Our Father God, we thank you for this beautiful morning. Thank you for the rain last yesterday and the sunshine and just your care for your creation. We thank you. I think we can gather as your people now to worship you as our creator and sustainer. But we thank you especially for giving us your word, both living and written, and even today, the visible word. as we come to your table. And so we pray for all that is done today, that you would be honored in it, and that you would strengthen us by your spirit, that you would grow us in grace and extend your kingdom here among us. And so we pray all these things, and in Jesus' name, amen. All right. Well, we have returned to this topic of learning some of the skills of interpreting the scriptures. And so we started briefly looking at the topic of prophecy and talked to a few things about it. Primarily, we see prophecy with foretelling and forth telling. It includes new revelation as well as taking existing revelation and applying it to the people. The better we understand the books of Moses, especially, as well as the covenants, the better we'll understand the teaching of the prophets. The better we understand also their primary theme of judgment and restoration and how it goes back and forth sometimes in the same verse, again, will help us in our interpretation. The day of the Lord passages is another key aspect of it, and so one of the things we look for in prophecy is an initial fulfillment, and then we look for a greater fulfillment in Christ's first coming, and then we look for the ultimate fulfillment in his return. Easily we can say most prophecies fall into that. Some of them are fulfilled initially, and that's as far as we go. Some of them are fulfilled in the first coming of Christ and not the second. Some of them the other way around. Some of them were not really fulfilled at all in Christ's first coming, and we look forward in the second coming. Generally, we have this pattern. Also, the better we understand the history of Israel, the places, the names, the events, the better we understand Hebrew poetry and its elements, especially parallelism, the better we will understand prophecy. So, just a few things in review there. Now, we started then last time on apocalyptic literature. We started first with the definition. Simply it means to uncover or to disclose, to make known. Sometimes it's used specifically in the context of the appearing of Christ, His second coming especially. And, of course, we see apocalyptic genre primarily in the Book of Revelation, parts of Daniel, and parts of Ezekiel, and then parts of Zechariah. Some people basically define this as an extended metaphor. And as we define a metaphor, it's something that is something else. So the Lord is my shepherd. And so it's a very direct figure of speech connecting the subject with whatever the image is. And so when we come to apocalyptic genre, what is important for us is that we understand not the picture literally, but we understand what the picture is describing that is literal. If we don't make that distinction, we're going to end up in trouble. So you might recall I used the analogy of Lady Justice. When I go into a courtroom, I really hope she's there, but I'm not looking for a woman who's blindfolded and holding scales. I'm looking for equal justice under the law and things like that, okay? The image here is not literally in the courtroom. Now, maybe there's a statue or a picture of her or something like that. But what does she represent that is to be literal? And so, for example, in Revelation 9 verse 9, the armor-plated locusts are not literally fulfilled in black helicopters. The idea of invincibility is what is communicated. Now, it's possible that maybe black helicopters are used by what the locusts are figuratively representing, but again, we're not to interpret the picture literally. Alright, now a related idea that we touched on also last time is similar to how we approach proverbs and parables. We are looking for one key idea. Now there may be secondary and tertiary ideas. The details may have significance, but we're looking primarily for the main point. And so don't get bogged down in the details, because again, it can lead us astray. So I use the example of Revelation chapter 10 of the great mighty angel standing on the land and the sea. Let's not get all wrapped up on which piece of land or which body of water this angel is standing upon. Just recognize that he has authority over all things, which either points to an archangel or even Jesus himself. So again, look for the main point. Don't get bogged down in the details. Now, once you know the main point, sometimes those details become clearer and more easily understood. All right, then we ended also last time with with the fact that it's a mixture of genres. And this adds to the difficulty. And so for the Book of Revelation, of course, we see that it is a letter written to these seven churches. We see some narrative mixed in. We certainly see prophecy. We see apocalyptic, of course. And so it's a mixture of things, and this adds to some of the challenge. So even the letters, the most, if you will, straightforward portion of Revelation has some of the other stuff mixed in with it. And so let's be careful in how we read it. Or I also gave the example of the 144,000, okay? Is that part of the letter? Is that part of the prophecy