All right, tonight our goal is to finish our survey of premillennialism. And then over the next couple of weeks, we'll do a little on specific elements of it. But right now, we're trying to finish our survey on premillennialism. And we looked this morning at a definition of premillennialism, basic elements to the definition. You don't have to have it word for word, basic elements. It's a view that holds that the second coming of Christ will occur prior to the millennium. We'll see the establishment of Christ's kingdom on earth for a literal thousand years, a literal reign, literal earth. It understands that there will be several occasions where resurrections and judgments take place. So, in other words, more than one resurrection, more than one judgment. Eternity will begin after the thousand years, and within the premillennialism view, there are those who hold differing views to the timing of the rapture, but they all believe in a rapture. The doctrinal characteristics of premillennialism, number one was the Bible, high view of scripture, And within premillennialism, the belief in the inerrancy of the Bible, almost without exception, and really holds to everything as being very literal and factual, okay? Not myth, all right? Concerning the millennium, all forms of premillennialism, understand that the millennium follows the second coming of Christ. Its duration will be 1,000 years. Its location will be on the earth its government will be theocratic and with the personal presence of Christ reigning as king and it will fulfill the yet unfulfilled promises about the earthly kingdom. That's very, very important. We talked about that there were, he mentioned some who kind of move away from some literal aspects to it, but we almost just throw that out. That's not a true premillennial view. All right. So we kind of just separated that. Then we started talking about the covenants. Premillennialists understand that the promise of the Abrahamic covenant given to Abraham's descendants, the land from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates, and that it has never been fulfilled, but will be fulfilled in the coming millennial kingdom. All right? Now, the main thing I want to... I almost want to do that now. Maybe we'll come back to it. We definitely need to look for the Old Testament passages that speak of the New Covenant and find the land references. I know we've done that probably two, three times, but over and over and over, that's key. And the reason it's key is because this sets up the never-ending argument. Amillennialists will say, the land promise was fulfilled when they came into the promised land in the Book of Joshua. Others will say, it was not fulfilled. So then everyone tries to figure out how much land do they have? Do they have all the land? And then they'll try to interpret certain scriptures. And to me, that's such a meaningless argument because all I need to do is if I have promises of the new cabinet that mention land, well then, ladies and gentlemen, we know those promises were what? never fulfilled because coming out of Babylon, they never obtained it, and the promises for the house of Judah and the house of Israel. So then we can just say those land promises have never been fulfilled. Does that make sense? There's no point in arguing about what happened in Joshua if there's future land promises that, speaking of the same land, but they don't have it. They haven't had it since Joshua, even if they did have it in Joshua. We know they didn't conquer everything. Remember, they get in trouble. They left these people here, and left these people here, and left these people here. So, we know that there were some issues there. So, that was the main part of the covenant issues. Now, that's where we stopped. That's where we stopped. So, like I said, I want to go look those up, but we'll circle back to them at some point. Next is concerning the church. Concerning the church. These are all the doctrinal characteristics of premillennialism. When it comes to premillennialism, this is very important, dispensational premillennialists consistently distinguish the church from Israel. The church from Israel, they are distinct, they are distinguished, they are different. And he goes on to say, because the church does not fulfill the yet unfulfilled promises made to Israel. So within dispensational premillennialism, the church and Israel are separated. And why are they separated? Because the promises given to Israel cannot and will not be fulfilled by whom? The church, they will not, cannot be fulfilled by the church. So therefore, because they're different. Now, how do others try to find them being fulfilled in some way? Because they say the church in Israel, basically the same, right? The church basically is Israel, the Israel's the church. And so then they can take those promises and say it's being fulfilled right here. But if you distinguish them, then they cannot be fulfilled. So we can state it this way. The church cannot, nor will it ever fulfill the promises given to Israel. The church cannot and will not ever be fulfilling the promises given to Israel. The promises given to Israel have to be fulfilled by Israel, to Israel, in Israel. Not to the church. Promises to the church cannot be fulfilled in whom? In Israel. Alright? Everyone understand why that distinction is so important, alright? And so I'll read that again. The church does not fulfill the yet unfulfilled promises made to Israel. There must be a time when they will be fulfilled. And premillennial dispensationalists will say, there must be a time when they are fulfilled and they must be fulfilled literally. Now he doesn't have that in the book, but that's a key point. And the time for them to be fulfilled is called what? in the Millennium. So, the Millennium is primarily designed for what purpose? To fulfill the promises made to Israel. The Millennium's purpose is to fulfill promises made to Israel. So when you go to the Old Testament, you're like, man, none of this is ever gonna be fulfilled. We say it has to be a future time, and if you look to the Bible for a future time, where do you put it? Well, for some weird reason, Revelation, in what, 15 verses, said five times, I think that was the number y'all gave me, a thousand years. Well, you could ask what, I mean, I think it's smart for