THE COMING KINGDOM #80<\/p>\r\n
Why Does It Matter?\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\r\n Marginalization of Bible Eschatology<\/em><\/p>\r\n Deuteronomy 11:12<\/strong><\/p>\r\n Dr. Andy M Woods<\/p>\r\nOpen your Bibles to Deuteronomy 11:12<\/strong>; the nice thing about this kind of study is that it takes you into every book of the Bible.\u00a0 We are on the final part of our journey on the subject of the Kingdom, basically trying to refute Kingdom Now Theology in this study, but we are there in Part 3, \u201cWhy Does It Matter? The premise that we are taking here in this final section is that if the Church is the Kingdom, and we are currently in the Kingdom, then that becomes fertile soil for nine false doctrines to emerge.\u00a0 So many times, we shoot at the false doctrine, but we don\u2019t really recognize the foundation from which these false doctrines grow.\r\n\r\nThe first<\/u><\/strong> of nine that we\u2019ve talked about is that the Church, when seeing itself as the Kingdom, stops seeing itself as a pilgrim in the world.\u00a0 I have given you this quote from Lewis Sperry Chafer where he talks about how the church loses its pilgrim character and nature.<\/strong> \u00a0If we are in the Kingdom or setting it up, then we are no longer passing through this world to a better place, but this world actually becomes our home.\u00a0 The church becomes at home in the devil\u2019s world.\r\n\r\nThe second<\/u><\/strong> false doctrine is social gospel <\/strong>because if the Church is the Kingdom, then the Church places upon its shoulders the responsibility for changing the structures of society.\u00a0 The alteration of the structures of society is something that only Jesus Himself can fully accomplish when He comes back, but if we are in the Kingdom now, then all of these social responsibilities rest totally upon our shoulders, so you start hearing more about social causes:\u00a0 social justice, gaps between the rich and poor, structural bias, structural racism, etc. \u2014 these kind of things become our focus.\u00a0 What starts to slip is the actual message that God gave us \u2014 the gospel of individual salvation<\/strong>.\u00a0 If the Church begins to see itself as the Kingdom wanting to bring in Kingdom conditions, the reality of the situation is that there are really not enough Christians on the earth to bring in the Kingdom politically or voting-wise.\u00a0 The church then must merge with groups that are counter to her core theological convictions.\u00a0 This is what is called ecumenism, or interfaith alliances (third<\/strong> false doctrine).\u00a0 The church starts to merge with the Mormons, Catholics, Muslims \u2014 if they agree with us on a particular cause.\r\n\r\nNumber 4<\/strong>, where we were last time, if the Church begins to see itself as the kingdom then what you start to see with the Church is either a rejection of Bible prophecy, or<\/strong> if you don\u2019t reject the teaching of Bible Prophecy, there is a marginalization of Bible prophecy.<\/strong>\u00a0 As we saw last time, that is not something that should be done because 27% of the Bible at the time it was written was prophetic.\u00a0 That is over one- quarter of the Bible, so obviously, Bible prophecy is extremely important to God.\u00a0 2 Peter 1:19<\/strong> says that prophecy is a light shining in a dark place that we would do well to pay attention to.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t have prophecy, there is no light in the midst of a dark world.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t have Bible prophecy, per the quote from J. Dwight Pentecost, you lose a natural stimulus for holy living, because, as he says in this quote that I think I shared with you last week, every time you see a reference to the Second Advent in the Scriptures, particularly the New Testament, it is always linked somehow to daily behavior somehow:\u00a0 prayer, patience under trial, or something of that nature.\u00a0 Don\u2019t think that Bible prophecy is there to just fill out a chart and get your chronology down or to fill your head with information.\u00a0 By the way, there is nothing wrong with having a chart and having your chronology down and filling your head with information, but that isn\u2019t the end game of prophecy; it is designed to move from knowledge to wisdom, and it has to impact how we live, or it really hasn\u2019t accomplished the purpose for which God gave it to us.\r\n\r\nI don\u2019t think I gave you this quote last time, though I have given it to you before from Justin Martyr, and he wrote this around AD 160; he summed up how important the subject of Bible prophecy was to Christianity for its first two centuries.\u00a0 He says, \u201cBut I and every other completely orthodox<\/u><\/strong> Christian feel certain that there will be a resurrection of the flesh, followed by a thousand years in the rebuilt, embellished, and enlarged city of Jerusalem<\/u><\/strong> as was announced by the prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the others<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 Notice here in this quote that he took prophecy literally to such an extent that he believed that the center of the world was going to revolve one day, or rotate back, to the city of Jerusalem.\u00a0 Then he basically said that it is going to be the headquarters of the Millennial Kingdom for 1,000 years.\u00a0 He says that this was believed to a man, and if you didn\u2019t believe this, your orthodoxy as a Christian was suspect.\u00a0 I like to use this quote because everybody today tells me not to make prophecy a test of orthodoxy.\u00a0 That is exactly what they did for the first two centuries of the Church.\u00a0 It shows what a high value they placed on\u00a0 prophecy.\r\n\r\nThe problem though is if the Church sees itself as the Kingdom, one of the first areas of theology to take a hit is the subject of Bible prophecy.