In this sermon, the preacher discusses the signs of the end times and the millennium. He presents four different views on the return of Jesus Christ and expresses his own favored view. He emphasizes the importance of respecting differing opinions and acknowledges that God can bless those who disagree with him. The preacher also mentions a conversation with someone who is suing for $14 million in order to minister to the Jewish people and highlights the spiritual significance of the current events happening around the world.

Okay, well what we're dealing with today, and some may find this a little bit technical, is the signs of the end time and the millennium. And what I want to do is deal with the four different views of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then come down strongly on the view that I favor. Now, I'm sure you'd agree with me doing that, wouldn't you? Amen? But I have learned a long time ago, as one of my friends and mentors used to say, that God reserves the right to bless the man who disagrees with me. I think that's a clever statement, really. But God reserves the right to bless the woman, or man, who disagrees with me. And that is particularly so with regard to prophecy, I think, because we're dealing with an area of speculation to a certain extent, although we do have scripture on which to base our views. And so we're looking at that. Now, there are four views of biblical prophecy, and I've asked the question, which do you believe? The fact of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is beyond dispute. Professor Jay Pentecost in his very big volume, it's a voluminous work, some 600 pages, and he's entitled it, Things to Come, in which he deals very, very much with the whole issue of what we call eschatology, the unfolding of end time events. And this is what he says, and I think it's a powerful statement, that to which all scripture looks forward, and to which all history presses, is the second advent of the Lord Jesus Christ to the earth. At that time, God's purposes for which the sun came into the world will be realized. Redemption will have been accomplished, and sovereignty will have been manifest on the earth. Now, I think you'd say amen to that. It's an exciting topic, the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, there are four different views, but within these views there are various variations. Now, when we talk about the second coming of Christ, I guess most people think in terms of what we talk about, the tribulation. Will we go through the tribulation? Will we go through part of the tribulation, or will we escape before any of the tribulation, or will we go through all the tribulation? Those various views are known as the pre-tribulation rapture, the mid-tribulation rapture, which Barry Smith believes, and which I tend to believe also, and then the other one is the post-tribulation rapture. Incidentally, in saying the mid-tribulation, let me just qualify that, because that isn't the area that I want to deal with today, but let me qualify that. The main part of the tribulation only starts halfway, so in both Barry's view and my view, we escape most of it anyway, and that's the way I understand scripture. But those are really incidental aspects of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The major aspect is to do with what we call the millennium. Now, there are four views. There is what is called the pre-millennial return of Jesus Christ to the earth. Then there is what is known, and it's quite a popular view now, called the amillennial second coming of Jesus Christ. Then there is the post-millennial second coming of Jesus Christ. We'll look at the definitions in a moment. Not many believe the post-millennial now, and then there is what is called the non-literal or spiritualized view, and there certainly wouldn't be any of those who believe that among us. It's more the liberal people who really question the Bible altogether that take that view. Now, I'm dealing with this because I think it will help you, and I think with the notes and then with the tape, and we'll have it circulating, it will clarify some things. Now, the pre-millennial return of the Lord Jesus Christ to the earth. The definition. The pre-millennial view is the view that holds that Christ will return to earth literally and bodily before the millennial age begins, and that by his presence a kingdom will be instituted over which he will reign. In this kingdom all of Israel's covenants will be literally fulfilled. It will continue for a thousand years after which the kingdom will be given by the Son to the Father when it will merge with his eternal kingdom. Now, we'll come back to that in a moment because I believe it's the view that the Bible teaches, and it's certainly the view that the denomination that I belong to most of my life, namely Assemblies of God, has made a teenage of faith of it actually, although I find now that quite a number of ministers within Assemblies of God don't believe it, and I think that creates an hypocrisy because it would be far better to get rid of it rather than have people within it who are supposed to believe it and don't believe it. And so that's a very important issue, and the aspect of it is that Christ actually comes to the earth and sets up his on earth. Now, the other views don't accept that idea. Okay, that's the premillennial return of Jesus Christ to the earth, and we'll look at that in some detail in a moment. The amillennial second coming of Christ, the way I've worded that, I've deliberately left out his second coming to earth because there are people who accept that view who don't believe that Jesus Christ will actually come back to the earth. He will only come to the heavens and there will be the rapture and go to heaven and so on. There are various views on the amillennial second coming of Christ. The basic definition is this. The amillennial view holds that there will be no literal millennium on the earth following the second advent. All prophecies concerning the kingdom are being fulfilled in what is called the inter-advent period spiritually by the church. Concerning this view, it has been stated its most general character is that of denial of a literal reign of Christ upon earth. Satan is conceived as bound at the first coming of Christ. The present age between the first and second comings is the fulfillment of the millennium. Its adherents differ as to whether the millennium is being fulfilled on the earth, which was the view that Augustine put forward in the fourth century AD. Incidentally, that was when it first came into acceptance or vogue. Or whether it is being fulfilled by the saints in heaven, which is a more modern view. It may be summed up in the idea that there will be no millennium than there is now and that the eternal state immediately follows the second coming of Christ. It is similar to post-millennialism in that Christ comes after what they regard as the millennium. Now I'm starting to write a book. Pray for me, will you? But what I've done, I've given you a couple of chapters out of that book in rough draft form and there are two chapters. One is called Two Wives, One Bride. You might like to read that and see if you agree with the ideas put forward. And the other one is the Prophecy and the Millennium. Now you've got them with your notes today. And the one on the Prophecy and the Millennium, I trace the historic rise of these various views. And in fact, the early church, it is quite clear from the Encyclopedia Britannica and other works that the early church accepted only the idea of the pre-millennial return of Jesus Christ. They called it by a different name. They called it actually by the name, and you won't remember this, but it's called Chileism. It's based on the Greek word for millennium. The word millennium is a Latin word, as you know, but the Greek word is Chileos. And in actual fact, what they