any person to kind of say, Dad, what's the point of the thousand years? It seems kind of pointless, right? A thousand years, he binds Satan for a thousand years, and then Satan is released? What, that seems nonsensical, does it not? Like, just get rid of Satan. But no, Satan is bound, a thousand years, end of the thousand years, Satan is released to then get to the final conclusion. That means that that thousand years is not the end. Does that make sense? So I think that that kind of answers then where that happens. The extent to which a theological system consistently distinguishes Israel and the church will reveal its position on eschatology. If you want to know a theological position, if you really want to understand it, and sometimes what distinguishes theological system is really how much of a distinction they make between Israel and the church. So to the extent to which a theological system consistently distinguishes Israel and the church will reveal its understanding or its position on eschatology. Does that make sense? So if you're like, you don't even have to ask any other questions. You just have to go, so do you believe the church and Israel are? distinct, separate, or do you believe that they're one? And once they start articulating it, you'll immediately, it's almost like beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. You'll know exactly what they are. You should be able, you don't even need any other questions. Yeah, you all immediately know. So, for example, they have kind of a small chart here, right? On one side they have Old Testament, then they have New Testament, and then they have Millennium. Old Testament, New Testament, Millennium. Those are the three little sections they have. Underneath it, the first one, Old Testament. Israel equals the church. New Testament, Israel equals the church. And then the millennium, no millennium. So this position would be Israel equals the church in the Old Testament, Israel equals the church in the New Testament, and there is no millennium. That's amillennialism, exactly. So for amillennialism, what is it? And the Old Testament? Israel equals the Church. New Testament? Israel equals the Church. Therefore, no millennium because you don't really need it. Now, to be fair, saying there's no millennium, when anyone says that amillennialists don't believe in a millennium, we're... Yeah, just make sure we understand. They don't believe in a literal thousand-year millennium. They believe we're in the millennium. But it's not the millennium like we would understand it. So that's why we would say no millennium. Does that make sense? So amillennialism, Israel equals the church in the Old Testament. Israel equals the church in the New. And then no literal millennial kingdom for 1,000 years. I think that's the more accurate way to present that. And that would equal amillennialism. This one. You ready? Now this one's gonna get a little confusing, all right? And maybe we can try to draw some distinction here, but okay, all right? Israel equals the church and the Old Testament. Israel equals the church and the New Testament. And Israel, now they have kind of the equal sign, but kind of a line drawn through it this way, right? Equal with a line drawn through it this way. Okay, so it doesn't equal, all right? Israel equals the church, Israel equals the church, Old New Testament. Millennium, Israel doesn't equal the church, that is covenant premillennialism. Covenant premillennialism. All right? Does that make sense? So in covenant premillennialism, Israel equals the church in where? Old Testament? Israel equals the church in the New Testament, but in the millennium? Israel does not equal the church in the millennium. That's covenant premillennialism. Okay. All right. Now, dispensational premillennialism. I'm just going to give this one away. Israel doesn't equal the church in the Old Testament. Israel doesn't equal the church in the New Testament. And in the millennium, Israel doesn't equal the church. Israel and the church never are the same, old, new, or millennium. That is dispensational premillennialism. Dispensational. Go ahead. I believe so. All right. Does everybody got that? So from a dispensational premillennial view, what's the key? All the way across the board, Israel and the church will never equal. They will never be the same. They will always be separate. Now, I guess you could argue, when could they then somehow be one? I guess if you wanted to make this argument. In glory, the only problem there, where would be the problem with that? On one hand, it would make some sense. But remember, we dealt with this problem with some of the Old Testament prophecies. They talk about Israel having the land forever. So you're like, well, wait a minute. A thousand years doesn't give them a whole forever. But on a new heaven and new earth, does Israel get the land? Do they still have the land? Are they still recognized as Israel, as distinct from everyone else? I don't know. That's where the debate comes. Others say 1,000 years is where it's fulfilled, but it's that forever. I remember we had that long discussion here about forever, and a lot of people didn't seem to think forever meant forever. But for some weird reason, that's, I don't know. I don't have a good answer for that one. I don't have a good answer for that. But within dispensation, all of these systems deal with basically the church here on earth in the millennium. So again, amillennialism, Israel equals the church, Israel equals the church in Old and New Testament, and in the millennium, no millennium, and that equals amillennialism. And they don't even mention, of course, Israel and the church at that point, They don't really recognize a millennium, or a literal one. Then covenant premillennialism, Israel equals the church in the old, Israel equals the church in the new, but they do not equal one another in the millennium. In the dispensational premillennialism, Israel doesn't equal the church, Israel doesn't equal the church, Israel doesn't equal the church. We got that? All right, very important to kind of distinguish that. Let's go to the hermeneutics of premillennialism. Let's go to the, yeah, this is, oh, okay. This is the shortest. Yeah, I was looking, oh, wait a minute. In amillennialism, remember they had like six or seven points in there. This