Seven Things You Have To Know To Understand End Times Prophecy … Part 3Excerpts from a Forthcoming
Book by Jack Kelley
This is the final
installment of our series entitled Seven Things You Have To Know To
Understand End Times Prophecy.
A couple of
days before He was arrested, Jesus had a private conversation with four of
His disciples, His inner circle.
They were Peter and Andrew, and James and John, two pairs of
brothers. They had asked Him
about the 2nd Coming and the End of the Age. His response is
contained in Matt. 24-25, Mark 13, and Luke 21. It's called the Olivet Discourse
because the conversation took place on the Mt. of Olives. I called our study on it "The End
Times According To Jesus" and have included a link to it at the end of
this article. In Matthew's
account, the most detailed, Jesus used several specific geographic and
time references. He did this so His readers wouldn't get confused as to
the identity of His ultimate audience. Having commanded us to understand
this passage in Matt. 24:15, He wanted to make sure we got it
right. I'll point them out and explain their significance to our
subject.
Of course,
making the timing of events clear doesn't stop some from ignoring those
references in an attempt to make the Lord's words fit their preconceived
ideas. The result is that some commentators have Him speaking to a
different audience than He intended, and appearing to say things He never
said. For example,
some take the erroneous view that since the Olivet Discourse is in the
gospels it's for the Church. But in Matt. 24:16 the Lord makes it
clear that He's admonishing a future generation of people in Judea (as
Israel was called then) to pray that their flight from the anti-Christ
doesn't take place in the winter or fall on the Sabbath. The mountains of Judea are
treacherous in the winter, and Jews are forbidden under the Law to travel
more than 1000 paces on the Sabbath for any reason. The warning is
intended for latter-day Israel, back in its Old Covenant relationship at
the beginning of the Great Tribulation, 3½ years from the Second Coming.
The Church is already gone. In Matt
24:15-21 He explains that the Great Tribulation will begin with the
Abomination that causes Desolation, the anti-Christ standing in the Temple
declaring himself to be God. That's the signal for the Jews to flee into
the mountains. Then in
Matt 24:29 He says that immediately after the tribulation ends,
the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be
shaken. It's now 3 ½ years later. The Great Tribulation has
ended. Matt
24:36 begins with "No
one knows about that day or hour …" What day? What hour? The day and hour of His Second
Coming. Stay in context. That's been His subject since
verse 30. I believe the
reason He said "day or hour" is so we would know for sure that He was
talking about the actual Day and Hour of His Coming, not the general
time. (Matt
24:40-41 are often
used to show where a post-tribulation rapture takes place, but a little
further along I'll show you why that can't be. First let's continue with our
review of the Lord's time references.) Matt 25
begins with the phrase
"At that time, …" and
contains three illustrations the Lord used to describe the time of His
Coming. For the purpose of
this study, I'll just high light what they reveal about the identity of
their intended recipients.
For a more complete study on them, use the links at the end of this
article.
The Parable of 10 Virgins
The first one
is the Parable of 10 Virgins.
It's sometimes used to illustrate the precarious position of
"backsliders" in the Church, but there are several problems with that
view. First, if oil
is being used symbolically here, as I believe it is, then the principle of
Expositional Constancy demands that it represent the Holy Spirit. Can we
lose the Holy Spirit, or exhaust our supply of Him? Ephesians 1:13, and 2
Cor. 1:21-22 both say that the Holy Spirit has been sealed within us
as a guarantee of our inheritance, and that it happened solely because we
believed the Gospel message. Through out the New Testament, it's clear
that our position with the Lord is based on belief, not behavior. Remember, all 10 are caught
sleeping when He returns. They all behaved badly. It's the oil that distinguishes
one group from the other. Second,
scholars never call these 10 the Bride, but often call them
bridesmaids. The Church is
not a bridesmaid! And it
looks like they're trying to get into the Seudas Mitzvah (wedding
feast) a banquet that follows the
wedding ceremony. If so, none
of them made it to the actual marriage ceremony, oil or not, so none of
them can be the bride.
These virgins
aren't the Church. They're Tribulation survivors trying to get into the
Millennial Kingdom. Five were
saved during the Great Tribulation, signified by the oil, and are welcomed
in. The Five without oil when
He arrived are not and are excluded. The purpose of
the Parable is to show that waiting to be sure the Lord has returned
before deciding to let Him into your heart is a recipe for failure. That's why the people of Earth
mourned when they saw Him coming on the clouds. The final whistle had blown, the
game was over. They were too
late!