\u00a0 Clarence Larkin back in 1920, \u201cThe \u2018Kingdom Idea\u2019 [that is Kingdom Now Theology] has robbed the Church of her \u2018UPWARD LOOK,\u2019 and of the \u2018BLESSED HOPE.\u2019\u00a0 There cannot be any \u2018Imminent Coming\u2019 to those who are seeking to \u2018Set up the Kingdom.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 There is no sense in praying, \u2018Thy Kingdom come<\/em>\u2019 if we are already in the Kingdom.\u00a0 There is no sense in believing that Jesus is coming back to rescue us out of this world via the rapture if the Church is the Kingdom because what is there to rescue us from?\u00a0 We are at home in the world because we are no longer pilgrims.\r\n\r\nOne of the things I was developing with you last time was how Kingdom Now Theology, becoming more prevalent in our time period, is leading to an assault or attack or a chipping away or a marginalization of Bible prophecy.\u00a0 I was trying to show you how tracing Clarence Larkin\u2019s prediction of how Kingdom Now Theology leads to a marginalization of the study of Bible prophecy, the more the Church sees itself as the Kingdom.\u00a0 I would say this:\u00a0 it is sort of an epidemic today; I get email after email from people all over the country and all over the world essentially saying, \u2018I can\u2019t find a church that teaches Bible prophecy.<\/em>\u2019\u00a0 Has anyone here experienced that besides here at Sugar Land Bible Church?\u00a0 That is something that people perpetually complain about, and my point is that there is a reason for that.\u00a0 If the Church is at home in the world and sees itself as the Kingdom, then why preach about a Kingdom that is coming?\u00a0 Why preach about Jesus\u2019 coming back to rescue us from this world if we are at home here in the world?\u00a0 In my opinion, there is almost a direct correlation between the advent of Kingdom Now Theology and the decline of Bible prophecy.\u00a0 I gave you a lot of information on that last time, so I want to pick up right in the middle of that.\r\n\r\nOne of the things you see today at Dallas Seminary (DTS0 is the belief that Jesus is currently reigning on David\u2019s throne; they call this the \u2018already not yet\u2019 view of the Kingdom<\/em>.\u00a0 I have given you a lot of quotes from Darrell Bock during the course of this study demonstrating that; he says that \u201c\u2026Jesus sits here as David\u2019s promised Son on David\u2019s promised throne<\/u><\/em><\/strong>\u2026 as the Davidic heir, Jesus sits in and rules from heaven.\u201d<\/u><\/strong><\/em>\r\n\r\nThis new movement that they\u2019re now pushing amongst the younger scholars, called progressive dispensationalism, is a very deceptive title because it is very different than the dispensationalism promoted by the previous generations and the founder of the school, Lewis Sperry Chafer.\u00a0 Nobody, and it is reflected very clearly in the doctrinal statement, believed that Jesus\u2019 present position was one of Davidic king.\u00a0 What they believed is that Jesus is functioning now as high priest after the order of Melchizedek from the Father\u2019s right hand.\u00a0 That is what Jesus is doing now.\u00a0 But progressive dispensationalism is shifting that and making it sound as if Jesus is actually reigning over phase I of the Davidic Kingdom.\u00a0 What starts to happen, and what I noticed as a student when I was there, is that a lot of the prior interpretations of Bible prophecy that the founders held to, are now being significantly marginalized at that particular school.\u00a0 I use this, not to pick on my Alma mater, but to demonstrate what Clarence Larkin said:\u00a0 \u2018Kingdom Now Theology will lead to a marginalization of Bible prophecy<\/em>.\u2019\u00a0 You don\u2019t have to look far to see this.\u00a0 The very first thing you should ask when trying to figure out what they believe about Bible prophecy is Ezekiel\u2019s Temple in Ezekiel 40:48<\/strong>.\u00a0 In Ezekiel 40-48<\/strong>, is a picture that is described in so much detail that there is no way that you would spiritualize or allegorize that away.\u00a0 It has more detail<\/strong> than Noah\u2019s ark, than the Tabernacle in Moses\u2019 day, than the Temple in Solomon\u2019s day.\u00a0 Everybody takes Noah\u2019s ark, the Tabernacle and the Solomonic temple literally.\u00a0 The only difference is that this time we are talking about a temple that is yet to come to the earth during the Millennial Kingdom.\u00a0 If you want to know where people stand on Bible prophecy and how seriously they take it, the first thing to look at is how they view Ezekiel\u2019s temple because that will tell you an awful lot. \u00a0Nine times out of ten today, scholars will tell you that what the Bible says about that temple is really not what will happen during the Millennial Kingdom\u2014if they even believe in a Millennial Kingdom.\u00a0 It is almost like they get White Out and begin to cross things out in Ezekiel 40-48<\/strong> that, to them, appears to be too literal.\u00a0 I\u2019m here to tell you that you can\u2019t do that to the Book of Ezekiel<\/u><\/strong> without damaging that book for this simple reason:\u00a0 if you step back and view the whole Book of Ezekiel<\/u><\/strong>, per this slide on symmetry, is what we call a synthetic look, where you\u2019re not so much straining at the leaves on the tree, but you are looking at the entire forest, you will see that the Book of is Ezekiel<\/strong> is symmetrical.\u00a0 In other words, what happens at the beginning of the book is repeated at the end of the book.\u00a0 (See Slide on Symmetr<\/strong>y \u2014 from Charles Dyer from whom I got permission to use this diagram.\u00a0 You\u2019ll notice that chapters<\/strong> 1-24<\/strong> of Ezekiel<\/strong> is symmetrical to chapters 33-48<\/strong> \u2014 only in reverse.\u00a0 So in Ezekiel 1-3<\/strong>, Ezekiel is commissioned to preach judgment; in Ezekiel 33<\/strong>, he is commissioned to preach restoration.