist is Roosevelt, the Antichrist is Reagan, the Antichrist is Clinton. And we've gone through all of that. We've gone through all of that. And then Swindoll made a joke that if you look up 666 and you do math a certain way, it means Swindoll. And so he, like, it's just, he was kind of making fun of it as well, even though he would be premillennial. But that's kind of what it was known for. So then, if you're moving towards a kind of a reformed perspective, typically when you do so, your focus is on soteriology, election, predestination, atonement, justification. And so what you typically do is you don't really want to deal with eschatology. You don't want to get into it. You don't want to have to deal with a big chart trying to figure out. So it would be easy to just say, I'm all millennial, right? It's all fulfilled in the church. It's just kind of like the default position. I don't really have to answer it. And you can feel somewhat morally superior, or at least maybe intellectually superior, because you're like, you know, we're not part of that left behind nonsense. We're not behind all of those crazy predictions. and I can understand why people would think that way. Now, my perspective would be somewhat different because I was very much involved with Family Radio and the Family Radio School of the Bible, and there was a person in charge of that by the name of Harold Camping. And I'll never forget because Harold Camping, I learned a lot about reform theology from Harold Camping about election and a lot of that from Harold Camping. And everything went great. And I'll never forget because we were driving home from Papillion back to Bellevue from church and we had family radio on in the car. And that's when we heard Harold Camping tell us that the world was going to end in 1994. And we're like, what is happening? Because Harold Camping was a millennial. Harold Camping was was scripture and scripture alone. Harold Kemping was completely opposed to the charismatic movement. And so we were like, what is happening? It was an insane period of time. I remember getting the book in 1994 when it came out. And then that prediction didn't come about. So then he said, well, okay, the end of the world didn't happen, but the church age ended. So you need to leave your church because if you stay in your church, you're taking the mark of the beast. And the whole thing just got more and more bizarre. Then he changed it from, 94 to, I can't remember, 2000 whatever was going to be, I think 2012 maybe, was going to be the end of the world. That didn't happen. Then he had a stroke and then ultimately he kind of repented of a lot of all of this and then he ultimately passed away. But the thing is, a lot of people looked at that as crazy, but what they forgot is he started from a non-millennial position. Predictions and craziness is not always associated with premillennialism, but there's a sometimes a, if you're becoming reformed and you're kind of sick of the modern church, it's just kind of easy to say, well, that's premillennialism, it belongs there and I'm not that, I'm above that. I'm smarter than that, I'm more sophisticated than that. And I understand that way of thinking, I mean, I very much appreciate that way of thinking, of saying, well, the majority is going to the premillennial way. Well, I'm just going to go the opposite direction just because I'm not going to go with the crowd. Look, I understand that, right? That's probably a part of the reason I kind of went more the amillennial way. It's just because that fits right with my personality, right? 90 people going this way, I'm going to go with the two, just on principle. After you, and it all, for us, at least for me, it all happened when we were in Jeremiah 31, and I was like, wait a minute. The new covenant was made with House of Israel and House of Judah. And I'm like, okay, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. This is gonna have massive ramifications on the rest of my life. Okay, what am I gonna do here, right? Okay, I've gotta prove that House of Israel and House of Judah is just a phrase that means what? The church, I gotta make it spirit, I've gotta prove this. And when I could not prove that, then everything began to fall apart. Everything began to fall apart. Systematically began to fall apart. In fact, we spent months, I think it was during a summer that we were trying to figure out what do we do with the covenants? How do we understand the covenants? What is our part in the covenant? And when we started trying to figure all of that out, I was like, man, who cares about going against the crowd? Who cares about supposedly being academically superior? Because it came down to a question of what, if anyone remembers, of hermeneutics. How was I going to interpret the scriptures? And as we saw with our millennialism, Even though he was using an amillennial book to give us some of their concepts, I think we can all agree it was a little maddening and frustrating because it's like, this doesn't mean this, but this means this, but then this is literal and this is not literal. And when you really start getting into the weeds of it, It's not academically superior. It's not logically superior. That's just ridiculous. In fact, in some cases, it's logically just dishonest, and their hermeneutic is completely inconsistent. As we would see, there would be some passages where the prophecy was to be understood as what? 100% literally. But then a few chapters later, maybe even the same chapter, all of a sudden, Israel's not Israel, Judah's not Judah, land is not land, and you're like, what is going on? So, when it comes to premillennialism, I can understand If you're reformed, you're like, I'm not a part of that modern day evangelical. I hold to strong reformed