genre? Is that part of the narrative genre? Or the apocalyptic genre? And people have taken it different ways. And some have actually said there are only going to be 144,000 in heaven. But is that what the genre is communicating? So, this adds to our challenge. All right, now, I wanted to kind of introduce the challenge of this genre. But like anything, let's focus on what we do everywhere else. And so the basic principles that we use to interpret scripture are what is called the grammatical-historical method of exegesis. Sometimes you hear people say historical, grammatical, whatever. We see the principle of context And then we see the principle of scripture interpreting scripture. And you might say these three things become even more important as we come to challenging passages such as apocalyptic. So, just briefly. The grammatical historical approach to interpretation, it's just like the term says. God did not reveal himself in a movie or a meme. He revealed himself in words. And so we have to know how to understand words. It's really that simple. So you need to know what a noun is or an adjective or a participle. You need to know how they fit together. How does this prepositional phrase modify the verb? Is this prepositional phrase being used as a direct object or an adverb? You know, questions like these become important because God gave us words. And the better we understand words and how they work and how they fit together, the better we'll be able to understand the scripture. It's just that simple. Unfortunately, in our culture, in our educational system, This isn't taught so much anymore, and this is one of the reasons why fewer and fewer people understand what the Bible says, let alone other literature. Now, there are other factors there, but this is certainly part of it. Now, the other half of this is the historical. And again, just like the term would suggest, the better we understand the history of the scriptures, the better we'll understand the scriptures. And this I mentioned with prophecy, hey, if you're reading in Jeremiah and he makes whatever, half a dozen references in a passage that refers to things that happened maybe even a thousand years before or to places and to people, right, the better you understand those things, the better you're going to understand what Jeremiah is saying. And that's also true here, of course, for apocalyptic. And what is connected here, especially in this way, is with apocalyptic literature, you have to know what the rest of the scripture is saying about these things, or it's just going to be very confusing. What often happens when you hear popular interpretations of the book of Revelation or Daniel or whatever, is many times they'll read a passage, I mentioned Revelation 10 here with the angel and such, and that's all they talk about. But there are connections throughout the scriptures. And because of this, either sometimes very directly connected, sometimes indirectly connected, the better we understand those things, which now we're talking about the history within the scriptures, right? So what did we see in Ezekiel? And how is that now in Revelation? Or what do we see with Moses? And how do we see that now playing out in the book of Daniel or whatever? So again, it's pretty straightforward. The better we understand the history of the scriptures, the better we'll understand apocalyptic literature. And again, it's especially true here with the book of Revelation. Now, as for the book of Revelation in terms of grammar, John does not write overly complex Greek. It's not like reading the book of Luke or Acts. It's not like reading the book of Hebrews. That's a higher level of Greek. You could tell they went to college kind of idea. John didn't. It's a simpler Greek. In fact, the easiest Greek in the New Testament is 1 John. Now, the gospel of John is a bit higher, and the book of Revelation is a bit higher than that. But, you know, he finished high school, but he didn't go any further than that kind of idea. Now, the challenge with Revelation is there are some places where you come across grammatical things and you're like, you would expect something different following normal rules of grammar, and that's not what we have. Now, why did John do that? Some people say, oh, it's because John doesn't know Greek very well. Other people say, no, actually he's highlighting something by saying it in this way. So this isn't necessarily something you're going to see unless you open the Greek and try to understand it. But when I get to the book of Revelation, I'll make occasionally a comment about this because it impacts our understanding. So anyway, the next two really fit then with what we've just said, right? God revealed himself in words. He revealed himself in history. We need to know those things if we're going to understand it. And when it comes to interpreting apocalyptic genre, as I just mentioned, the better we know other scriptures, the better we'll understand this scripture. The principle, of course, of scripture interpreting scripture is you use the clearer passages to help you to understand the less clear passages. Obviously, apocalyptic is less clear. And so you use the more straightforward, literal, easier to understand places to understand the less clear. Or as I'll make mention of here in a bit, Some of these apocalyptic literature will give you a little clue as what