\u00a0 In Ezekiel 1-3<\/strong>, his mouth is closed so that he can\u2019t talk unless God allows it in his oracles of judgment; in chapter 33<\/strong>, his mouth is opened.\u00a0 In Ezekiel 1-24<\/strong>, he is basically preaching judgment on Judah; in Ezekiel 33-48<\/strong>, he is preaching the restoration that will come to Judah or the nation of Israel one day.\u00a0 In the first part of the book, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ezekiel 8-11<\/strong>, there is a description of the temple that Solomon built; it had been in existence from \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0966 BC per 1 Kings 6:1<\/strong> to 586 BC .\u00a0 That was the temple that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed on the Eve of the Babylonian captivity.\u00a0 Everyone takes that temple literally; there is no doubt that it is a literal temple; it even has sacrifices inside, and that temple is juxtaposed against the Millennial Temple that will come to the earth during the Millennial Kingdom. \u00a0It is a literal temple and it has sacrifices in it as well.\r\n\r\nIn the first part of the Book of Ezekiel,<\/strong> the Shekinah glory of God in chapters 8-11<\/strong>, leaves<\/em> the Solomonic temple just prior to Nebuchadnezzar destroying it.\u00a0 You get to the second part of the book or the final section, and the same Shekinah glory of God returns<\/em> to the temple.\u00a0 What balances those two parts is chapters 25-32,<\/strong> which is God\u2019s judgment on the nations.\u00a0 So the whole thing is kind of held up there by a pivot, and the book is held in perfect symmetry.\u00a0\u00a0 My point is simply that if you start to play games with the last part of the book, that affects what is going on in the first part of the book.\u00a0 If the temple in \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ezekiel 8-11<\/strong> is literal, and everyone says it is, with sacrifices, then why wouldn\u2019t the temple in Ezekiel 40-48<\/strong> be literal as well and also with sacrifices?\u00a0 So if you say, \u2018Well, you know, the 40-48 Temple is not literal<\/em>,\u2019 and as Darrell Bock says, he believes in a future temple but the walls are too big, he changes the dimensions.\u00a0 He takes White Out and starts to erase different parts of the Bible. \u00a0I will show you a quote who says, \u2018Yeah, it is a literal temple, but there can\u2019t be sacrifices in it<\/em>.\u2019\u00a0 What is happening is they\u2019re shifting their method of interpretation right in the middle of the book and treating prophecy differently than they would treat any historical section of the Bible.\u00a0 See that?\u00a0 So, here is a quote from Mark Rooker, and I just draw these quotes to your attention to show you what\u2019s happening in the area of Bible prophecy as these people are starting to marginalize Ezekiel\u2019s temple.\u00a0 Mark Rooker, a progressive dispensationalist who believes in the \u2018already not yet<\/em>\u2019 view of the Kingdom, \u201c\u2026does not take the sacrifices in a literal sense but views Ezekiel writing in the 6th<\/sup> century BC describing worship from his unique perspective\u2026.Ezekiel in referring to the literal worship of Yahweh in the Millennium, would be forced to use terms and concepts with which his audience was familiar.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 And then I added these words explaining what Rooker is saying here:\u00a0 Because Ezekiel\u2019s audience would understand restoration in terms of the restoration of sacrifices, Ezekiel merely described a restoration in these terms.\u00a0 Thus, Ezekiel\u2019s vision must not be understood as predicting the literal restoration of sacrifices in the Millennium. \u00a0So, what he is saying is, \u2018Well, the first temple, the Solomonic temple, is literal with sacrifices, and Ezekiel\u2019s temple, described the exact same way, is not literal with sacrifices, and what Ezekiel is actually doing is describing restoration in a way that those in Ezekiel\u2019s 6th<\/sup> century would understand it.<\/em>\u00a0 They would understand restoration in terms of a new temple with sacrifices and God had to come down to their level to give them that explanation, but God has absolutely no intention of bringing back a literal temple with sacrifices in the Millennial Kingdom.<\/em>\u2019\u00a0 That is what is called \u2018stylized\u2019<\/em> in scholarly circles, or \u2018contextualized language<\/em>.\u2019\u00a0 Rooker would never do that in chapters 8-11<\/strong> to the historical temple, but he has no problem doing that in Ezekiel 40-48<\/strong>.\r\n\r\nMy professor, Robert Chisholm, in his handbook on the prophets, goes the exact same direction on this. Notice that this is not some strange teaching I overheard in class; it is what he says in his published and printed book.\u00a0 Get it and read it for yourself.\u00a0 I wanted to see what he had to say about Ezekiel\u2019s Millennial temple because, in class, he was always maligning the idea that there would be a Millennial temple that Ezekiel describes that will literally come to the earth.\u00a0 Robert Chisholm says, \u201cEzekiel\u2019s vision of a Temple and a restored nation was not fulfilled in the postexilic period.\u00a0 How then should we expect the vision to be fulfilled?\u00a0 Scholars have answered this question in a variety of ways.\u00a0 On one end of the interpretive spectrum are those who see the vision as purely symbolic and as fulfilled in the New Testament church\u2026<\/em>\u201d [that is the amillennial position\u2014the Temple is happening right now. To make that work, you have to completely rewrite the prophecy.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t want to be an amillennialist, yet at the same time, which is so common with progressive dispensationalists, he wants to find a middle ground between \u00a0traditional dispensationalism that the school was founded on, for example, and amillennialism.\u00a0 So he isnt full-blown amillennial.