is very simple. It's one sentence. Are you ready? It's the hermeneutic of premillennialism. Premillennialists employ a literal or normal hermeneutic. And this of course gives their picture of future events. The end. Literal, normal. Now what are the key things about literal and normal? What are some of the dangers of saying literal and normal and what are the correct way to understand it? Some people when they hear literal and normal, they think that then we are unable to do what? Hey, you hold that literal view. No, that we cannot recognize figures of speech. We cannot recognize those types of things. Or they'll try to say, because we understand when Jesus says he's a door, he's not a door. Well, see, you're not holding the literal view. That's a wrong understanding of the literal view. The literal view is you understand it being literal unless what? unless the text is clearly utilizing certain different methods found within literature, right? If they're using certain literary devices, for example, if I'm reading the book of Psalms and it says something like, you know, I make my bed a river of tears, we know that's what? Poetic license. We know that that's not a literal understanding. There is a literal aspect to it. What is the literal aspect to that? There's a crying all the time, right? There's a literal aspect. Does that make sense? Right? So literal would still look for the literal understanding, but we would recognize within that literal. If Jesus says he's the shepherd, right, well, then he's serving as and the role of a shepherd. Not that he's a literal shepherd in the way of like a, you know, he's walking around like an actual shepherd, but he serves in the same capacity as a door. He's not a literal door, but he serves in the same capacity. You have to go through the door to get to where you're going, right? Yeah, right. We're not literal sheep. Right, exactly. So within the literal, there's plenty of room for figures of speech, poetry, and other genres of literature, and understanding those things. So just make sure when we understand that. And so they say literal or normal. Now, normal is sometimes the better way to put it, because literal kind of locks you in, where normal makes more sense. So when we say normal, what do we mean? The normal understanding of the text based on how it is written. You look for the normal clues, and you're like, OK, this is poetry. So what does it immediately do I do? I got to understand this, that this could use a lot of different methods. This is a lament. This is apocalyptic. This is whatever the case may be. Clearly, if it says, like unto, it's like, you see this in, this is where sometimes the dispensational premillennialists who sit in the pew, they don't understand the nuances in a literal or normative hermeneutic. Because many times in Revelation, it will say like unto something. If it says like unto, what does that mean? It's like it, it doesn't mean it's exactly it. If it says Jesus sweat like drops of blood, does that mean he's literally sweating drops of blood? No, it's like unto, anything that says it's like unto this, or like this, then now that's using a literary device. It's trying to take something and picture it in a way that you can grasp the severity of it, the pain of it. the intensity of it, or whatever. And for some weird reason, some people who hold to a very literal, like, that's literal, that's literal. And another thing that can drive me crazy is people who hold to a very literal or normative view, they get to the book of Revelation, and almost without fail, what do they start doing? They will immediately start taking these things and start making them into something else. For example, oh, that's got like a tail of a scorpion. That's a helicopter. Or that's a nuclear missile. Or that, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no, no, no, no. You can't start doing that, because now you're trying to find literal fulfillment for what may be symbolic language. Now, that symbolic language is pointing to something, and sometimes all it may be pointing out is what? It's gonna be frightening and it's gonna cause great pain, right? You've gotta be very careful what you do with it, or you just have to believe it's what? It's the very thing that's being described, unless it says, Like unto. If it says like unto, then OK. But sometimes people will run in, and this is where both sides, the non-literal or normative view and those who hold to the literal normative view, there's always great inconsistency in handling the text of scripture. So the key hermeneutical steps one must always take is to identify what? What's the first thing you have to identify when you're reading the Bible? The literary genre. You have to identify the literary genre. You have to. All right? Not only do you have to identify the literary genre, you look for textual clues, like where it says, like unto. That immediately tells you, wait a minute. Next, you just have to read it and then ask yourself, well, wait a minute here. What is the speaker doing? What is the person speaking in the text doing? Are they giving us a? parable type language? Are they giving us an illustration type language? Then you gotta be able to handle that. Does that make sense? But the normal way to approach it is this, that we should approach the Bible understanding things in a literal or normal way unless something in the text demands otherwise or if taking it that way may lead you into absurdity. If it leads you to absurdity, then what's a good thing? Probably a good rule of thumb. Stop and go back and go, hmm. Maybe that doesn't work. And then question and try to figure out what you should do, all right? Does that make sense about the literal or normative view? All right. Literal or normative. So for example, if we're reading the Old Testament prophecies and it mentions the house of Israel and the house of Judah, Literal normative would say what? House of Israel, house of Judah. And what's weird is, at least historically in this church, we've always gone that our hermeneutic was the historical grammatical hermeneutic. And we've established that for 23 years. And yet, for some weird reason, when we got to some of these issues, all of a sudden, That was the wrong hermeneutic. And I'm like, that's the hermeneutic literally in our confession of