to the image means. And that may be true in this passage but not the other passage that uses the same image. So you focus on the passage that gives you the little clue and then you take that clue to the other passage that doesn't necessarily give us that. And so we use scripture to interpret scripture. And I will make reference to Dr. Greg Beal's commentary on Revelation many times, I'm sure, as I preach through this. And this is one of the most valuable things in his commentary. It's at least this big. And I don't know, 1,400 pages or something. But one of the main things he does is he says, OK, here's what it says in Revelation, whatever. And here are all the passages in the rest of the scripture that give us some clue to interpret this particular passage in Revelation. Extremely helpful. And so basically he's just doing these three things. He's using scripture to interpret scripture and so forth. Now in terms of context. We always start at the most immediate context. What does the word mean in that particular phrase or sentence? So as I've used the example before, if I use the word ball, what do I mean? Well, you don't know. You might think, okay, spherical object. But it could mean a dance. And if I'm speaking, you might think I'm referring to somebody crying. What do I mean, right? Well, if I said that Johnny threw the ball to first base, well, now I've immediately limited the context to a baseball or a softball or maybe a kickball or something like that, right? If I said Ms. Ball went to the ball and had a ball, well, now I've got different meanings for each one of those. But even in that short sentence, we can have a sense of what it means. Well, this is certainly true when we come to apocalyptic literature. But as I mentioned just a moment ago, John's Greek is not overly complex, except in a few occasions. And so the context and the wording is usually pretty straightforward. What's hard is, of course, he's giving us all these images and you're like, what in the world does that mean? So we're not struggling so much with the grammar, we're struggling more with the interpretation of it. So, to what I said, the context that we typically emphasize in apocalyptic genre is not so much the immediate, though we have to do that, but it's the broader context. What does the rest of the scripture say? And so, that's the opposite of what we've seen in Romans. We have focused very specifically on the immediate context. What in the world is Paul saying in this particular phrase or with this particular word? And then we expand outward. And even today, we're going to have to try to decipher how he uses Genesis 15 verse 6. And we're going to start with the immediate context with words. and so forth. So anyway, these three things are what we use to interpret any part of scripture. And so we do the same thing now as we come to apocalyptic. And that's going to guide us in each of these things. So there are a lot of challenges, yes. But we just use the same basic principles. And that's going to help us out. in many ways. But what so often happens, as you hear some guy on TV talking about how this prophecy of revelation is fulfilled in this event of history, well, they're not following these three things very well. So a few thoughts here in this way. So any questions you have at this point? Any comments? Yes, Neil. What I'm saying is the immediate context is usually pretty straightforward. It's using the broader context of the rest of the scriptures that becomes more significant to help us to understand not what the words say, but what the words mean. Yes? When you're evaluating the grammatical, how much more difficult is it without punctuation than we're used to in a sentence or in a passage? Are you referring to the original Greek not having it? Yeah. Probably at least 95 to 98% of the time it's pretty straightforward. Yeah. Yes. Yes. And yet, if you were to read it in its context, most of the time it becomes clear. Now, if you're reading a text that is, you know, just however long, and then they abbreviate words or something like that, sometimes it can be a bit more challenging, but. Oh, yes, absolutely. Yep. And once you do that, as you work your way outward from the immediate words, most of the time it becomes pretty clear. Now, there are times where, like, occasionally I'll say, Well, some people say that we should put the chapter division here rather than here or, you know, something to that effect. And that's what fits with your question. Yeah. that kind of answers in some measure your question to Stan because then you can have a subject anywhere in the sentence and it doesn't matter, you know it's a subject because of the way the ending is. Does that make sense? How it will work? Yeah. Syntax is still important, it's just different. Yeah. For us, subject, verb, object, that's our structure, you know. And of course it expands from there. Any other questions? Dale, you look like you're pondering how to ask something or say something. Okay. I'm not sure it's really considering a call to another pastoral candidate. We see 1 Timothy 3 and 6. It's what we stand on top of, punctuation, where it's there, where it's not. OK, I'm jumping in a little bit. It's not a novice, including me, not a novice, comma, who's less being upset with the pride and equality and condemnation of the devil. I was making a point that A person is so young