roots. And it's very common for people who attack premillennialism to say something along these lines. Well, the early church weren't premillennialist. That was a concept created in the 1800s. And no, we were completely opposed to it. But what have we found in all of our years of study? That simply saying something was the older view doesn't really mean anything, does it? Remember our crazy journey into the early views on baptism? Remember some of that? I think we all said, older doesn't always mean better. Older doesn't always mean correct. Does that make sense? I mean, I think that's very important. And especially since we're not Catholic, For us, the date of a doctrine is what to us, as a non-Catholic? It's irrelevant, other than to know, oh, that's what was going on at that point in history. We wanna know it from a historical perspective, but for us, what's more important, the date of a doctrine, or what does scripture say? We don't care about the date of the doctrine, right? Right, because, I mean, we know, and even opening our Bibles, almost all of the books were written to deal with what? Error, meaning error was right there from the very beginning. So just because something is old does not mean it was correct. We've got to figure out what scripture says and we have to figure out hermeneutics. So when we get ready to look at premillennialism, look, there would have been a time in my Christian life like, oh, we're going to look at that left behind nonsense, bring out the, and I would have been mocking of it, right? Because it felt, intellectually inferior to now me. I'm reformed. I'm not like these churches, right? But, well, at some point I realized that that supposed superiority did not mean anything because I could feel superior by doing what? Not really dealing with the issue. Right? Hey, I'm all millennial. I'm not going to really deal with the issue. I could just name one or two things about premillennialism that could raise a question and not really deal with it. Because typically when you're, especially when you're new to the reformed world, you're focused on the tulip. You're focused on, you know, the doctrine of God, the sovereignty of God, the Trinity, the hypostatic union. You're dealing with these great theological concepts and eschatology is like, And I understand that in some ways eschatology is. Yeah, because that's whatever is going to happen is going to happen. But when I began to realize it's not so much about eschatology, it's about hermeneutics, that changed my whole opinion of it, right? I got to figure out my... Figuring out eschatology is all really about figuring out what? Your hermeneutical approach. That's really what it's about. It's not so much about like, well, I'm amillennial and I'm gonna go focus on these other things. No, I need to figure out my hermeneutic because my hermeneutic should be the thing driving my eschatology. Whenever I get ready to deal with premillennialism, I think we have to at least address those issues. But are you ready? A survey of premillennialism. Here we go. Let's start with a definition. a definition of premillennialism. Premillennialism is the view that holds that the second coming of Christ will occur prior to the millennium. All right, so premillennialism is the view that holds that the second coming will happen when? Prior to the millennium, which we'll see when we talk about the millennium, the establishment of Christ's kingdom on earth And when we say the establishment of Christ's kingdom on earth, premillennialists understand that kingdom on earth as what? Literal, not some spirit, a literal kingdom on earth. And it will last for how long? A thousand years, a literal thousand years. All right, so let's go through that again. Premillennialism is the view that holds that the second coming will happen when? prior to the millennium, and that in the millennium we will see the establishment of Christ's kingdom on earth, a literal kingdom on earth, that will last for a literal thousand years. Now this is where things can get complicated, so just listen to this. Premillennialism also understands that there will be several resurrections and judgments. There's not just one resurrection, there's not just one judgment. Now, this is where Reformed and some people who may hold to other, maybe more historical views of eschatology will really go after premillennialists and say, no, there's one judgment, one resurrection, right? And if you grab the Trinity Hymnal real quick and go back to the creeds, look for the Apostles and the Nicene Creed. Just look at it really quick. If you can find the Apostles and Nicene Creed. Yeah, 845 is the Apostles. Look at the bottom, kind of look close to the bottom where it kind of would speak of something that would refer to eschatology. What do you see that would kind of refer to eschatology in the Creed, in the Apostles' Creed? The resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Does it say anything else? and to judge the living and the dead. Seem to speak of how many resurrections? One, how many judgments? One, okay. Look at the Nicene Creed. There you go. So just see, that's how many judgments seems to appear there? One. See, so the creed seemed to point to one general resurrection, one general judgment. Premillennialists say there are multiple judgments and more than one resurrection. That's where issues, that's where some people start having some major issues with premillennialism. All right? Does everybody understand that? Does that kind of make sense? Eternity, within the premillennialism, eternity will begin after the thousand years are concluded. All right, so eternity starts after the thousand years. After the thousand years, and that's when eternity begins. So what are some of the basic elements of