faith. Why is there disagreement? Like what happened? That's our hermeneutic. But all of a sudden Israel didn't mean Israel and Judah didn't mean Judah. And I was like, I don't understand what just happened. When did we change our hermeneutic in this church? When? I don't know when. We've never even struggled with the hermeneutic. We've never even debated it. But all of a sudden, and you know what that tells me? You're more committed to a theological system and not a hermeneutic. I think this is most important when I come to this point. And I think this has to be If you don't get anything from this entire series on eschatology, this is what you must get. You must be more committed to a hermeneutical system than you are a theological system. You must be more committed to a hermeneutical system than you are to a doctrinal belief. And if you can't get over your doctrine, at the expense of your hermeneutic, you shouldn't even be reading the Bible. You should just be done. Because at that point, all you're doing is reading books and going, well, then, that's the way it is because MacArthur said so. I don't care what MacArthur said. I don't care. I don't care. So if you're going to throw MacArthur in my face or anybody else in my face, I don't care. The issue is, what is your hermeneutic? You told me your hermeneutic was historical grammatical. But all of a sudden, you abandon the entire hermeneutical system because you don't want a premillennial view, you want an amillennial view? Well then, I'm done, I'm done. There's just no point in having a conversation. Because I'm not going to do what? Change my hermeneutic. I'm not going to change my hermeneutic. And that's when you just get discouraged. You're like, we can't even agree on the hermeneutic system anymore. I don't even know what to do anymore. Then you're just like, I retire. Because what do you do? It's like you have to agree on a hermeneutic. You have to. And so all of a sudden, hey, here's our hermeneutical system. But when the Bible says all Israel will be saved, magically, guess what happens? It's not Israel. I'm like, OK. And then you can beg and plead someone to show the hermeneutical system, and then they don't feel that they have any obligation to establish which hermeneutic they're using. They just have the ability to tell you you're wrong based on whatever, just because they want to tell you you're wrong. And it's like, how do you? You can't have a conversation. There's no debating. It's like, what is the hermeneutic that we're using? What is it? Well, it's the historical grammatical. Well, you're violating it. You're violating it because we would be looking at it from that perspective. Does that make sense? So whatever the hermeneutic is, then what are you stuck with? If whatever your hermeneutical system is, you are stuck with it for what? Forever, unless you do what? Change your hermeneutical system. And the minute you change your hermeneutical system, then you have to then redo your theology to be what? consistent with that hermeneutical system. And you can't have a hermeneutical system that tells me, well, that part of Isaiah is literal, that part's not literal, that part's literal, that part's not literal, and guess who gets to determine it? I do. Well, you know what your hermeneutical system is? You think you're God. Well, then I can't argue with that hermeneutical system, right? The hermeneutic, why is a hermeneutical system so important? It tries to control you. Does that make sense? Without a hermeneutical system, who's in charge? You are. But if there's a hermeneutical system, the minute you violate it, what is it supposed to do? It's supposed to slap you upside the head going, what are you doing? You can't go there. You can't go there. You can't go there, right? Remember, that's what happened to me. Oh, we're just going to do a nice little sermon on covenant theology. This will be good. We were reading Jeremiah 31, and I'm like, oh, wait a minute. A covenant's made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Wait, what am I doing here? What am I doing here? And then immediately I realized I was violating what? My hermeneutic. Now, it took me a long time to see that. It took me a long time to see that. So it can take someone a long time. But the key is, once a debate begins, then everyone has to go to their, what corner should they go to? Their hermeneutical corner, not their theological corner. So typically what happens, if say me and Sarah's having an argument, you will retreat to your theological corner, I will retreat to my theological corner, and then we just throw out our theologies. Well, we're not gonna get anywhere, and you know the reason we can't get anywhere is because what we're not recognizing is we actually are coming at it from two different hermeneutical approaches. If we can agree on the, if we can either, what Sarah says, this is my hermeneutic, and I'm like, well, this is my hermeneutic, then what can we do? Just shake hands and go walk away, because there's no point in having a conversation. If my hermeneutic is different than your hermeneutic, can we come to the same conclusion? No. No. So then there's no point. OK. Well, good. See you. All right. Bye. Now, if we can come to an agreement on hermeneutics, what are the chances we may be able to come to an agreement? Okay, probably about 50% maybe, I mean just maybe, I mean possibly. There should be a greater chance to move to some level. And that's, oh, that's the frustrating part. So, premillennialists employ a literal or normal hermeneutic. A literal or normal hermeneutic. Everybody got that? All right, the history of premillennialism. The history of premillennialism. We're going to look at three periods of time. The first is the ancient period. In the earliest centuries of the church, a general premillennial scheme was widely held, though chronological details were not always clear. They're arguing that in the ancient church, there was a general premillennial view. It would not have been as defined and as detailed as a dispensational premillennial view or even a modern day premillennial view. It would have been very general with some very basic concepts, right? Maybe Christ ruling and reigning, maybe a literal kingdom, maybe a literal thousand years, maybe have had some basic elements. Descriptions of the