call Chileism, which was a view which was accepted as being the fundamental teaching of the church, that Jesus Christ was coming to the earth to set up a kingdom for a thousand years. It is, of course, based on Revelation chapter 20. Now, it's interesting to note how the other views arose, both the amillennial view and the post-millennial view, where it really came about when they started to dispute the literal basis of interpreting the scripture. That's very significant. Okay, the third view is the post-millennial second coming of Christ. This view holds that Christ will return to earth literally and bodily after the millennial age ends. In his book, The Millennial Issue in Modern Theology, the author explains that post-millennialists hold that through preaching the gospel, the whole world will be Christianized and brought to submission to the gospel before the return of Christ. The name is derived from the fact that in this theory Christ returns after the millennium, hence post-millennialism. Now, when the view first surfaced around the 12th century AD through the biblical commentator and philosopher Joachim, and was later systematized by a liberal free thinker and Unitarian called Daniel Whitby, some of whose works were publicly burned as being heresy, very soon they developed two distinct expressions of the teaching. One was that the post-millennial, post-millennium, would come in through the preaching of the gospel. The other was, and you must remember that about this time there came around the idea of Darwinian evolution, and so the other view sort of tended towards that, that the whole of the human race was evolving to something better. And so these two views started to surface. Now, when we had the first world war, people's hopes were suddenly shattered, and from then on nearly all bible students rejected the idea of post-millennialism. That's interesting, isn't it? And it's not really a view that is held very much today. Okay, that's just some background. Now the other one, which we don't even need to really consider, but let me just put it, I think it's important just to know about it, is on page two of your notes, it's called the non-literal or spiritualized view. This is a denial of the literal bodily personal return of Christ to the earth, and it's held only by the most liberal of bible students, in whose view promises relating to the second advent of Christ apply only to the perpetual advance of Christ in the church, which includes many particular events. For example, promises of his second coming are fulfilled by Christ's spiritual presence with his people. So when you hear about Christ's coming, they say, oh yes, Jesus Christ came with us today. And that's the fulfillment of this second coming message. Now that, to my view, is pretty crazy, but it has many aspects. For example, promises of his second coming are fulfilled by Christ's spiritual presence with his people, introduced at Pentecost with the coming of the Holy Spirit and fulfilled by the continual spiritual advance in the church. This view changes the second advent from being an event in itself to simply include all events of the Christian era. According to the author of Things to Come, this view sees the second advent as being fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem, or the day of Pentecost, or the death of the saint, or the conversion of the individual, or any crisis in history or the individual's experience. Needless to say, such a view is based on the disbelief in the Word of God or the spiritualizing method of interpretation. We would reject that right out of hand. Reminds me a bit of a story, you know, of a preacher who was on the platform there, and he announced his text, came forward and said, behold I come quickly, and then forgot what he was going to say. And so he took a few steps back and then remembered his text and walked forward and said, behold I come quickly, and forgot what he was going to say, and then stepped back again and came forward, and this time he came a bit too far forward and announced his text, behold I come quickly, fell over the platform and landed on the lap of the lady in the front seat. And he got up and dusted himself down, he said I'm sorry madam, she said it's all right, she said you warned me three times, I should have been ready. So the spiritualized view is a bit like that, you can make anything out of it. But the Bible is very very clear, the angels when Jesus ascended to heaven said, this Jesus, this same Jesus, who is taken from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven. How did they see him going to heaven? Was it physical? Was it literal? Was it visible? Yes, and that's the way he's going to come back again. I believe that. Okay now, before we get into the thing properly, let's read the basic passage of scripture shall we? It's Revelation chapter 20, and here we have the chapter which I suppose has created the questions and the arguments and so on, the dispute. Revelation chapter 20, and we'll read the whole chapter I think, it's a marvellous chapter. I've come well armed today, I've come with a tape that will last for an hour and a half. So last week we ran out with the hour, so how do you feel? All right, all settled down, okay good. Revelation chapter 20, then I saw an angel coming down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the devil and satan, and bound him for a thousand years. There's the first term, right, a millennium. Now incidentally the word millennium or thousand in regard to time appears something like 11 times in the scripture, but it appears six times in regard to this period of time, and they're all in this particular chapter. So when somebody tells you, oh it only appears once, don't believe that, it appears quite a lot more times than once, certainly six times in this very chapter. But here is the first time, bound him for a thousand years, a millennium, and he cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up and set a seal on him so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. What's the devil doing right now? Deceiving the nations or the peoples, right? So you know the amillennial view, which says that satan is already bound. If satan's bound, who's doing the work? Who's doing the bounder's work? Sorry, right? And he cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. But after these things he must be released for a little while. And I saw thrones and they sat on them and judgment was committed to them and I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God who had not worshipped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands and they lived and reigned with Christ for what? A millennium, a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the millennium was finished, the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him what? A thousand years. Now when the thousand years have expired satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations or the peoples which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle whose number is as the sand of the sea. They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them and the devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Will judgment last forever? Yes. A thousand years after the false prophet and the beast are cast into the lake of fire it's still described that they are there and not that they were there but they are there. Verse 11. Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat on it from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away and there was found no place for them and I saw the dead small and great standing before God and books were opened and another book was opened which is the book of life. You got your name in the book of life? And the dead were judged according to their works by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it and death and Hades, death and hell, delivered up the dead who were in them and they were judged each one according to its works. Then death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death and anyone not found written in the book of life was cast in the lake of fire. So the only security is to make sure your name is in the book of life and if your name is in the book of life you won't be cast into the lake of fire. Now that is the passage of scripture which deals with this issue that we are considering today, the millennium. Now before we get right into it there are two things that we have to understand about interpreting the bible and so I've listed them. There are two foundations to what we call bible hermeneutics but the word hermeneutics simply means the method of interpreting the scriptures. It's a very very important aspect of understanding the bible because Peter tells us that no scripture is by private interpretation and the big problem in the charismatic and Pentecostal world today and I don't say that as critical from outside I say it from within inside because I'm a Pentecostal and I'm a charismatic but the big problem is that we have shifted the basis of interpreting the scripture and we have made it whatever we feel it means. You know it becomes and I'll come to this in a moment there's been a very big misunderstanding on the two terms Logos and Rima and actually I think I don't know who started it but I know Yonggi Cho was one very much involved in it and most people repeat what Yonggi Cho says without really thinking the thing through and I'm sure Yonggi Cho is a good man but that doesn't mean he's necessarily right on everything and he's well that's okay questionable but anyway he presents a view which is really not clear and not right to the scriptures about the Rima and he says you know the tendency is to say well the Rima is the quickened word the Logos is the written word that is not correct and I've done a detailed study of it in the scripture and actually the two terms are used very very mostly interchangeably and that's very very interesting but what we have tended to do is move away from what we could call the literal method of interpreting scripture. Now let me quickly define that and then go down to the other method which is the allegorical method of interpreting scripture. I trust this is not too technical I think it's important and the tapes as they go out will be helpful and I'm sure if you find it a little technical today look at the notes read it through and then listen to the tape again. The literal method of interpreting scripture the definition is that method that gives to each word the same exact basic meaning it would have in normal ordinary customary usage whether employed in writing speaking or thinking. It is also called the grammatical historical method to emphasize the fact that the meaning is to be determined by grammatical and historical considerations. Now words have meaning and context has meaning so the literal method of interpreting the scripture is to look at the actual words and find out what they mean. They have a grammatical sense the way words are put together in sentences have meaning. God inspired the scriptures in words and so they have meaning in context they have a particular meaning taken on by the context. The grammar the historical setting all of that is in very important and that forms the basis of what we call the literal method of interpreting scripture. Now the allegorical method of interpreting scripture is different it says basically that what is written in the scripture is all an allegory but you can't basically accept it as substantial fact but rather it illustrates some spiritual truth. Now that's the ultimate form of allegorizing of scripture. There's some definitions that I'd like you to look at. One author in the protestant biblical interpretation says allegorism is the method of interpreting a literary text that regards the literary sense as a vehicle for a secondary more spiritual and more profound sense. The author of the book things to come adds this in this method the historical import is either denied or ignored and the emphasis is placed entirely on a secondary sense so that the original words or events have little or no significance. So when we come to the issue of the millennium where it says there's going to be a thousand years they say oh no that's an allegory it's not literal. Now that is the basic difference in the interpretation. Another man in his biblical typology adds this according to this method the literal historical sense of scripture is completely ignored and every word and event is made an allegory of some kind either to escape theological difficulties or to maintain certain peculiar religious views. Now that's the two bases the literal method of interpreting the scripture becomes the basis of the view which we believe which is the pre-millennial return of Jesus Christ that he's coming back to this earth that he's going to set up a kingdom for a thousand years in terms of the book of the revelations up to 20. The other three views in varying degrees have adopted what we might call the allegorical method of interpreting scripture. Now of course the question crops up are allegories then legitimate? Yes they are. Allegories were used in scripture. Paul says about Hagar and Sarah in Galatians chapter three he says this is an allegory right? Your bible will probably say this is a symbol. Galatians chapter four is the passage of scripture. But what Paul does there is not the allegorizing of scripture. What he does he takes a literal event. He accepts it as literal. There was a literal Hagar. There was a literal Sarah and they had literal sons. One was called what? Isaac. The other was called Ishmael. Now he takes that he doesn't question it. So he's not allegorizing scripture. What he's doing is taking an event and he says this illustrates a spiritual truth. Now that's different all together. We do that with parables. We did that last week when we talked about the parables of the goats and the bridesmaids. Okay we took a parable and we illustrated spiritual truth. Jesus did that all the time. The allegorizing method is not that. The allegorizing method is destroying the original sense and it puts allegory on it. For example the worst aspect of it would be the liberals idea where they say oh well the story of Adam and Eve isn't a real story after all. It wasn't a literal man Adam and Eve and a woman Eve but it's an allegory. So they destroy the actual historic basis. Now that you have to understand that otherwise you know this teaching will absolutely confuse you because the Bible does use allegories but it does not permit the allegorizing method of interpreting scripture. Okay I trust that you know that is clear. It is not just think it through and particularly with the tape. Now arguments in favor of the method which we adopt is the literal method of interpreting scripture. I've listed them there for you and I want to just expand on them a little bit. First of all this is the normal approach in all language and language study. It says okay words have meaning, context has significance, historical settings were real. That is what we do with all language. It does not rule out figures of speech. For example the last week we talked about the parables. It accepts that there are parables. When Jesus talked about the ten virgins, five wise and five foolish that sort of thing was happening all the time in society but then he lifts it out of society and he says look this illustrates a wonderful truth. He doesn't destroy the original story. It's a story which takes place. The same thing with regard to the sower and the seed. Now that was happening all the time but what he does he takes an event and he says look this has spiritual significance. That is quite permissible. Similes and metaphors. Now the probably the worst expression of this where people try to to destroy and they do destroy the