premillennialism? Christ returns. before the millennium will have Christ ruling and reigning on earth, literally, for a literal thousand years, and there will be more than one resurrection, there will be more than one judgment, and eternity will begin after the literal thousand years. Now, just so that you know this, within premillennialism, there is a belief of something that is referred to as the rapture. Now, the rapture is something that is strongly mocked, made fun of, and condemned by all millennialists, and typically those who are strongly reformed, and maybe those who hold to a more historical eschatology. It's almost mocked. And it's mocked mainly because the rapture becomes, you know, a thing of Hollywood. It becomes this, you know, and everyone's got to explain how it's going to look and, you know, that's the whole left behind books. And so it's kind of mocked. But just so that you know this, within premillennialism, this is very important, does everyone, everyone agrees that there is a rapture. What do they not agree on? When? So within premillennialism, there are differing views on the timing of the rapture. They believe in the rapture, just the timing of it. Where other systems don't believe, don't have any belief in the rapture. When I first became a Lutheran, and I asked about the rapture, they were kind of like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, what are you talking about? Because my understanding was, Everyone believes in the rapture. And then I was like, wait, you don't believe it? How does, what? So then it was like a little confusing, right? It was a little confusing. But at that time, I was more focused on other issues. Again, other issues took precedent. Because sometimes in theological studies, you only have so much time to figure out which thing you're gonna focus on, you know? So there we have it. All right, so there's the definition. Doctrinal characteristics of premillennialism. All right, we're gonna look at one, two, three, four. We're gonna look at four doctrinal characteristics of premillennialism, all right? We're gonna start with the first. We did this one for every, for all of them, we did the same thing, all right? We'll start with the Bible. What do you think premillennialists believe about the Bible? We did this with postmillennialists, we did this with amillennialists. Yeah, they believe it's the inerrant word of God and it's authoritative. And again, why do I stress that so much? Why do I stress that so much? They all believe it, meaning that the, so this is very important. So because this is, and I made this mistake as a young Christian because I heard other, I heard pastors say this all the time. I heard people say it on Christian radio. And so I just parroted it back. It was common for people to say, well, I don't know what their problem is. If they would just read their Bible, if they would just believe their Bible, they would clearly believe this. Well, that's because that's the only way I could understand why there would be so many Different opinions. But the thing is, post-millennialists, what do they believe? The Bible is the authoritative word of God. What does a millennialist believe? The Bible is an infallible word of God. What do pre-millennialists believe? What does a Pelagian believe? What does a semi-Pelagian believe? What does a Calvinist believe? It doesn't matter! Church of Christ, Assemblies of God, Baptists, they all believe what? That the Bible, that, I'm telling you, that's one of the most discouraging, frustrating facts, because you wanna believe that it would be simple, right? Like if me and Sarah had some major doctrinal, theological difference, we could just say, hey, look, Sarah, look, right here, study this, look this up, and then she'd come back and go. And I, you know what? I see it now, right? Or she could come to me and go, hey, here's these scriptures and here's these scriptures. And I'd be like, oh, you're right. Does it work that way? No, it does not. It does not. Everyone walks away believing that they're right. And they will claim that the Bible is on their side. And nobody ever stops to go, well, wait a minute. If the Bible's on, why is it the Bible's always on my side? Because at some point you would think what? That the Bible is not always on my, like you would think at some point, the Bible can't always be on my side, it can't always work that way, but everyone thinks the Bible is on their side. At some point you would think you would come to a conclusion, hmm. I don't know if I'm right. I don't know if I'm right. But nobody ever comes to that conclusion. I hate that. Now, just for full transparency, remember, Ryrie holds to the premillennial view. So he is going to throw this in. I just want to make sure for full transparency. He does say this, premillennialist hold a high view of scripture, it is probably safe to say that pre-tribulational premillennialists believe in the inerrancy of the Bible almost without exception. Now I think that there's probably truth to that. If you're premillennial, pre-trib, you're probably going to hold to scriptures maybe slightly different than others for this particular reason is typically premillennialist, dispensationalist, pre-trib are typically hold to what kind of hermeneutic? A very literal one, right? A very literal one. So if you're gonna be very, very literal, then you're gonna probably hold to scripture maybe in a way that may be different than others, correct? All right, for example, the other day I did a podcast where we were reviewing a podcast called Pass the Mic, right? And it deals, Pass the Mic deals with different things going on in the church. And so in this particular episode, they were talking about the significance and the importance of storytelling and preaching, right? And