Millennium are literalistic. The future reign of Christ in Jerusalem is a prominent theme, and that reign will follow the return of Christ. Those were the basic elements. The Millennium was viewed as being literalistic, may not been as literal, maybe as a dispensational premillennialist would have it, but it would have more literal characteristics. The future reign of Christ in Jerusalem is a prominent theme, and that reign will follow the return of Christ. Church historian Philip Schaff summarized as follows, the most striking point in the eschatology is the millennial concept, is this millennialism there. That is the belief of a visible reign of Christ and glory on earth with the risen saints for a thousand years before the general resurrection and judgment. So at least that basic element was there. Christ reigning, thousand years, then the general resurrection and judgment. That was a basic concept. Let me make this very clear, this is very important. It's not going to necessarily look or sound like the premillennialism of today, and probably in some cases reading it you would be a little bit like, Is that what they're saying? I think that's what they're saying. It may be a little bit more difficult to comprehend because the language may be a little different. Does that make sense? There may be elements that seem very literal and there may be elements that seem very spiritual. It may be a mixed bag. Does that make sense? Yes? Okay. All right, because I know I'm going to get all kinds of arguments on that, but all right. It was indeed not the doctrine of the church embodied in any creed or form of devotion, but widely current opinion of distinguished teachers. Now, this is where people are going to get into lots of argument. That comes from Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church. I think we have Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church in the library. So let's make sure this is understood. This is where debates will rage. In the creed, or the creeds, plural, the apostles and Nicene, you would not have any clear premillennial view in those creeds. Can we acknowledge that? Christ will come to judge. the living and the dead, right? There's nothing that's going to articulate that. So if someone said, well, it wasn't in the earliest creeds, you would have to acknowledge that. And to argue against that would be foolish. You have to acknowledge that. Now, but at the same time, you have to, those people who make that argument would have to acknowledge the creeds are not outlining every element of every theological issue, right? There's no real eschatology outlined, right? There's just basic elements. I mean, we would say that the Apostles' Creed is Trinitarian, but it doesn't outline or define the Trinity, right? It's Trinitarian because it has the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, but it doesn't say one, co-equal, co-eternal, nothing like that. So there's plenty of elements in the Creed that doesn't outline every detail. But it does seem to at least outline this detail. Christ will return and it seems to be speaking of a physical, literal return. That much seems to be true. Correct? Doesn't seem to be speaking of a spiritual one. Agreed? And that's very important. Why is it important that the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed Both speak of Christ returning. What is the significance of that being in the Apostles and the Nicene Creed? What is the major significance of that being there? See if anybody can get this right. Sarah should get this right. Do I? Well, there's another very important reason. There's a certain system of eschatology that starts with a P. Preterism. Your mom was familiar with this, right? Because of R.C. Sproul's book, right? Yeah, OK. She was very familiar with this, right? Well, preterist in many, especially in the extreme forms of preterism, says Christ returned when? 70 AD. Both of the creeds were written after 70 AD. meaning that the creedal statements did not see 70 AD as a fulfillment of Christ's return. All right? That is why that's significant. Now, to argue that they're not pre-millennial, or they are, is missing the point. They're both seemingly to call for a literal return. So that's at least immediately going with a literal understanding of at least a part of it, right? Well, if that part is literal, then what would be the logical progression of thought? Everything else would have to be literal, yes? OK, that's how you kind of get there. Now, his argument is it may not have been in the creeds, but some kind of a millennial, premillennial view would have been dominant at least to certain element in the ancient church. That's what we think is around 90, right. Right, exactly. Right, now some people say Revelation was just describing everything that happened in 70 AD in a symbolic and spiritual way. But then, why is it being written after the fact? I know it kind of gets into all kinds of arguments there. Next, the medieval and reformation period. In the medieval period, most doctrines, including eschatology, were eclipsed by the darkness of those centuries. As we have seen, the Reformers were generally all millennialist in their eschatology, although Anabaptists were typically millennialist to some level. So the main thing to kind of realize, during the Medieval and Reformation period, I think this is very important. During the Medieval and Reformation period, this is the most important thing to write about that time. There was very little discussion about what? Eschatology. That was not the prominent discussion. What was the prominent discussion? No, that's more justification. The Reformation, justification by grace alone through faith alone because Christ alone, right? That was the issue, right? And drawing distinctions between their theology and the theology of whom? The Roman Catholic Church. I mean, it's the Reformation, right? It's the Reformation. So that was the issue. And what was not of prominent concern Differences in eschatology. In fact, in many cases, the reformers kind of would have followed a more Catholic eschatology. They kind of would have followed the amillennialism of it. Does that make sense? And Israel's gone. Very good point. Israel's gone, so nobody's giving it much thought. And philological work would have been dealing with some of these