and has so little experience by then, the temptation to vomit, cry, et cetera. And the elder's wife corrected me, oh, but this person does have experience. And that person was ignoring the comma that's in there. Should the comma be in there in the Greek? Should it be as in an Indian version? Not a novice, contrary to thought. Less being puffed up with pride. So a novice is more, a newcomer to the faith would be more vulnerable to pride than being puffed up, et cetera. But she was saying, he's not a novice who has pride. She was kind of blending it all together. Not seeing it as a positive, right? It was 3-6, right? Well, the Greek says, me nea futon. How about neophyte Dale? You get the term neophyte from that word. So, not a novice. And then it says hiname and it continues, which means this is a subjunctive clause, a dependent clause. So putting a comma there is quite fitting. corrects me, and I think that they're wrong, I let it die. It means more to them than it does to me. But, you know, to your question, does the Greek require a comma? Well, I just read the Greek for you, and because it begins with hyname, that's introducing a dependent clause. So putting a comma there is exactly what you'd expect to do. So that's our way of interpreting what the Greek is trying to say, that if that person is young, he's just more susceptible to pride. That helps, thank you. I'm not going to go back and just verse his name. Now I expect you to, Dale, I expect you to use the Greek now, of course. Yeah, when the Jehovah's Witnesses came to our house one time, I started using the Greek, and it just was like, you know, I'm like, well, this is why we don't believe that Jesus was created. They didn't know how to respond to that. You should have seen their eyes. Yeah. All right. Well, any other comments or questions here? Yes. What you said about how or whatever, and you hear whether it's preachers or, that are taking a particular passage and saying, okay, this happened in the news today, so then that's this passage. Okay, so to avoid doing that, as we're reading Revelation, like, there are things happening in the world today But for example, what's going on as far as the war in Israel. And at first, people were supporting them. And now you're seeing people starting to turn against them. And they're protesting and saying that they're being abusive to Abbas and all this stuff. So not trying to say, OK, that's a fulfillment of this passage. But it makes you wonder, because Revelation does talk about the point before Christ returns, Israel will have favor for a while, but then God's going to let it all turn against to where the world basically comes against Israel. And then he will ultimately defend Israel. So not trying to say this is a fulfillment of that, but just kind of being aware or being a, if you say, on the alert, this might be that time period. We don't know. But to be on the alert and be paying attention Well, let me go to this next, because it does speak to your question. What we've just talked about is some principles here that apply to anything we interpret. Even if you're reading something on the blog, or you get a text from someone, you use the same kinds of principles of interpretation. But let me now talk a little bit about some specific things that we, if you will, big picture things that we have to keep in mind when we come to any of the apocalyptic genres, whether it's Daniel or Zachariah or whatever, but of course especially is applied to the book of Revelation. And that has to do with when do we see these words fulfilled? and then related to that is how does the Millennium fit into all of this? I heard said one time that you have to understand Revelation 20 and the discussion of the Millennium to understand all of Revelation. Now maybe that's a bit of an overstatement, but there's a lot of truth to that too. If you interpret the Millennium in a certain way, you're going to interpret other passages in a particular way. So if you're Amill, you're going to interpret something a certain way, and you notice what Sue said. She had a presupposition of Amillennialism in what she just said. But if you had a Futurist or a Premill approach to it, you're going to say something different than what Sue just said. So the better we're aware of some of these, if you will, big picture presuppositions that we have when we approach the text, the better we'll be able to understand what other people are saying and discern, you know, is that good or bad? But then, of course, as we approach any of the verses, it's going to guide us. So maybe another way of saying it is this. You read a particular passage, say, I don't know. This is off the top of my head here. Is it 2 Peter 3 that talks about a day is like a thousand years? Is my memory correct there? Well, you have, or is it chapter 1? Whatever it is. You have an Armenian who's going to interpret it one way, and a Reformed person who's going to interpret it differently. You have an Old Earth person who's going to interpret it one way, and a Young Earth person who's going to interpret it a different way. So our presuppositions become very important here. Now our presuppositions better be guided by these three principles, okay? It's not eisegesis, right, imposing on the text our view. It's exegesis, we let it speak for itself. But these things need to guide us as we come up with our