\u00a0 So he says that on one end of the stick, he distances himself from the amillennialist, then]\u201d\u2026.\u00a0 \u201cOn the opposite end are the hyper-literalists<\/u><\/strong><\/em> [<\/u><\/strong>that would be us,Dr. Walvoord, Dr Ryrie, Dr. Chafer, \u2014 he is suddenly calling them hyper-literalists, John Whitcomb, another example]<\/u><\/strong>, \u2026 who contend that the vision will be fulfilled exactly as described during the millennial age.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 [So if you look at Ezekiel\u2019s prophecy and say that God is going to fulfill it exactly as He said, on the earth, because God cannot lie, you\u2019ll notice the derogatory term he ascribes to you \u2014 a hyper-literalist<\/em>, and in the process, he changes the definition of what a hyper-literalist<\/em> is.\u00a0 A hyper-literalist<\/em> is not someone who takes God\u2019s Word at face value whenever possible.\u00a0 A hyper-literalist<\/em> is someone who doesn\u2019t recognize figures of speech in the Bible when they are conspicuous \u2014 similes, metaphors, \u2018the mountains clap<\/em>\u2019 is obviously a personification or a metaphor.\u00a0 A hyper-literalist<\/em> is someone who doesn\u2019t recognize figures of speech, and he is misrepresenting what literal interpretation is.\u00a0 Literal interpretation has always recognized figures of speech.\u00a0 He is basically turning literalists into hyper-literalists<\/em> and changing the meaning of the word because when you study Ezekiel 40-48<\/strong>, there are no figures of speech at all; in fact, that temple is described in absolutely mind-numbing detail.\u00a0 Look at it, and you see that it is meant to be understood literally.\u00a0 Taking God at His word is not being a hyper-literalist<\/em>, yet he makes it sound that if you want to take God at His Word, you are a hyper-literalist<\/em>]. \u2026 \u201cin attempting to answer the question one must first recognize that Ezekiel\u2019s vision is contextualized <\/u><\/strong>for his sixth-century BC audience.\u00a0 He describes the reconciliation of God and his people in terms that would be meaningful to his audience.\u201d<\/em> How would they understand restoration?\u00a0 That is how the prophecy was given to them, but God has absolutely no intention of bringing back a literal millennium and a literal temple.\u00a0 All God was trying to communicate to His audience in a contextualized form, is that there will be a restoration one day.\r\n\r\nHe goes on and says, \u201cThey<\/em> [Ezekiel\u2019s audience] would naturally conceive of such reconciliation as involving the rebuilding of the temple, the re-institution of the sacrificial system, the renewal of the Davidic dynasty, and the return and reunification of the twelve exiled tribes.\u00a0 Since the fulfillment of the vision transcends these culturally conditioned boundaries, we should probably view it as idealized<\/u><\/strong> to some extent and look for an essential rather than an exact fulfillment<\/u><\/strong> of many of its features<\/em>\u2026[These are all fancy words for saying get out the White Out.\u00a0 The language here is idealized; essential rather than exact, and it is contextualized]\u2026 \u201cThe inclusion of so many minute details suggests that the temple described here will be a literal reality in the Jerusalem of the future\u2026<\/em>[So he just distanced himself from being an amillennialist].\u00a0 \u201cHowever<\/em>, [here is the middle ground]\u2026the final sacrifice of Jesus Christ has made the Levitical system<\/u> <\/strong>obsolete\u2026to return to this system with its sin offerings and such, would be a serious retrogression.\u201d \u00a0<\/em>\r\n\r\nSo he looks at Ezekiel\u2019s temple and says that some of it is literal but some of it isn\u2019t.\u00a0 The amillennialist says that none of it is literal.\u00a0 Chisholm, trying to find this middle ground, is essentially saying that the Temple structure itself is literal, but that there won\u2019t be any sacrifices in the temple.\u00a0 Then he goes so far as to say to bring back sacrifices would be to bring back the Levitical system.\u00a0 No, it would not, for this simple reason:\u00a0 according to the writings of Arnold Fruchtenbaum, and I would encourage you to get his book, Footsteps of the Messiah<\/u><\/strong>, he points out that there are at least 20 differences between this Temple and the Law of Moses.\u00a0 In other words, when this Temple comes to the earth one day, it won\u2019t be a re-institution of the Mosaic Law nor of the Levitical system; this is why so many of the rabbis had a very difficult time early on accepting Ezekiel as a canonical book; they had great debates about this because they saw these differences between the Law of Moses and Ezekiel\u2019s temple.\u00a0 By the way, the animal sacrifices that will come back in the millennium do not chip away at the finished work of Jesus Christ for the simple reason that there isn\u2019t anybody on planet earth who talked more in the Bible about the finished work of Christ than the apostle Paul.\u00a0 Yet Paul himself in Acts 21:26<\/strong> submitted himself to an animal sacrifice for purposes of not being an offense to the Jews.\u00a0 That shows me that there can be animal sacrifices in some sense that don\u2019t chip away at the finished work of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 These are all things that Chisholm is not bringing up, or surfacing.\r\n\r\nThink for a minute about what the Millennial Kingdom will be \u2014 there won\u2019t be any death except<\/em> for in very narrow circumstances.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you think that the human race would forget that the death of Jesus Christ is all about in that kind of environment?\u00a0 You\u2019re living in a world with practically no death at all, so it stands to reason that animal sacrifices would take place in this Temple in the Millennial Kingdom, to remind us of death, to remind us of what Jesus did for us.