they were talking about that people love narrative, that's why people love movies and TV shows. And they said, what we have to understand is that a good portion of the Bible is myth. And I was like, what? What? So they were like, hey, so in other words, you don't have to, like there's a truth in the text, but it doesn't mean all the parts. Like, when we look to Genesis, I mean, there's a truth about creation, but a lot of that is just myth. You don't take it like literal, like literal days, or a literal snake, or a literal, and you're like, what? is going on here, right? So like, how do then, you see all the hermeneutical things that could lead to like, well, if that's not, if that's myth and that's myth, and I'm not supposed to take that literal, You just see the chaos you could come into. So it was really bizarre. I was more focused on... Now, they did some great things in that podcast episode about storytelling and the dangers of storytelling and preaching and a lot of the things about it. But it was just crazy. But if you're going to hold to a very literal hermeneutic, then you're almost without fail going to be saying what? not myth, literal history, literal facts that must be interpreted literally. So Ryrie seems to think that at least among pre-tribulational, pre-millennialist, they're going to believe in the inerrancy of Bible without exception. Like there's no way you're going to be in that camp and even question inerrancy. You're going to take it, and there's probably some truth to that. Maybe the other systems would allow a little bit more leeway, right? Because you're not taking things in a literal way. So you can see whether you agree or disagree with that. So there's the doctrinal characteristic of premillennialism, number one. The Bible, number two. The doctrinal characteristics of premillennialism dealing with the millennium itself. All forms of premillennialism understand that the millennium follows the second coming of Christ. So no matter what kind of premillennialist you are, what do you believe? That the millennium follows The second coming. Christ returns, millennium. Christ returns, millennium. And what would that be based on? What would be, if you were gonna take scripture and try to prove that, what scripture would you immediately go to to prove that point? What scripture would you immediately go to to prove that the millennium follows the second coming? Okay, yeah, because everybody go to Revelation 19? Well, that's what I want us to see. Revelation 19. Find the second coming of Christ in Revelation 19. Give me the verses that seem to indicate it. Second coming. Where would you find the second coming in Revelation 19? Okay, starting in verse 11, what happens? All right, so the heaven's open, someone's on a white horse, he's called faithful and true, and most would argue that that is Christ. What would be your arguments that it's Christ? His name is called the Word of God. This is written by John, in John chapter one, verse one says, in the beginning was the... The Word, the Word was God and the Word was with God. And then you go down to verse 14, the Word becomes flesh, all right? So they say that that's Christ, right? Well, he comes back and what does he do? It's Revelation 19, what does he do? He kills all kinds of people, does he not? In their mass slaughter, okay? There's a mass slaughter, right? Okay, after all of that death, what is like the last verse of Revelation 19? Uh-huh. All right, so there's massive death and the birds are eating, right? And then immediately go to chapter 20, Then an angel comes, okay, Satan is bound, and we have what we would refer to as the setting up of the millennial kingdom. Okay, so the argument, so just so from a premillennial standpoint, the argument is Revelation 19 is what? literally Christ, literally returning, literally killing his enemies, and then in chapter 20 he is literally setting up the kingdom. Now that means, as a premillennialist, you are believing Revelation 19 and 20 or what? In chronological order. Okay, so that's where we would put it. So a premillennialist believes, all premillennialists, no matter what form, believe that the millennium follows the second coming of Christ. And one of the key verses or passages would be Revelation 19 and 20. Everybody got that? Its duration will be 1,000 years. Look in chapter 20 and tell me how many times the word 1,000 or 1,000 years is referenced in chapter 20. Okay, just go through and count how many. Give me a count. How many times? Got six times. Got a minimum of six. That's six times and how many verses? How many total verses in chapter 20? 15 verses and we think there's at least six references to a thousand years? Okay, Sarah has five. Okay, we have five. So five and 15, right? Five out of 15. That's a lot, right? Horrible percentages, but that's a lot, right? Okay. Whatever the percentage is, that is a lot. So do I? There we go, someone's good at math, right? 