other issues. Does that make sense? Then it falls into basically full-blown amillennialism. Whatever the early church had, whatever premillennials you see, there's no question it gives way to full-blown amillennialism almost all the way through. I mean, I think it would be insane to say otherwise. Some form of an amillennial view dominated. There's just no way to get around it. And the early church would have been closer connected to whom? Jewish influence, right? The Jews. After Israel's basically wiped off the face of the earth, the Jewish influence, the church becomes predominantly what? Gentile. Now, this is very important from a historical perspective. The early church was made up of, at the first, was made up primarily of whom? Jews and the Jewish influence was still, I mean, that was a constant struggle. That's why the first council was like, what do we do with the Gentiles, right? It was primarily Jewish with the Gentile influence continuing to grow. But that Gentile influence was being still being confronted with what? Judaism. And that's why you had these Judaizers and different forms of Judaism trying to come into the church. We talked about that this morning in Colossae, right? Okay, so, but as you move forward, what becomes more and more prominent? A Gentile church. A Gentile church. Now, as you move further and further away from Judaism, then what's going to become more and more likely to get thrown out? You're not, are you gonna be as worried about promises to Israel? No, because you're gonna look around your congregation, is there any Israelite? No, all right, so then you're not gonna be thinking about, hey guys, we need those, look, what promises do you care most about? The promises to you, you don't care about promises to some nation that doesn't even exist. Hey, when there's promises to Israel in here, well, do you see an Israel? Okay, no, all right. Well, then they're mine, okay? They're mine, right? It's kind of like, hey, I found this $10. Who does it belong to? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Well, guess what? It's now mine, right? I think that that's fair. I think that's fair. So during the Reformation, now just remember the Anabaptists Some of them went cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs and tried to take over a city in Germany and tried to claim that the Messiah had come. They were trying to set up the premillennial kingdom in Germany. And then they finally, the Lutherans and the Catholics, had to work together to recapture the city. And then they took the Anabaptist leaders and put them in cages. And they're still there in the city. You can still see the cages. They put them up there to starve them to death and die because they wanted to tell everyone what? Stop your nonsense. But that's where you can start getting some bad views on premillennialism, when you have premillennialists losing their minds. Now, you could argue, was that true premillennialism? I understand. And this is a very important theological truth. This is very important. Are you ready for this? How someone abuses or misuses a theology can never be used to argue against a theology. How one may misuse or abuse a theology can never be used as an argument against a theology. That is just a logically inconsistent, logically fallacy, a fallacy, okay? Does everybody understand that? You claim to be a Christian. You can misuse and abuse your Christianity. Does that make an argument against Christianity? No, what should that be an argument against? abusing it and misusing it, not against Christianity itself. Now, if it's a true teaching of Christianity, then you can make an argument against Christianity, right? And Christians, oh, sometimes it drives me crazy with Christians. If a Muslim does something, immediately it's the fault of Islam. If a Christian does something, it's the fault of that person. That's not the way the game is played. Or, for Christians, what do we do? Well, that person was not a Christian. We can just throw anyone out of Christianity that makes us look bad. Well, then why can't Muslims do that? Why can't Satanists do that? Why can't any other religion do that? Only Christians have the ability to say, well, if anyone does something bad who claims to be a Christian, they're not a Christian. See, so we're perfect. That is such nonsense. So don't ever fall into that trap. Because sometimes people get into church history and go, well, look what happened in Geneva. See what Calvin did? Calvinism is bad. Well, first of all, it wasn't Calvinism. That was a mixture of church and state. That's what that was, OK? Like, and there's all, and every side, what can you find? Abuse and misuse and doing horrible things because no matter what your theology is, the theology is held by people who are what? Sinners, and what do sinners do? They sin no matter how good their theology is. In fact, most of the time our theology and our sin is contrary to our theology, yes? All right, so that's very important, all right. Third, the modern period. The modern period has witnessed the rise of premillennialism, premillennial teaching. A number of commentators write from this viewpoint. The spread of the dispensationalism in the 19th and 20th centuries brought with it a lively interest in prophetic studies. So in the more modern time, and you can kind of go to 19th and 20th century, 19th and 20th century is really the explosion of dispensational premillennialism. 