\u00a0 You have the same situation in early Genesis<\/strong> when early humanity was not carnivorous, they were herbivorous; not meat eaters, so when Adam and Eve sinned against God, they had no real concept of what they had done and the sacrifice that would be needed to redeem them back to God.\u00a0 So God took garments of skin and clothed Adam and Eve.\u00a0 Where did those garments of skin come from?\u00a0 Obviously, God had to kill an innocent animal on the spot to clothe Adam and Eve for their sin, and He is giving them a tangible demonstration of the cost of sin and what must be done to fix the problem.\u00a0 So, death itself then and there in Genesis 3<\/strong>, is an object lesson and in the Millennial Kingdom for a thousand years, with the prospect of death being a thing of the past, for the most part, animal sacrifices make perfect sense.\u00a0 Not to chisel away at the finished work of Jesus Christ, but they\u2019re a memorial looking back at what Jesus did for us.\u00a0 It is the exact same reason we take Communion as we did on Sunday.\u00a0 Why do we do that?\u00a0 The bread represents His body sacrificed for us; the cup represents His blood that was spilled for us so that we have a tangible and pictorial reminder of the price paid to procure our salvation.\u00a0 We will have that same sort of reality in the Millennial Kingdom.\u00a0 So there are ways to put this together without taking out an eraser to say that the Bible doesn\u2019t mean what it says, and that God was speaking in a contextualized way to a sixth century audience to communicate restoration in a way they could understand, but He has no intention of bringing back a \u00a0temple with sacrifices.\r\n\r\nSo Chisholm is treating Ezekiel\u2019s temple differently than he treated the Solomonic temple earlier in the book, and in the process switches his method of interpretation right in the middle of the book.\u00a0 John Walvoord never did this, nor did\u00a0 Charles Ryrie, John Whitcomb, and I can go down the list \u2014 Dwight Pentecost never did that, but this is what is currently in style, and how the subject of Bible prophecy starts to erode in a Kingdom Now climate.\r\n\r\nChisholm goes on to say, \u201cEzekiel\u2019s audience would have found it impossible to conceive of a restored covenant community apart from the sacrificial system.\u00a0 Now that the fulfillment of the vision transcends that cultural context, we can expect it to be essentially fulfilled<\/u><\/strong> when the Israel of the future celebrates the redemptive work of their savior in their new temple <\/em>[\u2018essentially fulfilled<\/em>\u2019 is another way of saying that it\u2019s not going to be filled exactly<\/em> like God says, but sort<\/em> of<\/em> like God says, and if you wont buy into this, then you\u2019re a hyper-literalist<\/em>.\u00a0 Well, I wont buy into it, because: \u00a0(1) God can\u2019t lie, and (2) I would have to inconsistently treat the Book of Ezekiel] \u00a0\u201c\u2026Ezekiel\u2019s audience would have found this portrayal quite natural.\u00a0 However, Jesus, the one who fulfills the vision, will have no need to offer such sacrifices, nor will he institute a dynasty.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 I don\u2019t think that last sentence is true at all; I have given you reasons why continuing animal sacrifices in the Millennial Kingdom are not at all any assault on the completed, finished work of Christ on the cross.\r\n\r\nMost people , when they hear this kind of thing, \u2018essentially fulfilled; idealized language,<\/em>\u2019 all of these kids of things, your average student listens to that and says, \u2018Wow, that is scholarly; that is novel stuff.<\/em>\u2019\u00a0 When I first heard it, I was sort of impressed by it, too.\u00a0 Until I started to research it, and what I discovered in the writings of John Calvin, amillennialist, replacement theologian, 16th<\/sup> century \u2014 he used the same language to rewrite prophecy after prophecy after prophecy in the Bible.\r\n\r\nSo Isaiah 35:1<\/strong> says, \u201cthe wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad<\/em>\u201d a prophecy about the Millennium.\u00a0 Here is what John Calvin says about that passage, and tell me if it doesn\u2019t sound like Rooker and Chisholm.\u00a0 \u201cThis passage is explained in various ways.\u00a0 I pass by the dreams of the Jews<\/u><\/strong><\/em> [<\/u><\/strong>the Jews who want to take this literally; it is just a fantasy in their minds, says Calvin], who apply all passages of this kind to the temporal reign of the Messiah, which they have contrived by their own imagination<\/em><\/strong><\/u>\u2026I willingly view this passage as referring to Judaea, and afterwards to other parts of the world<\/u><\/strong><\/em> [the problem is that isn\u2019t what the verse says]\u2026. \u201cLet us now see when this prophecy was fulfilled<\/em>, or<\/em> shall be fulfilled.\u00a0 The Lord began some kind of restoration when he brought his people out of Babylon:\u00a0 but that was only a foretaste, and, therefore, I have no hesitation in saying that this passage, as well as others of a similar kind, must refer to the kingdom of Christ<\/u><\/strong>; \u2026 [<\/em>In other words, don\u2019t look for the \u2018wilderness and the solitary places being glad\u2019<\/em> in the Millennial Kingdom even though Judea was a barren waste place when Calvin wrote these words.\u00a0 Calvin essentially believed that the passage is happening today in a spiritual sense] \u2026 \u201cand in no other light could it be viewed, if we compare it with other prophecies.\u201d<\/em>\r\n\r\nNotice Amos 9:13<\/strong> \u2014 \u201cBehold, the days are coming,\u201d says the LORD, \u201cWhen the plowman shall overtake the reaper, And the treader of grapes him who sows seed; The mountains shall drip with sweet wine, And all the hills shall flow with it.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 This is talking about economic prosperity in the Millennial Kingdom.