33%, all right. So, when you have 33% of verses using a phrase a thousand years, it would seem weird that the thousand years is not what? Not a thousand years, right? You would think if you're gonna use the phrase that many times, it would probably, you would begin to think that it's what? Literal, right? You would think, right? I mean, I could be wrong, right? And if it's not literal, do you see what the problem could be? And here's what the problem, what else happens in chapter 20? Forget the thousand years. What else happens in Revelation 20? Okay, Satan is bound. Now, they take that to be as it's happening now, but if it's happening now, like I said, I'm a millennialist, that's happening now, but if it's happening now, is it happening literally? If the thousand isn't literal, then is Satan binding literal? Is he literally bound or he's just like figuratively bound? That would be a problem. What else happens in chapter 20? Oh, there's a judgment. What happens in that judgment? Does it describe the judgment at 20? Oh, we have a resurrection. So then guess what the question would be? If the thousand years is not literal, Is the resurrection literal? See where we're going, right? See, is there gonna be a problem? Anything else at the end of, is that all, everything else in 20? It starts in 21. Oh, you get the Book of Life in 20, okay, good. There we go, we have the Great White Throne Judgment. So guess what happens? Five times a thousand years is mentioned. The Great White Throne is mentioned how many times? Just like once or twice, right? Correct? Okay, so if the thousand years is not literal, is the great white throne literal? Is there a literal judgment where people will be thrown in a literal hell? A literal lake of fire? You see what happens? Once you start taking away, well the thousand isn't literal, you're literally in the same, you can't have in one chapter where something is mentioned five times, that's not literal. Satan being bound. Well, I mean, he's not completely bound because, I mean, and then you start making all kinds of excuses that, well, I mean, that's now. I mean, he's still roaming about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, but he's bound. He just has a long leash or whatever the nonsense says. Okay, well, once you start toying with it, in the very same chapter, it describes the judgment. And guess what they will say? The judgment is literal. Well, you can't have literal, non-literal, literally in one chapter, or hermeneutically. Who gets then to determine which part is literal? The reader. Do you see how just utterly nonsensical that becomes? All right, so I just want to make sure you see that. Right. Is heaven literal? Is there a new Jerusalem? Like everything becomes very complicated, does it not? And so I understand Revelation's already complicated enough. It's already complicated enough. And there's things we'll never truly understand until the end. But I know this, I don't know how to process Well, when Christ comes back, well, he's not gonna literally come back on a literal horse. He's not gonna literally kill everyone. Well, okay, if that's not literal, you see where it just begins to all fall apart. Look, I obviously, I do understand there's very symbolic language used. I understand that. But as much as possible, we have to retain the literal as much as possible, or the book just becomes, It becomes Plato and you can just do whatever you want with it, and I don't think that's the case. So, back to the doctrinal characteristic. They believe all forms of premillennialism, understand the millennium follows the second coming of Christ, which we see, I think, Revelation 19 and 20 holds to that, if we believe it to be literal, its duration will be 1,000 years, We see that in Revelation chapter 20. Its location will be on this earth. Do you think you can show that in Revelation 20 that it's going to happen on this earth? Do you think you can? Okay, they come down from heaven. So they're coming to earth, right? Okay. The government will be a theocratic. It's going to be a theocratic government. with the personal presence of Christ reigning as king, and it will fulfill all the yet unfulfilled promises about the earthly kingdom. So when it comes to premillennialism, what they believe about the millennium is that it will happen, the millennium will follow the second coming of Christ, it will be 1,000 years, it will happen on earth, it will be a theocratic government ruled by Christ. And then here's the key part I want you to get. It will fulfill all the yet unfulfilled promises about the earthly kingdom. Now why is that critical? Because premillennialists look back to the Old Testament and do they see promises and prophecies? Yes. And they believe those promises and prophecies have to be fulfilled. Literally. And so if they have to be fulfilled literally, we can all agree they haven't yet been fulfilled. So then there's only one place to put it, right? I've got to have the thousand years to fulfill promises that haven't been fulfilled. And why do you go back and look at those promises saying they have to be literally fulfilled? Well, it's some basic concepts, right? When God promised to remove Israel from Egypt, did he remove them literally? Yes. When he said they were going to go into the promised land, was it literal land? Yes. When he promised that if they did this, they would be blessed with these blessings, and if they did this, they would get these curses, were those literal promises and literal curses? Yes. When he talked about Babylonian captivity, was it literal? Yes. When he talked about coming out of Babylonian captivity, was it literal? Yes. When he talked about that there would be a Messiah who would come and be born in Bethlehem of a virgin? Yes. So over and over and over, we say literal, literal, literal, literal. I remember what the Amillennialists said in our survey of Amillennialism, which was maddening. that you basically take it figurative until it happens. And if it happens literally, then you understand it to be literal. So the only way you know it's literal is when? after it happens, that's insane. That's insane, right? Well, how many times did things have to be literal before it kind of gives you an idea that I think that's probably the best way to understand it, right? I mean, all those promises about Christ happen, if they don't happen literally, it makes no sense. Was the resurrection literal? Yes. Was Christ born of a virgin literally? Yes. Was he the eternal son of God? I mean, everything we hold is literal. And when I got into arguments here on this church over this subject, that's