presuppositions. So with all that in mind, let's briefly review some of those. Alright, some of you may have heard of Preterism or the Preterist view in regard to these works. There are two primary approaches within Preterism. The basic idea is the words that we see in Revelation or Matthew 24 and 25, the Olivet Discourse, and some of these other things, is that we expect to see them fulfilled more or less right away. And so you see a huge contingent of this group would say that these words are fulfilled by AD 70. And so they really have nothing to do with us. They were fulfilled then. And so when Jesus says about, pray that when the day comes, there won't be pregnant women and so on and so forth, when you run to the hills and so on, right? Well, that was fulfilled when Titus came in and destroyed Jerusalem and the temple and so forth. And that's it, we don't look for any more. Now there is another group within Preterism that will say similar things, but they will say some of them were fulfilled at the fall of the Roman Empire, so a few hundred years later. And so you'll hear some differences within those who advocate for this. And so this is the one approach. to your question, if you read a particular passage, they're going to say, well, it has nothing to do with what's happening in Israel today. That was all fulfilled 2,000 years ago, or something to that effect. OK. So this is the one approach people take and interpret everything in light of this idea. In this context, we call this the historicism view or the historicist approach, and obviously that term can be applied in other contexts, but in this context, the idea is this. A specific passage is going to find a specific fulfillment in history, and it typically says that particular passage It's fulfilled in this particular event, and then it's over. The prophecy's done. We're not looking for anything else, okay? And so they might, and this is what you often see on TV. You know, they say, they read a passage and say, oh, well, this is fulfilled when, I don't know, the Berlin Wall came down. And that's how it's fulfilled, and we don't really need to consider that passage anymore other than in this historical way. And so we don't look for any future fulfillment or whatever. And so John's prophecies are fulfilled specifically in history, throughout history. And often in this context, it's done in a chronological manner. So the things you'll see in Chapter 6 are fulfilled earlier in history, the things fulfilled in Chapter 18 are later in history, or something to that effect. Now with any of these, you're going to have a variety. Okay? There's a continuum of thought. But generally speaking, the historicist approaches this. And again, it's often popularized on television. Now, the next one is the futurist approach, and especially Revelation chapters 4 through 20. Not the letters to the churches. That was obviously in the first century. Chapters 21 and 22, right? That's the new heavens, the new earth. So that's outside of this, you might say. But chapters four through 20, and again, you'll have some variety. Some will say maybe starting in chapter six or whatever. But the events that we see described there are gonna be fulfilled just before Jesus comes back. So what happened in 1948, okay, that only applies if Jesus is going to come back any time, okay? But if he's not coming back for another 2,000 years, then it has nothing to do with what happened then. Of course, we don't know when he's coming, and so you'll hear things of what I just said, you know, something along those lines. Or they'll say the fulfillment in 8070 was Not significant. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about things that are going to happen right before the rapture kind of idea. And so this is the futurist. Typically, this view is very dispensational. Typically, this view is a pre-tribulation rapture view. And typically, those events in chapters, especially four to 20, are going to be chronological. when they are fulfilled. But again, basically all of it right before he comes back. All right, now the fourth one, and again, you're going to have a continuum here, is what is called the idealist view. And yeah, again, here's a term that can be used in another context. But in this context, what we are looking at is, You might say all three of them put together, taking the best of Preterism, the best of Historicism and Futurism, and putting it together. I'm not sure that's the best way of saying it, but you'll hear some people say it that way, and there is some truth to that. The idea is simply this. John's prophecies are fulfilled throughout history. We're dealing with pictures. We're dealing with images. We're dealing with ideas that find fulfillment in possibly a variety of ways. So when you read about the bowls and the trumpets and so forth, we're not looking for one particular event. We're looking for the idea of whatever, say, the third bowl is representing, and how is that fulfilled throughout history? And then we will see a culmination of it right before Christ comes. And so we may see it initially there with the fall of Jerusalem, but you may see it say in the fourth century or the seventh century or something to that effect. And people say, well, yeah, this particular event fulfills what that picture is representing. And, but it will find a culmination in the second coming. And so