very basis of the gospel when they reverse the process. For example the great statement God is love. You agree with that? Would you agree with the other idea that love is God? No. See what we've done? And this is what society is doing. They say okay the bible says God is love so here we are this is God. Everything's God if you love. Now they've reversed the process. The fact that God is love tells us the nature of love. Right? But you have to understand the nature of God to really understand the nature of love. Now love is a strong thing. It doesn't only express itself in acts of kindness but it also expresses itself in acts of restraint. It doesn't only express itself in forgiveness but it expresses itself also in chastisement. So the person who comes along and says the mom or dad who chastises their child doesn't love the child it's clear because they gave them a whack. That's nonsense. Absolute nonsense. Because what they have done is they've taken one aspect of the idea of love and they've superimposed it upon the whole and they've come up with the wrong conclusion. Now this is what we're doing all the time in church folks. We really are. We're saying you know a friend of mine wrote me a letter I don't know if I brought his letter I intended to but he wrote to me yeah I might have it here in my bible let me see if I can find it and he expressed the concern which has been mine for a long long time and this man is a man who has held very very prominent position in the denomination that I've been linked with all my life in many many areas and he says this and I got this this letter this week he says these are days of sensationalism in the Pentecostal and charismatic world and I fear that we are witnessing a real deception in the area of doctrine. Paul's prophetic word to Timothy is coming to pass many shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. I did not think at one time that the end time apostasy would affect the Pentecostal church. Maybe that was a measure of religious denominational pride or arrogance to think that we were impervious. I thought of apostasy as relating to the other more mainline Christian denominations where there has been such a blatant denial of foundational Christian truth. However in recent times I have become increasingly concerned for the trends in doctrine so that whilst we may not actually be uttering our denials of the truth and to continue to subscribe to our statement of faith sound as they are in point of fact we are in default by not proclaiming such truth and watering down the gospel. We state our belief in the total depravity of man yet we now have our preachers not actually denying it but saying that we must not tell people they are sinners. Do not preach God's wrath or eternal punishment so that we can create the inward is a non-threatening environment. If that is not an apostate condition nothing is. May God help us Phil to earnestly contend for the faith once delivered unto the saints. I say amen to that but that is the subtleness of what's happening. We're saying that we've got to make it acceptable to people. Now Jesus didn't make it acceptable to people. It says another good friend of mine John Anderson says he says we are preaching such messages today which allow people to go to hell thinking good about themselves. That's true and what we've got to do is stand and declare the truth and really this allegorizing method is the thing that has influenced the whole basis of thinking. Symbols the literal method admits of symbols types etc but they acknowledge that they relate to prior literal meaning of terms. Now we'll come to this thing about Paul and his allegory in Galatians chapter 3 verse 21 to 31. Let me just read it to you. Galatians chapter 3 I've already alluded to it but it is very very fundamental to our understanding of the allegorizing method as distinct from the literal method. Galatians 3 21 to 31. Sorry if I got it wrong Galatians might be 4 is it? Yeah chapter 4 all right. Tell me now you who desire to be under the law do not hear the law for it is written that Abram had two sons the one by a bond woman the other by a free woman but he who was of the bond woman was according to the flesh. See what he's doing he's accepting an historic fact and he's building upon it now and he of the free woman through promise which things are the old king James says an allegory or symbolic for these are the two covenants the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage which is Hagar so he says Hagar and Ishmael represent Sinai for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is and is in bondage with her children but the Jerusalem above is free which is the mother of us all for it is written rejoice oh baron you who do not bear break forth and shout you who do not travail for the desolate has many more children and she who has a husband now we brethren as Isaac was our children of promise he's just using a parallel he's using an illustration that's quite legitimate that is not the allegorizing of scripture that is taking an allegory and explaining spiritual significance but as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the spirit even so it is now nevertheless what is the scripture say cast out the bond woman with her son for the son of the bond woman to not be heir with the son of the free woman so then brethren we are not children of the bond woman but we are of the free if you understand what's going on in Galatians you can see what he's doing the Galatians were under threat to become back under the law right the law was that they had to have circumcision they had to obey all the commandments both the civil commandments and the moral commandments and so on and so they came back under Judaism and so Paul said no this is not it this is not right and he uses his old testament analogy to establish his point he says this conflict between the flesh Ishmael and the spirit all the way through and he says you do this within the context of the church you will have conflict he said it's not true we are children from above now he doesn't say that we are to disregard God's moral law but what he is saying is that we are not to follow all the civil details of circumcision and all of that in order to have salvation can you see the point now that is not the allegorizing of scripture that is simply taking an allegory and using it to bring out some spiritual truth which is important now the other thing about this literal method is that most of the Bible makes sense when interpreted literally you would agree with that the fifth thing apart from the literal method we are left with human imaginings if you don't accept the literal method of interpreting the Bible then anybody's view goes I've given you some quotes there Jerome of Prague who was a 15th century martyr said the faultiest style of teaching is to corrupt the meaning of scripture and to drag its reluctant utterance to our own will page three making spiritual scriptural mysteries out of our imaginations Farah in his history of interpretation says when once the principle of allegory is admitted when once we start with the rule that whole passages and books of scripture say one thing when they mean another the reader is delivered hand and foot to the caprice of the interpreter right that's what very often happens in the extension of that he says that when that happens the person can be absolutely sure of nothing except what is dictated to him by the church and in all ages the authority of the church has been falsely claimed for the presumptuous tyranny of false prevalent opinions how true that is but what the church says goes and it's happening now in Pentecostal circles they say I'm the leader here I'm the pastor if you don't like what I say well you can sort of walk in fact my dad expressed a very deep concern about a statement that was seen to be made like that where one pastor said if you don't like