The Parable Of The Talents
In Matt
25:14, at the beginning of the Parable of the Talents, the word
"again" means he's giving another illustration from the same time period
as the parable of the 10 Virgins, the Day of His Coming. Though our use of talent as being
a gift or ability derives from this parable, a talent was a Greek unit of
measure, usually monetary.
The key to
interpreting a parable is knowing that everything is symbolic of something
else, so in this parable a talent represents something valuable to the
Lord that he wished to have invested. Upon his return, He asks those to
whom he had entrusted it what they've accomplished. Those who teach that
the talents are gifts given to the Church to be used wisely, producing a
measurable return, haven't read the last verse of the parable. The servant who buried his talent
in the ground and produced nothing with it was thrown into the outer
darkness, the eternal destiny of unbelievers. Is the Lord teaching a works based
salvation here? Threatening us with the loss of our salvation if we don't
produce enough with the gifts He gave us? It can't be! Reading the
Bible, it's clear that money isn't important to the Lord. But Psalm 138:2 says that
He values His Word above all else.
I believe the talents represent His Word. Those who sow it into the hearts
of others find that it multiplies in new believers. Those who study it find that their
own understanding grows, multiplying their faith. But those who
ignore His word find that it's like burying it in the ground. Out of sight, out of mind, until
what little they began with is lost to them. This proves it never held any
value for them, and condemns them as unbelievers, to be cast into the
outer darkness. They had
heard the truth and ignored it.
Now it's too late. In 2 Thes. 2:10 Paul describes them as
those who perish because they refused to love the Truth and so be
saved. Some will bear the
further responsibility of having led their followers astray by their
refusal to teach the truth. In His Word, the Lord laid out every action He would take regarding His plan for Planet Earth. "Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets," He said. (Amos 3:7) He did this so man would never have to wonder what He was up to. And where the End of the Age is concerned He had more to say than about any other subject. No one can plead ignorance. Again the point is that some who survive the Great Tribulation will be welcomed in to the Kingdom and some won't, and faith is the determining factor. The Sheep And Goat Judgment
Matt.
25:31 leaves no doubt
as to the timing on this one.
It begins "When the Son of Man comes … " and goes on to talk about
the Lord setting up His throne on Earth after His return for the Judgment
of the Nations, actually a judgment of Gentile tribulation survivors. The Lord doesn't judge nations in
the eternal sense, only individuals.
The Greek word here is ethnos, and means "people of every
kind." They'll be judged by
how they treated "His brothers" during the Great Tribulation. It's called
the Sheep and Goat judgment, with the sheep being those who helped His
brothers through the horrific times just past and goats being those who
didn't. Some say His
brothers are believers, whether Jew or Gentile, and others say they're
specifically Jews, but the most important point is that these tribulation
survivors aren't being judged by their works. Their works are being cited as
evidence of their faith, as in James 2:18. To give aid to a
believer, especially a Jew, during the Great Tribulation will take even
more courage than it did in Hitler's Germany, and will be an offense
punishable by death. Only a follower of Jesus, certain of His eternal
destiny, would dare do it or even want to. Those who helped "His brothers"
will have demonstrated their faith by their works and will be ushered live
into the Kingdom. Those who
refused to help will have condemned themselves to the outer darkness by
this evidence of their lack of faith. All three
illustrations teach the same lesson.
Surviving believers go live into the Kingdom. Some will have relied
exclusively on the Holy Spirit's gift of faith, as in the Parable of the
10 Virgins. Others will have
multiplied their faith by studying and sharing His word, as in the Parable
of the Talents. Still others have put their faith into action, risking
their lives in the bargain. They're the Sheep of the Sheep and Goat
Judgment. But just like
it's been throughout history, all are saved by faith. Where's The
Rapture?
The Sheep and
Goat judgment is actually an expansion of Matt. 24: 40-41 "One
taken and the other left …" Beside the timing problem, here's why these
verses can't be describing the Rapture. The Greek word translated taken in
verses 40 and 41 means "received."
Captains choosing up sides in a sandlot baseball game point to
someone and say, "I'll take you."
It means, "Come over here. You're on my team." No problem so far,
the Lord is taking some but not others. But the
primary meaning of the word translated left is "to send away" as a
divorcing husband would "send away" his wife. In those days wives had no rights
and except in very unusual circumstances didn't own property. The marriage home was the
husband's property, usually built on his family's land. If he divorced his wife, he sent
her away to live somewhere else, excluding her from his presence. Unbelievers are not sent away in
this manner at the Rapture.