the question I would bring. I would go back and look. So you're going to say, that's figurative. Is Genesis 1 literal? Well, yes. Is Genesis 2 literal? Yes. So you're telling me Genesis 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, all literal until we get to Abraham, and then God makes promises about a land for Israel, and that's no longer literal? That makes literally no sense. That literally makes no literal sense. It just, it all falls apart. So I think that's very important to understand how it's going to all work out. So for pre-millennialist, the kingdom is more about what? For pre-millennialist, what is the kingdom more about? The fulfillment of promises and prophecies in a Literal way, because look, everyone agrees that there's promises that were not fulfilled historically. Everyone agrees with that. What does the answer say from a non-millennial perspective? That they're being fulfilled in the church, spiritually. So everyone looks for a fulfillment. It's just how are they going to be fulfilled? I just think that that's maddening to try to do that. All right, does that make sense? Although premillennialists generally view the coming kingdom, literally, some interpret it less so. Now, I'm going to argue the minute you stop interpreting it literally, I don't know if you should call yourself a premillennialist, all right? But just so that you know, in every view, what happens? What happens in every system? There's always modifications, right? Someone's gonna come and add their little twist to it, and someone else will add their little twist to it. And sometimes, after a period of time, whatever it becomes can be a million miles away from what it was. That's why it's always hard. Theologically, it can be so... If you do any preaching or teaching or any podcasting, you find this all the time. You'll say, well, this system teaches this, and immediately someone will say, well, I'm a part of that system, and I don't believe that. And you're like, well, I can't pinpoint every variation, right? It's like, I can't cover every flavor in Baskin-Robbins, right? I can't do that, right? How many was there, 31? Or however many, I don't remember. But I can't. All you can do is just say, this is the basic view. but he's gonna offer at least a variation here. He quotes from George E. Ladd, the prophecies concerning Israel are spiritualized and the millennial kingdom is viewed more as an extension of the spiritual kingdom of God. That's not premillennialism to me. If you're going to say that the prophecies concerning Israel spiritualized, to me, that's going where? That's all millennialism. So I don't even, like, I don't even know what that is. I don't even know why that would even be, that would be crazy. For Robert Mounts, the thousand years of Revelation 20 are literal, but the coming kingdom is not. The messianic age foretold by the prophets of the Old Testament. So there's people trying to make these little distinctions. And I understand you try to make distinctions. Typically, why do you think that it always happens that people try to make some of these distinctions? Typically because you're studying and you come to something and you're like, I don't really fit there. If I make a little twist here, a little change there, and sometimes you're trying to put the puzzle pieces together, right? Now, sometimes you put the puzzle piece together and you're like, oh, look, look at the puzzle. And it looks good. The only problem is sometimes to get the puzzle to come together, you have to kind of contradict your entire hermeneutic. So what I argue is I don't care what the completed picture looks like. Right? Now this drives people crazy about me. I don't care what the completed picture looks like. And I don't care if the completed picture fits your team, my team, your tribe, my tribe. What I care about is not the completed picture. What I care about is a consistent hermeneutic. Does that make sense? A consistent hermeneutic is more important. And I think sometimes a consistent hermeneutic leaves you where? A lot of questions and you may not have a completed puzzle. And your puzzle may do what? Get you kicked out of every team. And I don't care. I think a consistent hermeneutic is more important than pleasing your team. I am convinced of that. Forget the team nonsense. I get so sick of that. And people, and look, I know, look, I mean, look around. I mean, obviously my perspective is, from a human perspective, my perspective is stupid, it is foolish, it's moronic, and don't ever do it if you wanna have a successful church. But I believe that if we all worried more about our hermeneutic, and we should be able to embrace that maybe things are not as simple as we want them to be, right? That it's not that simple. But people don't like that. They want a simple answer and they want it to agree. Like, a lordship and everything you say better agree with lordship. Well, maybe lordship is not as easy to maintain if we maintain a hermeneutic that tries to understand the gospel as what? Salvation by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. Maybe it doesn't work. Even from a reformed theological perspective, when you get to a consistent hermeneutic about the sovereignty of God, you run into some difficulties, do you not? Yes, you do. But nobody wants to embrace the uncomfortableness. They want it simple. They want it nice. They want it easy. And one of the major complaints I've had throughout my time here is, I don't even know what it means. I just want to hear the gospel. I don't know what that means, right? Because they can never articulate to me what that means. So when I ask, I don't get an answer. But I know, I think I've been able to figure it out. You know what they want? A nice, simple sermon. A nice, simple