what we're doing we release you to go elsewhere well what who has right to release people that's absolute nonsense pastors have set themselves up as if they own the church and friends is only one who owns the church and his name is the Lord Jesus Christ now I believe we should respect proper authority and all of that but I do not believe in popacy whether it's Pentecostal or any other we do not accept that it has to be according to the scriptures if they speak not according to these scriptures it is because there is no truth in them and once you start doing that you're on the slippery slope down and it is being done very very much today Bernard Ram in his protestant biblical interpretation says to state that the principle meaning of the Bible is a second sense meaning and that the principle method of interpreting is spiritualizing is to open the door to almost uncontrolled speculation and imagination for this reason we have insisted that the control in interpretation is the literal method. Now let me get back a little bit to this idea of Remer and Logos. See what has tended to happen is that we've gone to the scriptures and we say okay is there a verse that is quickened to me now that's all right to an extent but we've got to remember that the scriptures were written with principles in mind and so what we do is we don't follow a little word that comes but we follow the principle that is taught in the scripture in fact we were part of a little a group that was developing which caused me great concern because very often and particularly it seemed that ladies are appealed to in this regard the pastor was saying have you got a word about this now that is dangerous I have discovered in my 30 plus years of Christian ministry that once you get a pastor surrounded by a couple or more women who manipulate him with little words you're in danger you're in danger now that doesn't mean that we can't get a word of course we can get a word and a pastor should always be open but if he's looking in the other direction he is shifting the whole basis of authority and that is dangerous highly dangerous and it leads ultimately to disaster now a classic example of this is the verse 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 verse 6 and this shows where people totally misunderstand or don't accept the context of scripture 2nd Corinthians 3 verse 6 says the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life and so people say there you are the letter and they hold up the bible killeth but the spirit giveth life hang on hang on look at the context what's Paul talking about Paul is talking about not the letter of the scripture he's talking about the letter of the law that's what he's talking about and so when he says the letter killeth he's saying the law kills but the spirit gives life this never kills right whether letter or spirit in fact I accept that that fine English gentleman called David Newington's comment on this I don't know if any of you heard David Newington but he's quite an incredible speaker and David Newington says this and it's a beautiful phrase that has stayed with me the holy spirit resides and he then says the word residentially in the scriptures I believe that the holy spirit and the word are never in conflict they're always in harmony so that's a classic where they say okay you've got to have the quick and it's got to be quickened to you now the crazy thing about that is that when we were in the blue mountains and I was pastoring there we had a little girl who had picked up this idea and she used to read the bible and apply every little thing to herself and she'd go off and do the craziest of things because she'd read the scripture and she said God told her to do it but in actual fact he was saying something in a context and for us to take that then and just apply it to ourselves willy-nilly it's ridiculous we learn the principle but we don't follow the crazy notion that suddenly some you know thing has come to us you you follow what I'm saying here it's so very very vital and and this is what has happened and it's really an extension of this so-called allegorizing method of the scripture now very quickly just before we get on to something uh more uh on on the scriptures on this God chose words remember this not mere sounds to convey his thoughts okay he didn't go and he chose words and the words were inspired now we believe in what is called the plenary inspiration of the scripture and what that word plenary p-l-e-n-a-r-y really means is the total inspiration of the scripture this is totally sufficient for life living and doctrine that was the great issue of the reformation when martin luther stood against the roman catholic church and they said we are the authority he said no this is the authority and so he challenged the pope and all of the roman catholic church and and i i can still see that little monk of wittenberg in a film that i once saw where he stood there before all the bishops and they looked at him and they said the whole church will turn against you little monk where will you then stand and he pulled himself up to his full five foot one or whatever he was because he was a short man and he said sir i will stand exactly where i am now standing in the hands of almighty god and he challenged the whole of the system and he shook the whole thing and changed the whole course of christian history hallelujah because he said this is our authority not that and brothers and sisters me thinks that we're in danger of losing it if we are not very very careful may god help us to realize that god said things in words and he meant what he sent the literal method is consistent with the plainly inspiration of scripture that word means entire absolute unqualified okay let's get on to just something on page three now and here we summarize what the literal method actually does in respect of the teaching of the pre-millennial return of christ to the earth the pre-millennial return of jesus christ to the earth means that there's going to be a literal future fulfillment of old testament covenant covenants now that is important especially the covenants god made with abraham i would like you to consider the notes which i've attached particularly the notes concerning the two wives one bride i hadn't seen this until i got really into this topic and i began to see how we can be confused if we're not careful the old testament frequently refers to israel as jehovah's wife at times deceitful and totally lacking in faithfulness but nevertheless loved sought after and cared for by a faithful god most of the minor prophet hosea plus large portions of major prophets isaiah jeremiah and ezekiel and other scriptures are devoted to this that israel is the wife of jehovah take for example isaiah chapter 54 it talks about the nations it talks about the land it talks about israel the passages of the scripture may apply to the church and its individual members is beyond question but that the primary interpretation and principle application referred to the nation of israel is virtually indisputable phrases such as shame of your youth and reproach of your widowhood may apply to individual christians but can never be descriptive of the church as a whole where or when in church history would they fit they are however most expressive of certain times and periods in the history of the jewish nation for example jeremiah and hosea hosea talks about uh lo ruamar he says uh you are not my people lo amy you are not my people but i will have mercy on you and he says and i will succor you and i will bring you back very clearly it has to do with israel as a literal people yet what the amillennial and other views have tended to do is to say well all of that is is is just an allegory god is now dealing with with the church and they point to such scriptures as um in where is it where uh god refers to abraham and he says you will have a son and he says