This passage isn't describing the rapture. The timing, the context, and the disposition of the parties are all wrong. It's a summary of the Sheep and Goat judgment. Those taken (received) go live into the Kingdom in their natural bodies and help to re-populate the Earth, while those left (sent away) are put into the Outer Darkness, forever banned from the presence of God. (If Matt. 24: 40-41 is the rapture, how would there be any sheep left for the upcoming Sheep and Goat judgment. They would have all just been taken!) As
it was in the days of Noah so shall it be at the coming of the Son of
Man (Matt.
24:37) Let's back up now and address this overview statement. In the days of Noah the people of
Earth could be separated into three groups. There were the unbelievers who
perished in the Flood, the family of Noah who were preserved through the
Flood, and Enoch who was taken from Earth before the Flood. (Enoch was translated in Genesis
5. That means that God took
him live into Heaven. The
Flood came in Genesis 6.)
There are some interesting similarities between Enoch and the Church. His name means "teaching," one of the primary roles of the Church. Some traditions hold that Enoch was born on the 6th day of Sivan and was translated on his birthday. The 6th of Sivan is the day in the Hebrew Calendar on which the Feast of Pentecost is celebrated. It's the day the Church was born. Will we be raptured on our birthday as well? Time will tell. In any case, Enoch makes a good model of the Church. But you say, "Enoch was only one body." So is the Church. 6) The Duration and Purpose of the
Millennium Like rapture
and Lucifer, millennium is a word of Latin origin and doesn't appear any
where in the Scriptures. We
get it from two Latin words, mille, or 1000, and annum, or year. Mille annum, millennium, the
Lord's 1000-year reign on Earth, also known as the Kingdom Age. It's the
seventh and final thousand years of the Age of Man, begun with the birth
of Adam. It's often confused
with Eternity, but as we saw earlier the two are distinct. A Millennium is obviously a
defined span of time, while by definition Eternity is the absence of
time. The Millennium On
Earth
During the
Millennium, the Lord will be King of Heaven and Earth, Earth being
restored to the condition it was in when Adam was created. This will include restoring peace
between man and the animals, bringing back Earth's original garden-like
environment with its world wide sub-tropical climate, eliminating foul
weather, killer storms, earthquakes and extremes of heat and cold. The
span of man's life will begin increasing again to equal those of the
Genesis patriarchs. Sickness
and disease, those by-products of sin, will be greatly reduced. It appears the population of Earth
will be sustained by the return to an agrarian economy, but with all the
obstacles Adam faced gone as the curse of Genesis 3 is finally
lifted. Man will easily
produce enough for his family's use, and enjoy doing it. None will labor unproductively, or
primarily for the benefit of others. Children will grow up without fear
and adults will grow old in peace. (A summary of Isaiah
2:1-5, 4:2-6, 35, 41:18-20, 60:10-22,
65:17-25, Micah
4:1-8) Since Earth
will be re-populated mostly by Tribulation survivors in their natural
bodies, there will still be sin although to a much lesser extent,
especially at the beginning. In the so-called Millennial Temple in Israel,
priests will conduct daily sacrifices for sin, just like in Old Testament
days. But while Old Testament
believers observed Temple sacrifices to learn what the Messiah would one
day do for them, original Millennial believers will observe them to
remember, and their children to learn, what He's already done.
(Ezek
40-47) The Lord will
reign supreme on Earth as King and High Priest, the head of both a
one-world government and a one-world religion. He'll brook no threats to His
established peace, nor any deviation from His doctrine. (Psalm
2) At the
beginning, only believers will inhabit Earth, enjoying the truly utopian
environment that mankind has always dreamed about, but only God can
create. They'll soon begin
bearing children who, as they mature, will have to choose to receive the
Lord's pardon just as we have. And as it is today some will reject Him to
go their own way. By the time
Satan is released at the end of the Millennium, there will be so many
who've rejected the Lord that he'll quickly find a huge army of recruits
for his final attempt to kick the Lord off the
planet. But with fire
from Heaven the Lord will destroy Satan's army, casting him into the Lake
of Fire, where he'll be tormented day and night forever. Never again will
he or any of his accomplices be free to afflict God's people. (Rev.
20:7-10) How'd That
Happen?