19th and 20th century. And what is a significant event that happens somewhere in between now and then? Israel becoming a nation. Right. And you have, especially here in the United States of America, you start having some what? You have a lot of interesting things start taking place at this time. You have a movement, so because of modernism and higher criticism coming in from Europe, and some of the mainline denominations going in with some of that higher criticism, challenging the inerrancy of scripture, becoming much more liberal, and some of them just adopting a very much a more let's go along to get along attitude. There was a breakaway and then you start having a rise of kind of like an independent Baptist movement, an independent fundamentalist movement. And that independent fundamentalists tried to separate themselves from what? Those schools that may have been amillennial, those churches, those seminaries, they broke away and they formed what? Independent churches. And they also held what? Bible conferences. Bible conferences like the Niagara Bible Conference, which gave us the Niagara Creed. Remember all of that? And this gave rise to which books? The fundamentals, right? This is critical time. This is when these books start getting published, right? Because they start fighting for, they want the men trained where? Not in a seminary, but in the local church. Not off to a seminary. Bible institutes were formed. Independent churches were formed. Bible conferences were held. And one of the major emphasis in a lot of these were what? Bible prophecy from which perspective? Dispensational premillennialist, okay? That becomes the dominant view. And then that view begins to become the dominant view where? through most of evangelicalism, even those who would have been, because remember, you had a divide between the evangelicals and the fundamentalists. Remember how that divide takes place, right? But the evangelicals buy into the dispensational premillennialist view, and it begins to dominate Christian radio, Christian television, and Christian publishing. And that happened. And then, somewhere in the 90s, the 90s really sets the foundation, and you're gonna have an explosion of what in the 2000s? of reformed theology. So what starts becoming dominant starting into the 90s, going into the 2000s, Puritanism becomes popular again. Everybody wants to read the Puritan paperbacks and the Puritan books. So the Puritan books, reformed theology starts to explode. You have the young and reformed, young restless and reformed movement that explodes. And so now Reformation theology starts exploding. And guess what happens? Amillennialism makes a comeback. And during that time, you have a million people making all kinds of crazy, whacked out predictions about premillennialism. You have the rise of left behind. And the reformed churches are like, this is all nonsense, foolishness, and we're smarter than that. And so they begin to reject it. And so then you have the rise of all millennialism. I don't know where we are right now. I don't know where we are right now. It's hard to identify where we are. Because the young, restless, and reformed movement, what kind of happened to it? just kind of died, right? I'm not saying it's not reformed people. I'm just saying as far as like a powerful movement, it just kind of went away. It just kind of, what was it? What did it become? Who knows? So I don't know where we are in our eschatology. Right now we have the rise of Christian nationalism. Oh, actually, you know what? We talked about this. We have post-millennialism is the rise right now. Theonomy and post-millennialism is the rise right now. And why is post-millennialism and theonomy the rise right now? Christian nationalism, the political hijacking of the church. So we kind of have gone through our, if you could look at it historically, whatever the ancient millennial view was, to an amillennial dominated church, to a dispensational premillennialist dominated church, to a major resurgence of amillennialism, to now a rise of postmillennial theonomy kind of view. where you're almost looking for a theocracy and a political takeover of the nation in the name of Christ. I would rather go back to a non-millennial than that nonsense. That scares me to death. That is scary and frightening and crazy. where things are headed. So that's really kind of where we are, if you kind of want a timeline. I'm not saying it's perfect, and I definitely can argue that there are variations and things. I'm not saying that, remember, whenever any movement is growing, it doesn't mean everyone is that, right? Everyone understands that? It just means that this is becoming more prominent. It may be a little bit more difficult now to distinguish it, and the reason it's maybe more difficult now is because, you know, I can download the Edify Christian Podcast app. You know how many Christian podcasts are on that app? Two million. When you have two million Christian podcasts, that's gonna represent what? Literally every view that you could ever imagine in the history of humankind, right? I mean, like, it's all going to be there. So it's much more difficult. Like, there was a time where it was just easier to go, oh, here's the movement. And sometimes you could determine it on the basis of what? a book, and how many copies were being sold, and how many churches were now making it a study guide, right? But now it's so like, for example, Chuck Swindoll's church, Charles Swindoll's church near Dallas, Frisco, Texas, or wherever it's at, okay, you know how many people attend that church on a weekly basis in person? 3,000. 3,000. You know how many people attend that church weekly online? 16,000. What does that tell you? There is this whole world on the internet where Christianity may be thriving, it may be growing, but it's hard to identify what it is. It's hard to identify why. I can look at Christian podcasts and see where they rank, right? Like I can look at our podcasts. We're in the top 5% of all podcasts in the world, right? So that means we're above three million. I could have to look at the number. Three million something other podcasts. That's insane, right? That's crazy. There are others that are way, that are even more so than that. Like, you know, one of the number one Christian podcasts in the world is from a Catholic priest. Bible in a year. That means millions upon millions of people are getting their Bible instruction from a Catholic priest. Do you think most of them identified to be a Catholic? No, not even close. No, not even close. They saw a podcast on a podcast app. And listen, we have a listener. I can't remember his name. He emails me somewhat frequently. He emails me all the time. He listens to, I think, almost everything we do. All of our sermons and everything. You could say he's a weekly attender. He's Seventh-day Adventist. Yeah, far as I know. And he listens to us on a regular basis. So what I'm saying is now, guess what? It's hard to identify where anything is. Those 16,000 people who attend Swindoll's church online on a regular basis, do you think they all agree with his theology? Oh, no, I can guarantee you they don't. Just like we have people who listen to us who