in your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed and abraham said and god paul says he does not say seeds as of many but he says your seed singular and that seed was christ so now they say on the basis of this well very clearly then all of the promises to abraham are fulfilled in christ in a spiritual way and so they spill over to the church so now there is no fulfillment of the old testament promises wait on paul is talking about one promise he's talking about the promise if you look at galatians chapter three that's the passage of scriptures just come back to me now galatians chapter three and verse 16 is the statement now to abram and his seed where the promise is made he does not say and to seeds as of many but as of one and to your seed who is christ okay what is the blessing go back to verse 14 that the blessing of abram might come upon the gentiles in christ jesus that we might receive the promise of the spirit through faith so the promise that was given to abraham paul argues is the promise of the spirit through faith and he says this becomes ours through christ but it does not disannul all the other practical promises it cannot for paul goes on to say in verse 17 and this i say that the law which was 430 years later cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed by god in christ that it should make the promise of the promise what promise the promise that through abraham there would come the spirit through faith so what paul is saying is locked up in that great covenant that god made with abraham there was also this wonderful promise that the spirit would come to us in christ but he's not disannulling the other aspect of the covenant that's ridiculous but that is what they say you see verse 17 says god made an original covenant of promise then there came the covenant of law 430 years after the covenant of law could not disannul the covenant of promise after the covenant of law there came the covenant of grace didn't there does the covenant of grace disannull the covenant of promise no it can't what he is saying is that involved in that covenant there is a spiritual aspect and that spiritual aspect is that we inherit also through christ and we inherit the promise of the spirit through christ but wait on go back to the actual covenant in genesis chapter 17 and what do you see you see that god made promises which had to do with natural people it had to do with a natural land and so on for verse 19 i think it is god said no sarah your wife shall bear you a son and you shall call his name isaac i will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant and with his descendants after him now that covenant involved natural things back in verse 14 it says and the uncircumcised male child who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin that person shall be cut off from my people he has broken my covenant verse 8 and 9 also i give to you and your descendants your seed if you like after you the land in which you are a stranger all the land of canaan as an everlasting possession and i will be their god and god said to abram as for you you shall keep my covenant you and your descendants after you throughout the generations so i'm saying is this that there is a natural aspect of the covenant and there is a spiritual aspect of the covenant because the spiritual aspect is fulfilled it does not destroy the natural aspect because god keeps his covenant and so there is still a future for a natural people called israel and we have to remember that now if you look at my notes on one bar bride two wives i think it will help you get home and read it but what i'm basically saying there is in the end of time god speaks about christ being associated with two groups of people one he calls the wife the other he calls the bride and if you follow it through which i've never seen before and i've never read it anywhere else i began to see how this unravels the complication that we have so often misunderstood about the natural people and the spiritual people we are a spiritual people we are the bride of christ but there is a natural people out there that god has given his word to this rather strange that i'm just dealing with this right now because quite out of the blue i received from a friend that i contacted many years ago and i didn't realize how significant this man was but he is his name is john stembridge and the other night he sent me a fax 15 pages long from florida i met him many many years ago and i don't know quite how he heard about it but he said i am so thrilled to hear that you're getting linked up with something to do with the jewish people and he said he said i want you to pray about something now it turns out i didn't know until the other day he rang me because he's trying to get a fax through and my fax machine didn't go on and so his voice came on we were able to talk a little bit i've just got to watch spending my pennies at the moment quite frankly and so i don't make many phone calls i wait for people to make phone calls to me but that's the way it is at the moment but this this man he phoned me and he said um and he told me i didn't realize but he used to be the mayor of miami he's a jew and he said i want you to pray about something he said i've had a real ongoing battle this is what he put in this fax for for many years because he had some property in hollywood of all places and it was worth a lot of money and apparently because he flew the jewish flag there the anti semites is that how you call them anti-semitists they they burned the place and destroyed it and and then because of the corrupt system of the judgment there he couldn't get any insurance and all sorts of things started to turn against him and so he actually faxed me and said will you pray about this and we did pray about it i remember one night there was jonathan in bed we prayed about it i explained it to him we all prayed and the other day he told me so well there's been a good breakthrough he's actually suing for 14 million dollars and he said what he wants he says he wants the money so that he can give more time to uh ministering to the jewish people and and he was telling me of some of the things that are happening around the world and and you see there is a great in gathering something is happening something is happening and god has a disposition towards his his people very very clearly the spiritual does not invalidate the natural let us remember that then also just remember this and this sounds very very technical it's called what we call the proleptic principle in prophetic fulfillment now the term actually means this that some people jump beyond their age and their day and they begin to see and embrace things which are outside of their particular domain jesus referred to that in john chapter 8 verse 56 when he was in dispute with the religious people of his time and they talked to him and said who do you think you are and we are abram seed and he said if you were abram seed you'd do what abram did but you're trying to kill me and he said then made various claims and they said are you greater than abram they said you're not even 50 years of age and how can you say that you saw abram and jesus said in john chapter 8 verse 56 he said abram i tell you abram saw my day and he rejoiced now that's an incredible statement what he is saying is that abram followed so close to god that he saw beyond the period in which he lived and he embraced what another scripture calls the powers of a world to come hebrews chapter 6 and verse 5 i think it is it says that it's committed to us the word of god and also the powers of a world to come now when you start to understand that there is a marvelous sense in which this is the fulfillment of god's great plan galatians chapter 3 verse 16 fits into this category when god spoke to abraham he gave a natural covenant about a natural people and he said i've made this covenant with