Sunday school lesson that contains what? Three points. Is it gonna make you leave questioning anything? No. You want it nice? You want it to sound super spiritual? Encouraging? You want it to feel like what they call church? Right? Well, that's great. There's plenty of that. The only problem is, if I'm being honest, they should just go burn their Bibles in the parking lot. Because they don't really care. Because if they really cared about it, you know what you would find when you start figuring this out? It sometimes makes literally no sense. It sometimes makes literally, like, you can tell everyone, hey, everyone, God is sovereign. He controls everything. So all things are gonna work to good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. And everybody's like, oh, pastor, that was so encouraging. Thank you, it was so nice. And everybody's happy, and they get to run off to Golden Corral and have a buffet, and everybody thinks church was wonderful. But guess what they don't want? Someone behind the pulpit to go, That's a problem, because you're telling the woman who's being raped that, hey, God sovereignly has decided that you're going to be raped for the next two years. Nobody wants to hear that. Well, isn't that the inevitable conclusion of that idea? But see, you're not supposed to do that in church. Just give me the nice little sermon. That's all I want. Well, I get so sick of that. Because if you really want to get into scripture and theology, don't you have to inevitably be confronted with some very unpleasant things? Some very unpleasant things. Things that make no sense to me. Right? No sense to me. How in the world am I reading a book about supposedly romantic love by Solomon, who I don't even know which woman he's writing his romantic love letter to. Is it one, two, three, four, 60, 100? Which woman is it? Oh, it's a beautiful picture of romantic love. Yeah, for a man who has 1,000 women. Oh, shh, you're not supposed to say that. Hey, hey, let's read the wisdom of Solomon because he's a great man who was a serial polygamist, adulterer, and an idolater. What a great, nobody wants to raise that question, right? Because that makes everyone uncomfortable. Well, I think that when, for us, when we're trying to figure it all out, the thing is, is to, all we can do is try to figure out what is a consistent hermeneutic. And a consistent hermeneutic will sometimes lead you to ask what? Very uncomfortable questions. Very uncomfortable questions. And I don't, do we always have answers? I don't have answers to 90% of it. Alright? So, that kind of trying to modify it, I understand why people try to modify it. Just remember, This is the key. Don't modify your system to try to make it feel all nice and comfortable. What you need to be worried about is a consistent hermeneutic. And if that leads you to a, like your puzzle is broken, you know what you should do? Embrace the broken puzzle. And they say, well, wait a minute. Are you this or are you that? Say, I don't have to answer that question because I'm trying to be consistent in my, And sometimes that leads you where? I don't know where. It leads me with a lot of uncomfortable situations. And people don't, they want you to pick a team. And it's so ridiculous. I can't stand that. All right, so. Okay, good. So we've looked at the doctrinal characteristics of the Bible and the concerning the millennium. The basic parts of the millennium was as a pre-millennialist, the millennium follows the second coming, its duration will be a thousand years, it's located on earth, its government will be theocratic, and Christ will reign as king, and it will fill all the unfulfilled promises about the earthly kingdom. and there are those who try to modify it, and then that's why we discussed all of the modifications about a consistent hermeneutic, all right? Now, the covenants. Let's go to the next thing. Premillennialists, what do they believe about the covenants? Premillennialists understand that the promises of the Abrahamic covenant given to Abraham's descendants, giving to Abraham's descendants the land from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates has never been fulfilled. So according to premillennialists, the land promises have never been fulfilled. Now remember, this is very important for you to understand, right? My perspective is this, I'm not going to say that the land promises were never fulfilled or not fulfilled because people will argue that and then we'll run to Joshua and try to argue that they have been. My issue is that whatever land promises have been fulfilled, I know this, any land related to new covenant promises haven't been fulfilled. Does that make sense? Why? Because while I know I can figure out when the new covenant was made and clearly those land promises never happened coming out of Babylon or any other time. It says the promises of the Davidic covenant also necessitates the establishment of the millennial kingdom for their fulfillment. So this is a key passage and we're gonna stop right here, all right? When it comes to the covenant, premillennialists says land is a part of that covenant and it's never been fulfilled. My argument is, even if you say the Abrahamic covenant land promises were fulfilled, clearly the new covenant's land promises were not fulfilled. Everybody got that? Now, but they said the Davidic covenant really necessitates the establishment of a millennium. Go to 2 Samuel chapter seven, 2 Samuel chapter seven, Tell me when you're there. Seven. I'll have you guys figure this out. 2 Samuel 7. Look at verses 12 through 16 and tell me what you find. 2 Samuel 7, 12 through 16. Tell me what you find. 2 Samuel 7, 12-16. You tell me what you discover. He's going to establish a kingdom. He's going to