\u00a0 Notice what Calvin does with this passage.\u00a0 \u201cHere the Prophet describes the felicity which shall be under the reign of Christ:\u00a0 and we know that whenever the Prophets set forth promises of a happy and prosperous state to God\u2019s people, they adopt metaphorical expressions<\/u><\/strong>,\u2026<\/em>[in other words, he isn\u2019t talking literally what the Bible says is literal, he is making it a metaphor] \u2026 \u201cand say, that abundance of all good things shall flow, that there shall be the most fruitful produce, that provisions shall be bountifully supplied;\u2026 [<\/em>watch this now, this is exactly what Chisholm says] \u2026 \u201cfor they accommodated their mode of speaking to the notions of that ancient people;<\/u><\/strong> it is therefore no wonder if they sometimes speak to them as to children<\/u><\/strong>. \u2026<\/em> [that is how they would have understood restoration, so God kind of got down in the sand as they were playing in the sandpit with their little plastic shovels and building sand castles, and God got down in the sand to explain things to them in language they would understand.\u00a0 But you have to be na\u00efve hyper-literalists<\/em>, to believe that God will actually fulfill these prophecies literally]. \u2026 \u201cAt the same time, the Spirit under these figurative expressions<\/u><\/strong> declares, that the kingdom of Christ <\/u><\/strong>shall in every way be happy and blessed, or that the Church of God <\/u><\/strong>which means the same thing, shall be blessed, when Christ shall begin to reign.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 [In other words, these things are happening now even though the text says that they\u2019re happening on the earth in the future].\r\n\r\nNotice Zechariah 14:4<\/strong>, you know that passage.\u00a0 Jesus is going to return to the Mount of Olives one day, Second Advent, and what will happen to the Mount of Olives?\u00a0 It will split per Zechariah 14:4 (NKJV)\u2014<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\u201cAnd in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, Which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, From east to west,\u2026<\/em>\u201d What this means is that Jesus will come back at the end of the Tribulation period, His feet will touch the Mount of Olives, and the Mount of Olives will split in half.\u00a0 There is no reason why I can\u2019t take that passage for what it says.\u00a0 Notice what John Calvin, Kingdom Now theologian says, \u201cFor as we are dull and entangled in earthly thoughts, our minds can hardly rise up to heaven, though the Lord with a clear voice invites us to himself.\u00a0 The Prophet then, in order to aid our weakness, adds a vivid representation,<\/u><\/strong> \u2026<\/em>[so he is speaking to weak people, to mere children, and rather than to communicate to them some higher spiritual truth, he explains to them in their sandboxes, words that they would understand.\u00a0 But God has no intention of returning to the Mount of Olives and the Mount of Olives splitting in half.\u00a0 The language is stylized, exaggerated, per John Calvin.\u00a0 He goes on, \u201cas though God stood before their eyes.\u00a0 Stand, he says, shall his feet on the Mount of Olives.\u00a0 He does not here promise a miracle, such as even the ignorant might conceive to be literal<\/u><\/strong>; <\/em>\u2026[see the tone here?\u00a0 Take that literally, and you are ignorant because you don\u2019t understand the higher spiritual meaning.\u00a0 It reminds me of Chisholm calling people who take Ezekiel\u2019s temple literally \u2014 hyper-literalists<\/em>. It is the same type of derisive tone and spirit]. \u2026 nor does he do this in what follows, when he says, The mount shall be rent\u2026half\u2026to the east and half to the west.\u00a0 This has never happened, that mount has never been rent:\u00a0 but as the Prophet could not, under those grievous trials, which might have overwhelmed the minds of the godly a hundred times, have extolled the power of God\u2026without employing a highly figurative language, he therefore accommodates himself, as I have said, to the capacity of our flesh.<\/u><\/strong>\u201d\u00a0 <\/em>He is explaining things to children knowing that children can\u2019t handle the adult language.\u00a0 \u2018I know that your Bible says He is going to come back and the Mount of Olives will split, but that isn\u2019t what will happen.\u00a0 I know that your Bible says that there will be a functioning temple in the Millennial Kingdom but that isn\u2019t what is going to happen<\/em>.\u2019\u00a0 That is the mindset out there.\u00a0 I have noticed that people who believe that we are in the Kingdom now have no problem doing this.\r\n\r\nHow about the prophecies related to Babylon?\u00a0 We have been studying those on Sunday? (See slides on Isaiah 13-14 and Jeremiah 50-51<\/strong>). \u00a0\u00a0I have tried to explain, and here is a quote from John Walvoord to that effect, but those prophecies have never been fulfilled for the simple reason that there was no war, no battle, no cataclysm when Babylon fell to the Persians in Daniel 5<\/strong> in 539 BC.\u00a0 \u00a0That is why so much of the prophecies of Jeremiah show up in the book of Revelation 17-18<\/strong> (see slide on Parallels Between Jeremiah 50-51 & Revelation 17-18)<\/strong>.\u00a0 As we are going through that material verse-by-verse on Sunday, I\u2019m making an effort to show you every time that one of Jeremiah\u2019s prophecies is being fulfilled.\r\n\r\nThat leads us to the conclusion that if Jeremiah\u2019s and Isaiah\u2019s prophecies concerning the destruction of Babylon have never been fulfilled literally, there must be a resurgence of Babylon in the last days so she can be destroyed exactly as God said, which is what the whole seventh bowl judgment is about.\u00a0 That is why Revelation 17 and 18<\/strong> are in your Bible.\r\n\r\nHow am I reaching this conclusion?\u00a0 I\u2019m taking God\u2019s Word at face value.