you on the basis of your obedience and because you have been faithful and obeyed my covenant will never be broken so the covenant cannot be broken israel may have rebelled and wandered away and they may have walked outside of the protection of the covenant but as soon as they return to the lord then they come back within the embrace of the covenant and the covenant has to be fulfilled not because the jews are a special people but because abram was a special man now can you see that and so the fulfillment of the covenant carries through and it cannot fail now from my perspective you've got to have a to happen it cannot happen otherwise and god's word would fail now that's a proleptic principle let me explain it a little further in regard to us we believe in divine healing do we yes we're subject to old age anybody agree with me i'm discovering it all the time now the old age really is the process of the dying of the body right hallelujah sure but even now we can enjoy divine healing can't we now when we come to god and we are divinely healed does that cancel out the great promise concerning the golden age when there's going to be no sickness will it be a fulfillment of that no what we're doing we are actually engaging in this same proleptic principle you see we're told in romans chapter 8 and verse 11 that the spirit who dwells in us hallelujah is able to quicken our mortal bodies right by his spirit that dwells in us but the promise of divine health totally and completely doesn't apply to this age it applies to the age to come you might say well i thought it says by his stripes we were healed yes look at the passages of scripture if you want to matthew chapter 8 verses 16 and 17 tells us that actually jesus during his earthly ministry fulfilled that promise not just by his death on the cross but when he healed people it says that that was the fulfillment of isaiah chapter 53 and verse 4 and 5 where it says by his stripes we are healed the promise is fulfilled when jesus comes and heals us but romans chapter 8 and verses 17 to 24 5 says that the whole world is waiting for something what's it waiting for it's waiting for the manifestation of the sons of god and it says until that happens the whole of creation is groaning within itself and not only is the creation groaning but you who also have the first fruits you are groaning within yourself you're not healed all the time why because not because of lack of faith not always sometimes maybe but not always because the promise has to do with a kingdom and a world yet to come when we will eat of the fruit of the tree of life and we will drink of the water that flows from the river the water of life and then sickness will be banished forever but meanwhile we can jump into that age by faith on the basis of what jesus christ has done and we can enjoy the privileges of what is a world to come even in this world hallelujah but the one doesn't destroy the other nor does the one totally fulfill the other because paul says we are waiting for the adoption to wit the redemption of the body there's one part of redemption which is not yet complete as far as jesus christ is concerned the total work is done but as far as god and me are concerned there is a time element involved and one day when he comes hallelujah everything will be fulfilled now when you apply that proleptic principle all the way through the whole thing fits together and becomes absolute sense finally on this point not finally all together which point page we're on page three and we've dealt with a literal future fulfillment of old testament covenants one bride two wives the spiritual does not invalidate the natural at the first point the proleptic principle is in prophetic fulfillment we've looked at that and then the other thing that you've got to consider is that all marriage covenants involve three considerations when god made a covenant with abraham and his people it was like a marriage covenant in fact we're told over and over again that it was a marriage covenant and the covenant the marriage covenant involves people it involves possessions it involves land in fact we're told that ultimately god will be married to the land okay so now that we can't fully understand that but that was part of the covenant the three things in consideration of a marriage is the relationship of the two parties now god established a relationship with abraham it wasn't unconditional to start off with it was conditional upon abram's obedience he said hey abe follow me and so abram followed him without question and god said good on you abraham now the next step and he took him through various stages each time abram measured up totally and completely and so god made a covenant with abraham and having made that covenant it is unconditional it wasn't unconditional to begin with it was conditional upon abram's obedience but when once abram was obeyed it doesn't matter how many of his descendants disobey the covenant has been sealed and to seal it we're told in genesis chapter 15 that god inaugurated what was an acceptable method of the splitting of the covenant where he caused a great darkness to come upon abraham after he had divided the animals and made a pathway between the animals a sheep and a heifer and a dove and the bible says that a lamp went down through the two and god cut his covenant with abraham and it says a great fear of darkness came upon abraham i believe that god gave abram a bit of an idea of what hell is like that night and he says i have established my covenant with you as an everlasting covenant and i am married to you and to your people and to the land and to the possession the relationship of the two parties the second thing is the consummate union based on the covenant in marriage there is the consummation of the marriage the coming together god established that by the cutting of that covenant and then the third thing which is the only thing which is remaining it is the exclusive intimacy in terms of the covenant now never has there been the exclusive intimacy of god with israel because after abraham every generation failed but there's going to be an exclusive intimacy because god made the covenant and he will not fail and from my perspective although the christian zionists and all of those and i'm not too sure about what they're doing certainly i agree with jacob preske but if they don't preach christ then they're not achieving their end today though they may try and gather the people as the christian embassy does and as other zionist groups do if they don't preach christ then they're failing in their god-appointed task because no jew or israeli or anybody else maury or pakia or anybody comes to christ comes into the covenant with god apart from jesus christ and so there has to be the preaching of the gospel hallelujah but there is something happening no doubt but i don't think it will ultimately be fulfilled until christ comes and he set up his everlasting kingdom but first before he does that he will set up his millennium kingdom and all of the covenants that were made with abraham will be totally and absolutely fulfilled and we will look on in amazement and say god is faithful in all his declarations hallelujah okay now in this and here i'll hurry on all forms of control and government have been tested in line with the principle that god utters in romans chapter 3 verse 26 where he says that god must be the just and the justifier of him that believer god is not just a justifier god is a just justifier do you get the point justification is god's moral act which establishes right relationship god has to be the judge of all the earth so that every voice will be silenced and all the world will become guilty before god and in order for that to happen there have to be every age tested and so far we have only had five of those ages but there are two yet to come there is the age of innocence where you have mankind on