it's basically fulfilled throughout the church age in one way or another. So Sue basically implied that view in what you said and how you said that. The question I had was kind of as I was reading it, what I keep coming back to in my mind is the human nature is consistent in what it does things, et cetera, and you're seeing the same principle repeated over and over and over and over again. And I think particularly of where it's talking about, you know, supposing there's 1,000 years before Christ's reign, and you think, well, after that, everybody will just do the right thing. But they get fed up with it. They get tired of it and want rid of it and turn against it. And it's like, that's the way it's always been throughout all history. It was starting to strike me that the principle of how basically things function is repeated over and over again. So is it the end-all or is it the beginning? Well, do you notice how what I was saying about prophecy, the typical approach is you see an initial fulfillment, greater fulfillment in Christ's first coming, and the ultimate fulfillment when He returns. You see how that is consistent with the idealist view. There is a future element, of course. There is a historical element. And there's a preterist element. So most recently we've been talking about 2 Samuel 7 and the promises given to David and the Davidic covenant. Well, there is a preterist aspect. It was fulfilled, some of it, initially with David and Solomon. And so there's a historical sense in that. But then there, in the first coming of Christ, in that historical event, we see the son of David establishing the throne, the monarchy forever, building the temple, and so on, right? But then there's still a futurist element. We're looking for Christ to return and the eternal temple and the eternal rule. And so that's why I said at the beginning, idealism, some will say, It really takes the best of these three and puts them together. So, yeah, no, go ahead. Finish your, your. Okay, so then the term is Israel. Of course, Israel, we the church are now the new Israel. Right. So in the revelation, references to Israel. Is that the church or is that the religion? I think it depends on the particular passage. the close and the distant, right? We talked about the mountains. And applying that also to apocalyptic literature, which is full of problems. It makes sense that those two would go hand in hand. I was also thinking, I just taught judges at school in the SID cycle, and I was thinking how we see in scripture this pattern, this cyclical pattern, right? The downward spiral into sin, right? And it seems like the idealist view best captures that ongoing struggle until Christ returns and there's a new heaven and a new earth. Anyway, just a couple thoughts. Well, if you haven't figured it out yet, This is where I am, the idealist view. This is where Greg Beal is in his commentary. This is where Hendrickson is in his commentary. You know, this is a pretty, can I say, common view in reform circles to have an idealist view, but it's certainly not limited to that because we have to combine these four approaches with the approaches to the millennium. And we've run out of time here today, but the next part here is to describe what is the premillennial view? What is the historic premillennial view? What is the amillennial view and the postmillennial view? Those are our main ones. And it's common to have some of these things here connected with a particular millennial view. But again, there's a continuum, there are exceptions, and variety, and so on. But we'll have to pick up with that next time. But again, my point here is this. Here are principles that we apply to anything that we interpret. Here are principles in the sense that we need to know what our presuppositions are when we approach revelation. And ideally, those presuppositions are conditioned by working our way through the text. But where we conclude is going to impact how we interpret a passage. And that, again, is true for any passage, but it's especially true for apocalyptic genre. We just need to be aware of this and how it impacts our interpretation. Anyway, we're gonna have to conclude here today. We'll pick up, Lord willing, I guess it'll be in two weeks, because we'll be away next week in Iowa, actually. So, anyway, let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for, you might say the challenge of it, as interpreting any piece of literature, is it takes some effort. We pray that your spirit would strengthen us and guide us and enable us for this task. But we also thank you, Lord, that your word is clear. And even in these passages, there is a clarity about it. But we pray, Lord, that you would lead us and guide us as we try to arrive at that point, as we think carefully about how we approach the text and so on. And then even in those ways where your text, your word is still obscure to us, and we cannot comprehend what is said, we again pray that you would guide us using principles that are clear and just simply pray for your grace in this way that we might rightly divide your word and understand it and apply it and live by it. We pray to you Lord now as we gather for our corporate worship that you would strengthen us and enable us and you would be honored and glorified as we partake of the means of grace here today. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.