\u00a0 You see, that school of thought is so pass\u00e9 today, because the language that is being used by Chisholm and Homer Heater, et al., is called the destruction genre<\/u><\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 The language is stylized and exaggerated; the prophecies concerning the destruction of Babylon were essentially fulfilled.\u00a0 So, there wasn\u2019t a war, a cataclysm, not even a battle, when the Persians got the upper hand over the Babylonians in Daniel 5 <\/strong>in 539 BC , and by the way, the writings of Herodotus et al very clearly show us that there was no cataclysm and no battle when Babylon fell to the Persians in 539 BC.\r\n\r\nBut these guys come along and say, \u2018Even though Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesy total destruction, Babylon being so severely destroyed that no one would use her building materials again, and her destruction would be like Sodom\u2019s and Gomorrah\u2019s,\u2026 <\/em>what they\u2019re saying is\u2026 \u00a0\u2018that those prophecies were essentially fulfilled through a destruction genre or a hyperbolic method of interpretation; they\u2019re just hyperboles,\u2019 <\/em>see that?\u2019\u00a0 When you move into the area of scholarship, this is how scholars, even in our own schools and in our camp, are taking Bible prophecy.\u00a0 I have this quote from John Walvoord, and he certainly didn\u2019t take the prophecies that way.\u00a0 But Chisholm and Homer Heater, et al., have no problem doing this.\u00a0 That is how prophecy is taking a hit over and over again in our circles.\r\n\r\n(See slide on Prophecy Panorama).<\/strong>\u00a0 How long will the thousand year kingdom be?\u00a0 What do you think?\u00a0 I think it will last a thousand years.\u00a0 In this class, I have given you four reasons why a thousand means a thousand.\u00a0 Robert Thomas who wrote a great commentary on Revelation says, \u201cno number in Revelation is verifiably a symbolic number.\u201d\u00a0 <\/em>\r\n\r\nDarrell Bock, the progenitor of progressive dispensationalism is in print, and I have it in my book [The Coming Kingdom<\/u><\/strong>] in one of the footnotes providing the source and page number.\u00a0 He says that a thousand doesn\u2019t mean a thousand.\u00a0 It just means a long period of time.\u00a0 You will notice that Darrell Bock is not an amillennialist; he still believes in a future kingdom of some sort.\u00a0 He just doesn\u2019t think a thousand means a thousand.\u00a0 Again, he is trying to find this middle ground between traditional dispensationalism and full blown\u00a0 amillennialism.\r\n\r\nHow about the land promises in the Book of Genesis<\/strong> where God promised Abraham a track of real estate from modern-day Egypt to modern-day Iraq from the Nile to the Euphrates?\u00a0 How do you think God will fulfill that promise?\u00a0 I think it will be fulfilled exactly like God said, but these guys come along and start arguing for essential fulfillment, \u2018Oh yeah, there will be some kind of earthly kingdom; Israel will kind of be there, but there is no talk about her being head over the nations\u2019 <\/em>[as the Bible says; there is no talk about the land promises being fulfilled exactly like God said].\u00a0 That is the way Pentecost, Walvoord, Ryrie, John Whitcomb all talked, but none of these guys talk that way; they use a lot of fancy language, I think, largely borrowed from John Calvin, not telling their students the source from which they got this language.\u00a0 Your average twenty-something listening to that says, \u2018Wooo, that is really academic,<\/em>\u2019 and all they\u2019re doing is regurgitating John Calvin.\u00a0 So they\u2019re starting to argue that it is just \u2018essential fulfillment,<\/em>\u2019 not exact<\/em> fulfillment<\/em>.\r\n\r\nDarrell Bock was interviewed in Christianity Today in 1992, see quote in my book.\u00a0 He says that his version of progressive dispensationalism \u201c\u2026is less land-centered and less future-centered.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 Those are exact quotes from the article.\u00a0 What does less land-centered and less future-centered mean?\u00a0 \u2018Well, the land promises aren\u2019t going to be exactly fulfilled like God said.\u00a0 And Ezekiel 47<\/strong>, which goes into all this detail about which tribe gets which chunk of land and that tribe will get that chunk of land in the Kingdom, and that tribe will get that chunk of land \u2014 is not going to be fulfilled exactly that way either<\/em>.\u2019\u00a0 Gee, do you take the Book of Joshua that way where the nation went into the land under the days of Joshua and they partitioned out the land amongst the 12 tribes?\u00a0 Do you take that book that way?\u00a0 \u2018Oh that was all exactly fulfilled?\u2019<\/em> \u00a0Why then, can\u2019t God do the same thing in Ezekiel 47<\/strong> in the Millennial Kingdom and divide the land up specifically among the 12 tribes?\u00a0 \u2018Ohh, that\u2019s a different genre; we\u2019re no longer dealing with historical narrative; now we\u2019re re dealing with prophetic narrative.\u00a0 So that allows me to switch my hermeneutic right in the middle of reading the Bible<\/em>.\u2019\u00a0 It is the same reason that they\u2019re saying \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Ezekiel \u00a08-11<\/strong> is a literal Solomonic temple, but not Ezekiel 40-48<\/strong> even though the two temples are held in juxtaposition to each other.\r\n\r\nKenneth Gentry, who is an amillennialist, says, \u201cThe proper understanding of the thousand-year time frame in Revelation 20 is that it is representative of a long and glorious era and is not limited to a literal 365,000 days.\u00a0 The figure represents <\/em>[he gets an A for creativity here]\u2026 \u201ca perfect cube of 10, which is the humber of quantitative perfection<\/em>.\u201d [See how slippery it is like slippery when wet?\u00a0 I thought seven was the number of perfection in the Bible, by the way.