build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father, he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod. Have mercy, I'll put it apart, and thine house and thy kingdom shall be established forever, and thy throne shall be established forever. Now, according to premillennialists, they believe the millennial kingdom has to be literal for that to occur. Now, all millennialists would say it doesn't. That that could be fulfilled what way? Spiritually. They, Ryrie is saying that Second Samuel requires a millennial kingdom for it to be fulfilled. Now you can debate that all day. Now, probably the argument would be, if we were trying to look at this from a hermeneutical, textual argument, it would probably be that that promise being given, anybody who understood that would have understood that that kingdom would be what kind of a kingdom? A literal kingdom. Now, some would argue, well, wait a minute, 1,000 years doesn't mean forever, so then, so you can see where it could go back and forth, right? So you're gonna have some difficulties. I don't know if that would really. proves anything, but okay, all right. So, main thing to understand for a premillennialist, the covenants, the covenant has land attached to it, and that land promise has never been fulfilled, and even if it was fulfilled, we believe that that land promises show up again in passages related to the new covenant, and we know those haven't been fulfilled. That's the best way I can, that's the way I always try to get around it. Because if you don't, you inevitably end up in the book of Joshua and everyone's like, see, they fulfilled it. Now they're like, no, they didn't. Yes, they did. Well, no, they have to go from which river to which river? The river of Egypt to the river Euphrates. They have to go from the, they have to have all the land between the, and the river of Egypt, I'm assuming is which river? The Nile, all the way to the Euphrates. Now we looked at, when we were doing Bible geography, we talked about this a little bit. If you try to look at all the land that goes between that, it doesn't appear that that was even fulfilled in Joshua. Some try to argue that it was, but my thing is, even if it was, I know this, the new covenant seems to pick up those same land promises. Meaning that then Israel, after that promise of the New Covenant, that would be coming out of Babylonian captivity, would have to possess that land. When they came out of Babylonian captivity, they never possessed that land. Ever! ever, and they clearly did when Jesus was on earth, and they clearly don't now. They're not even anywhere close, right? They're nowhere close to the Nile, to the Euphrates now. I mean, they don't even own the land between the Gymnad Creek to Abilene. I mean, come on, their land mass is so small, it's not even funny. So that's, you know, there we go. So I think if you ever want to get into a debate on this, in fact, we need to work on this. We can't do it now because we're out of time. What we need to do is we need to better establish In Ezekiel, we need to find all, this is kind of the assignment we'll have to work on later. We need to find all of the verses that deal with the new covenant in the Old Testament. Right? The New Covenant. And then, because we know that's gonna be Ezekiel and Jeremiah. I think those are the two main. I don't think Isaiah. I think it's just Ezekiel and Jeremiah. And we gotta look carefully, because sometimes in my mind it may be more clear than I think that it is, but we need to go back and find the verses that mention the New Covenant and then mention what? Land. Land, right? Land. And we could go Ezekiel and look at the whole thing about Jerusalem, because that whole measurement of Jerusalem and the temple, nothing seems to have ever fit that literally. So that's why everyone takes that eight chapters of describing the temple and Ezekiel to be spiritual. But that's a lot of chapters describing a spiritual, like, I don't even know what you do with that. But we need to get all of the promises about land that's attached to the New Covenant. Because if we can find that, then to me the argument is mute, like there's no argument. Because we can clearly say that land to the New Covenant has never occurred. And we could make an argument, if the land is associated with the New Covenant, then the New Covenant has never truly been put into effect for Israel. So then we're just kind of associated with it, but it's never really come into effect yet, right? And so that raises all kinds of questions. But that land, I think we can fix the land thing once and for all. So we'll need to work on that. Maybe tonight if we can, we'll try to do that. So we'll have to stop right there. The next big issue is concerning the church. and premillennialists have very specific views about the church that differ from amillennialists. Just to end with a question, what is the big difference between amillennialists and premillennialists when it concerns the church? The church is not Israel in the premillennial view. That's the biggest thing. The church is not Israel. Where amillennialists believe the church is Israel. It's always been spiritual Israel in a sense. So yeah, that's a major issue right there. That's a major issue. But that land thing I think we can fix. So we've looked at a definition. We've looked at three doctrinal characteristics of premillennialism, the Bible, the millennium, and covenants. And we have to do some work on land. All right, let's stop it there. Let's pray. Lord God, we come before you this morning. Thank you so very much for an opportunity to challenge and question and try to figure things out. Forgive us for the errors we have made in our past, and may we commit less errors in the future. And we ask this in Jesus' name. God's people said.