What began as
an age of unimagined peace and prosperity will have ended in open warfare
against the very King who made it possible. How could this be? Before the
Millennium, man had three excuses for his inability to please God. The first was Satan, whose clever
schemes led man astray. But all during the Millennium, Satan has been
bound in darkness. The second was
the bad influence of unbelievers among us. But as the Millennium began, Earth
was cleansed of all its unbelievers.
Only those who had given their hearts to the Lord were allowed to
enter the Kingdom. And the third
was God's absence from our midst. For 2600 years, with the exception of
one 33 year period, God had been absent from the planet leaving man to
"fend for himself." But all
during the Millennium Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have dwelt in the midst
of the people of Earth. What's the
point?
In the
Millennium, Earth dwellers will live in the ideal of circumstances of
paradise, like Adam and Eve. The curse is gone and the Lord's there among
them, everyone's a believer and Satan is bound. And yet, there's enough
residual sin in the hearts of unregenerate man that he'll rebel the first
chance he gets. Sinful man
cannot dwell in the presence of a Holy God, being unable to keep His
commandments. He needs a Savior and Redeemer to reconcile him to God, and
a heart transplant to cure him of his sin nature. The whole point of the Millennium
is to prove once and for all that man's heart is deceitful above all
things and beyond cure. (Jere. 17:9) The Millennium In the New
Jerusalem
Life is far different in the Home of the Redeemed. Although the Kings of the Earth bring us their splendor, no unbeliever can ever set foot in the place, nor even a believer in his natural state. Our mansions in the sky are built of the purest gold as are the streets that run before them, their foundations made from precious stones. There's no Temple in the New Jerusalem because the Lamb of God dwells there and is our Temple. The energy source that lights and warms us is the Glory of God, and our radiance in turn provides light for the nations of Earth. Our glorified bodies will have been released from their dimensional bonds, allowing us to appear and disappear at will, traveling back and forth through time at the speed of thought as we plumb the limitless delights of God's Creation. No detail has been overlooked where our comfort and happiness are concerned. There's no more death or mourning or crying or pain, only the endless joys of exploration and discovery. As it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. (1 Cor. 2:9) Our home is not on Earth, but it's not at the Throne of God either. Coming down out of the heavens but never landing on Earth, our home could be called a low orbit satellite in today's terminology. 1400 miles high, wide and deep, it wouldn't fit in Israel, let alone Jerusalem. If we did touch down on Earth we'd need a space equivalent to the area from Maine to Florida to the Mississippi River, or all of Western Europe from Sweden to Italy. And we'd be over 4000 times as tall as the world's tallest building. The Church has been described as the Pearl of Great Price. A pearl is created in the ocean and grows as a response to an irritant. It's the only precious gem to come from a living organism. At harvest time, it's removed from its natural habitat to be placed in a custom made setting where it becomes an object of adornment. And so it is with the Church. Created from among the Gentile nations, the Church was a major irritant to both Israel and the Roman Empire. Though hundreds of years of persecution were intended for our destruction, we grew steadily. At the harvest we'll be taken from Earth to be placed in mansions the Lord has built especially for us, to become the object of His adornment. 7) Eternity I can't say much about eternity except to tell you that there is one. The Bible ends at the end of the Millennium, yet teaches us that every one ever born lives forever. The question is not whether you have eternal life. The question is where you will spend eternity. There are only two possible destinations and we've described them both. Eternal bliss in the presence of God, or eternal shame and punishment banished from the presence of God. While God is patient, not desiring that any should be lost, it's not His decision to make. He's given it to you, knowing that without an alternative, your choice to voluntarily accept Him is meaningless. He loves you enough to risk that you'll make the wrong decision, and enough to abide by your wishes if you do. Don't get me wrong. No one would knowingly choose to go to a place of eternal torment. But many will wind up there. When they do it'll be because they refused to choose Heaven, and it's the only other alternative. Here then are
Seven Things you Have To Know To Understand End Times Prophecy. Mastering them will allow you to
successfully avoid all the heresy and false teaching that swirls about in
these last days. The study of prophecy is not a salvation issue, but the
Lord did admonish us on several occasions to understand the signs of the
times so we wouldn't be caught off guard. We are to watch with expectation
and wait with certainty.
In
Revelation 1:3 we're promised blessings for our diligent study, and
in 2 Timothy 4:8 a crown for longing for His appearing. But to me the greatest gift that
comes from studying prophecy is the strengthening of our faith. Nothing can equal watching the
Word of God proceed from abstract to concrete as we see Bible Prophecy
fulfilled before our very eyes. If you listen carefully, you can almost
hear the Footsteps of the Messiah. 04-02-06
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