don't agree with everything. If someone's a Seventh Day Adventist, they don't agree with me, right? Agree? I mean, we would have a strong difference of opinion. But you know what? Does it matter? They're listening online. Right? And it's much easier, right, if they're just listening online. Guess what they can do? Fast forward. Skip. I go, I'm gonna go listen to something else. I'll check and see what he's doing next week because this week I don't care about what he's doing, right? This week was all Colossians 1, 26 and 27 on the podcast. Someone may go, I don't care about Colossians 1, 26 and 27. Guess what they can do? Just go to something else. So it's very difficult now to kind of figure out where anything is, right? Because it's so, so much is out there. When you have millions of podcasts and almost every church now live streams, almost every church now places their sermons either on an app or somewhere. It's like the world now has become a buffet for believers. And so they can just like, I take a little bit of this, I take a little bit of that, take a little bit of this. So there's nothing that constrains them. Now you can say that's good, you can say that's bad. Some people will condemn it, some people will say it was good. You can argue all day around it. I know this, when everybody was going to church, guess what all the concerns were? Everybody's going to church but they're biblically illiterate and the church has become a circus and it's a joke. All right, well that sure wasn't fixing anything, right? You had millions of people going to church and every statistic were they're biblically illiterate, they're theologically illiterate. That's not fixing anything. Now if someone's biblically or theologically illiterate, guess whose fault it is? It's the people's fault because they have access to literally everything. There's no excuse anymore for anyone to be illiterate about anything theologically. They have it all available to them. But it's hard to kind of figure out where we are. What's the dominant eschatology? I would argue that the dominant eschatology is still what? I still think it's premillennial dispensationalism. I am concerned that many who claim to be dispensational premillennialists have adopted a postmillennial theonomy view and they don't even realize it. They're contradicting their very system. So when all of that is going on, and guess what many amillennialists have done? They become post-millennial in theonomy. And I've watched that happen to people who I used to listen to. There were strong, reformed, amillennialists. And now you're like, what has happened? What is going on? Now it's all politics and political and conspiracy theories. And we got to do this, and we got to vote for this. And you're like, oh, man, can we just go back to disagreeing on theology? So I fear that the post-millennial theonomy view is rising, is rising, I think. But for me, whether post, whether awe, or whether pre, what is the most important thing that we've learned through all of the survey of these three? Identifying your hermeneutical system and consistently applying that hermeneutical system. and driving that hermeneutical system and see if you end up driving off the cliff. If you drive off the cliff, it's probably time to reconsider your hermeneutical system. And what are you more committed to? The hermeneutical system, not the theological system. Because hopefully at some point, if you keep trying to apply that hermeneutic and keep applying that hermeneutic and keep reading and studying and reading and studying and reading and studying, what hopefully will happen your hermeneutic hopefully will pull you back in to some level. And yeah, well, there's much more I could say there, but that's kind of the cliff notes of what I want to say, but I think that's very important to do. Everyone reads the Bible. They're applying some kind of method of interpreting it. They're applying some kind of method. And either you get it or you don't get it. And if you don't get it, then I don't know. I think some people just kind of do whatever they want with it. but there is pre-millennialism, all right? So what we'll do probably on Sunday is we will go, chapter 81 in this book is God's covenant with Abraham. We're gonna look at the Abrahamic covenant and look at the importance of it from an eschatological point of view. All right, then after we look at that, then we'll look at God's covenant with David, the Davidic covenant from an eschatological point of view. Then we'll do an outline of future events. Then we'll look at the tribulation period. Then we'll look at the supposed rapture of the church. Then we'll look at the pre-tribulational rapture view. Then we'll look at the millennial kingdom. And then we'll look at the mid-tribulation, post-tribulation rapture view. Then we'll do some more work on the millennium. And then we'll look at the future judgments. And then the resurrection of the dead. And I think that's it. No, we're not going to do all that in one week. It was going to take a while. But we kind of just stumbled into it. Remember, once again, the lectionary did this. The last time we followed the lectionary, this happened. We get into a lectionary, and I know I'm supposed to just keep reading the lectionary, but I'm always like, oh, we've got to go do this. So this time, we're going to it with a much more clear, like the last time, we had to throw everything aside and start over. We kind of know where we're going. And so we're going to use this to kind of keep us. So what were the systems that we've looked at in our survey of eschatology? Post, a, pre. All right. And we've dealt with all the aspects of it. I think that's a good survey. So at least understand those three views. All right. Now, we'll stop there. Lord, we come before you this evening. Lord, we thank you that we can challenge, ask questions, offer up hypotheses and test them. And I am grateful that we have the ability still to do that here this evening and hopefully for ever how long to come. Lord, I am grateful for that and just pray that you will always challenge us and that we will challenge ourselves to approach your word thinking and trying to be consistent and logical and having some method of interpretation that leads us closer to the true meaning of the text. And we ask this in Jesus' name.