\u00a0 Well, Gentry says today it is 10] \u2026 \u2018because I need 10-cubed to explain a thousand years.\u00a0 So, a thousand doesn\u2019t mean a thousand, it just means a long and glorious era.\u2019\u00a0 <\/em>Why does he say that?\u00a0 Because he thinks that we are in the kingdom now; the kingdom exists between the two advents of Christ.\u00a0 The last time I checked, how long of a distance is there between the two advents of Christ?\u00a0 Two thousand years, doggone it, the Bible says a thousand years.\u00a0 \u2018Oh, I know what I\u2018ll do, I\u2018ll just make it a silly putty number<\/em>.\u00a0 You guys following this?\u00a0 This is what is happening repeatedly by people in this area of Bible prophecy.\u00a0 They would never ever treat any other part of the Bible this way; if they did, they\u2019d be full-fledged liberals.\u00a0 \u00a0You can\u2019t come to the Bible and where it says \u2018Jesus had twelve apostles<\/em>,\u2019 and then say, \u2018Well that really means 11 or 10 or 9.\u2019\u00a0 Jesus was tempted 40 days in the wilderness \u2014 well, that really means 72 days. <\/em>\u00a0If you do that to any other part of the Bible, then you are a liberal, but these guys will be literal in the first coming historical passages, but they adopt a whole different method of interpretation in the second coming passages.\r\n\r\nWhat makes our position at Sugar Land Bible Church unique, is not just literal interpretation; it is consistent<\/em><\/strong> literal interpretation. The word \u2018consistent\u2019<\/em><\/strong> is very important.\u00a0 We take God at His Word whenever we can unless there is an obvious figure of speech, and we don\u2019t just do that in the gospels, we do it in the Book of Revelation<\/strong> and in the Book of Genesis<\/strong>.\u00a0 Consistent literal interpretation<\/em><\/strong>.\r\n\r\nThat question should be asked of every ministerial candidate:\u00a0 Do you believe in not just literal interpretation but consistent literal interpretation?\u00a0 In fact, I am looking at Greg Lattrell out there; maybe we should put add that to one of our 40-50 questions that we have already on our missionary questionnaire.\r\n\r\nNow where is, and I\u2019m getting close to closing\u2014where is Gentry getting all of this from because it looks so academic and scholarly?\u00a0 Again, he is channeling John Calvin who was good in a lot of areas of theology, but not prophecy.\u00a0 He hauled into the Reformation all of the bad amillennial thinking that dominated the Middle Ages, and Calvin never corrected it.\u00a0 So what does Calvin say about the thousand years?\u00a0 \u201cBut<\/em> Satan<\/u> [<\/em><\/strong>notice this, if you believe in a literal thousand years, you\u2019re being influenced by satan]\u2026 \u201chas not only befuddled [<\/em>talk about poisoning the well, and he says this right in his book, Institutes of the Christian Religion, <\/u><\/strong>his most famous book when he wrote when he was 26 years old.\u00a0 If I started a movement based on things I said when I was 26, I would be scared to death.\u00a0 Calvin was a brilliant guy, but let\u2019s pretend that he was<\/em> saved; a lot of people think that he wasn\u2019t saved at all because he gives no testimony of salvation.\u00a0 Brilliant guy, an attorney, but don\u2019t you think you need some time for maturity before you rush into print with your key piece of literature at age 26?\u00a0 Don\u2019t you think that people ought to sort of temper his comments when they read some of the things he said, particularly about prophecy?\u00a0 Because a lot of people, when you talk to them, they think Calvin is the height of truth.\u00a0 So Calvin makes a comment here about the thousand years,] \u2026 \u201cmen\u2019s senses to make them bury with the corpses the memory of resurrection; he has also attempted to corrupt<\/u> <\/strong>this part of the doctrine with various falsifications<\/u>\u2026<\/strong>Now their fiction<\/u><\/strong> is too childish<\/u><\/strong> either to need or to be worth a refutation.\u00a0 And the Apocalypse, from which they undoubtedly drew a pretext for their error<\/u><\/strong>, does not support them.\u00a0\u00a0 For the number \u2018one thousand\u2019 [Rev 20:4] does not apply to the eternal blessedness of the church but but only to the various disturbances that awaited the church, while still toiling on earth<\/u>\u2026\u201d<\/strong> [<\/em>the thousand years are being fulfilled right now, he said, therefore, he is doing what these guys typically do \u2014 they trash and deliteralize Bible prophecy, and they begin to allegorize Bible prophecy]\u2026 \u201cThose who assign the children of God a thousand years in which to enjoy the inheritance of the life to come do not realize\u201d\u2026 <\/em>[let me stop right there \u2014 what he is critiquing there is the first two centuries of the Church as represented by Justin Martyr who said \u2018belief in a future thousand year kingdom with an enlarged city of Jerusalem and a temple as spoken by Ezekiel and Isaiah, taking that literally is a test of orthodoxy.\u2019\u00a0 <\/em>They were called chiliasts<\/em>, meaning a thousand<\/em> \u2014 the Greek word for a thousand<\/em> is chilia<\/em>.\u00a0 So he is critiquing those guys way back in church history, who I think, had it right.\u00a0\u00a0 ] \u2026 \u201chow much reproach<\/u><\/strong> they are casting upon Christ and his Kingdom.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em>Why does he say, \u2018Christ and his Kingdom<\/em>?\u2019\u00a0 Because we are in the Kingdom now!\u00a0 Therefore, a thousand has to become a kind of silly putty number.\u00a0 That\u2019s John Calvin.\r\n\r\n\u2018Well Andy, you seem sort of exercised about this, you probably got your blood pressure up a little bit, why does this bother you?<\/em>\u2019\u00a0 I am going to close \u2014 I told you I\u2019m closing with Calvin, but I\u2019m actually closing with this here \u2014 Paul Lee Tan, who wrote a wonderful book,