probation in the garden of eden all right page three are you with me the age of innocence mankind on probation in the garden of eden then there followed the age of conscience when man was affected by the fall and he was aspiring to improve himself incidentally conscience is only a safe guide when god is guide of the conscience otherwise it's dangerous but god allowed that the age of innocence with mankind in the garden of eden we don't know how long it lasted after that the age of conscience then there was the age of special covenant when mankind was under limited blessing by arrangement then there was the age of law where mankind was under instruction what was the law the bible says it came in to become a school teacher to point us to christ it wasn't an answer in itself but it pointed to the answer it showed that i couldn't keep the law but one will keep the law for me and i will keep it in him hallelujah so the law became my school teacher to point me to christ god allowed the age of law we are now in the age of grace which is the church age we have mankind under the drawing power of god that's why as we have said in some of these meetings i think it's an absolute insult to god that we should use the methods of the world to try and bring the people into the kingdom of god an absolute insult to god because it's mankind under the drawing power of god so if you've got to introduce rock music and all the rest of it to try and inspire young people into the kingdom what you'll do ultimately is destroy what you've got it's bound to be the case and i go on record and let it be seen and let it be heard that it will ultimately be seen to be destructive it must be because the church age the age of grace is the gospel drawing mankind mankind under the drawing power of god now that's where we're at at the moment the only two things that remain is an age of absolute control where mankind without evil is under god's beneficent dictatorship you see the ultimate basis of government is a dictatorship the problem is that in humankind you can't find a good dictator but god is the ultimate dictator and he will introduce that during the millennial age where he will rule with a rod of iron wicked will be banished satan will be in the bottomless pit and he won't have a foot to stand on he will be bound hand and foot and god will control but at the end of it what happens satan is released evil comes flooding back and it shows man is not changed by total control he can only be changed by choice and so that introduces the final age the age of utopia where mankind is in heaven by choice and not by obligation that's why it's so important for us to choose to go that way hallelujah for if god wanted to control arbitrarily he would have done it at the beginning but he never did it he made us beings of choice and thank god i have chosen him but before that he chose me hallelujah and the two choices merge together and many are called but fewer chose ones hallelujah are you among the choice ones now all of that means that man's obvious failures are overridden and overruled by god's sovereignty and grace in the return of christ who will fulfill all of god's covenant promises in detail now if that isn't true let me ask these questions if satan is bound now then who's carrying on his business revelation 21 to 3 says he's going to be bound for a thousand years the amillennialists say that happened when jesus hung on the cross on the basis of john 12 31 where jesus said now is the prince of this world judge now shall the prince of this world be cast out notice he said cast out he didn't say be bound satan was cast out certainly by the work of christ on the cross he was cast out of his position of authority but he came down to the earth having great wrath knowing that his time is limited but one day he's going to be bound if there's no literal millennium then how and when and where are those scriptures going to be fulfilled because they've got to be fulfilled and so far they haven't been fulfilled in regard to the land the possessions and so on if there's no future for literal israel how do you explain the miracle of the jew the king of prussia on one occasion was asked a question or rather he asked the question of his bible teacher he said how do you know the bible is true the bible teacher gave what is considered to be the shortest answer in history he simply said two words the jew and the king of prussia said you're right the jew proves that the bible is true the history of the jew take for example what happened in the world first world war 1917 when britain was up against it it was a little jew who walked into the home office and said i think you might be interested in this and he handed across the formula for tnt which turned the course of the first world war so impressed were they that they said they called this little jew in and they said what would you like he said i don't want any money i usually have enough i don't want anything all i want he said i want you to promise that you'll give the mandates of the land back to the jewish people and so the balfour declaration which was signed which said jerusalem for the jews how do you account for that how do you account for the fact that god is moving back into the scene if there's no literal fulfillment of the promises of god with regard to israel how do you account for 1948 when israel was made a nation how do you account for 1967 when israel was surrounded just eight million people by boy hasn't the time gone by 40 million people and how do you account for the fact that when they went into battle all the arabs that were against them were so eager to get out of the way that they left their boots in the desert and ran for their lives when the overwhelming odds were on their side how do you account for saddam hussein or insane how do you account for it if god has not suddenly moved back into dealing with the jews the time of the gentiles has come to an end and god is moving back to his people and this gives me great excitement how do you explain what appears to be the current build-up with all of the people going back to jerusalem and the anti-semitism which is developing if there's no millennium when in history has god's covenant with abram being fulfilled let me just summarize it and wind up the teaching of scripture clearly and certainly supports a spiritual fulfillment of prophecy in respect of the church god spiritual israel but that is in no way disavows the principles and details which can only apply to a natural israel whom god is again grafted into his true vine and paul tells us that that is going to happen and so for us in the meanwhile we are to watch within the church the signs of for they are increasing jesus said they would come paul prophesied that they would come and they are coming we are to watch the sign of the ordinary where jesus said beware of the sign of noah and the sign of lot the sign of noah was that they were doing ordinary things and they didn't know until the flood came and took them all away and the sign of lot was the same thing they were marrying and giving in marriage just doing ordinary things and suddenly the fire came down from heaven beware of the sign of the ordinary and above all else beware of the sign of complacency jesus said in mark chapter 13 what i say to you i say to everyone watch he's coming hallelujah are we ready he's coming i think with that we ought to sing when the role is called up i'll be there okay god bless you and thank you for your patience you drew it out of me today and so i went a bit too long but never mind god bless you and thank you i trust you enjoyed it and i trust that the tapes will be used i really believe that some of the special teachings of the church are under attack today and by god's grace i want to come in as much as i can as god gives me ability and opportunity to once again establish those clear bases for our belief god bless you