What is the Value of Eschatology?

Tom: Thanks, Gary.You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him.Our topic for today’s program, as it has been for the last few weeks, is eschatology, which simply refers to teachings about the last days; what will happen around the time of the Lord’s return and thereafter.Now Dave, some Christians have no real interest in such things, not seeing any value in knowing about coming events and I seem to remember, correct me here, I seem to remember you saying that early on in your Christian walk that you didn’t have a lot of interest in prophecy.So what’s the value of eschatology?

Dave:

Prophecy seems so complicated, all those beasts, you know, in Daniel and Revelation and who could figure it out and anyway, what’s going to happen is going to happen so let’s not be concerned about it.

Tom:

Part of it we’re not going to be here for, if you believe in the premillennial, pretrib rapture.

Dave:

But I think about 20% of the Bible is prophecy, so we can’t just rule that out.God must have given it to us for some reason, many reasons for prophecy.Most prophecies have already been completed. Number one, it is the great proof that God offers, we talked about this in the past.It’s the number one proof that God offers for his existence and that the Bible is his Word.Paul used it in preaching the gospel as did the other early disciples.Paul would go into the synagogue, open the Scriptures and say look what your own prophets have said about the Messiah.The details are foretold and you can’t deny it was all fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.You go to Romans chapter one he says he is separated unto the gospel of God which he had promised before by his prophets in the holy scriptures or you went to 1 Corinthians 15, where he defines the gospel, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures—he was buried, rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.So, first of all, prophecy is absolutely essential for the gospel.If Jesus Christ didn’t fulfill what the prophets foretold, he is not the Messiah.Furthermore, there is no one else.Buddha wasn’t foretold, there are no prophecies from Mohammed or Zoroastar or anybody else.Only for the Messiah, who would come to Israel and through Israel to the world.And how would we know who the Messiah is?Well, just because you feel good about Jesus or you’ve got some sentiment or you were raised in a Baptist church and they always said it? No, because he fulfilled the prophecies and the prophecies are so unique, they are so specific, given thousands of years beforehand by not one, but a number of prophets in a number of ways and a number of places, that we have absolute 100% beyond any doubt, proof that Jesus is who he claimed to be, okay?So we begin there.

Tom:

And that this book that we keep referring to, the Bible, God’s Word, claims to be God’s Word and what better proof could you have than it’s just what it claims to be?

Dave:

There are no prophecies in the Koran, for example, Hindu Vedas, Bagadavita, you name them, saying of Buddha, Confucius, etc.Only in the Bible, and these are not cheap psychic predictions, as we have often reminded our listeners, these are history making, world shaking and shaping events that were foretold centuries, even thousands of years, before they came to pass.You can’t deny it.

Tom:

Right.Now, if you have just joined us or maybe you’re a first time listener to our program, we’ve been using Dave Hunt’s book, In Defense of the Faith as a sort of a syllabus. Dave has in this book that he wrote six years ago or so.He has a number of questions which challenge the very things that we have been talking about and they are good questions because, if indeed, what we are claiming, that God’s Word is just that, that the Bible is his revelation to mankind.

Dave:

What it claims for itself.

Tom:

Exactly, and that without it we are just searching in the dark, we’re just making things up, we’re just going by man’s opinions and all of those things.So it’s good to have very tough questions because either it’s going to stand up to whatever can be thrown at it from the skeptics, from the atheists, from even believing Christians who are going through a period of wrestling with issues and maybe coming to some doubts about some things.So it’s good, let’s get back to God’s Word, let’s see what it has to say for itself and, as we present information we want our listeners to not just take our word for it, Bibles are very easy to come by.Check these things out, search the scriptures, be a Berean as the ministry that we are a part of, The Berean Call.It’s based on Acts chapter 17, verses, really 10 and 11, talks about the Bereans who were Jews in the GreekCity of Berea.Paul came to them, into the synagogue and brought information to them about the Messiah.And they commended, these Bereans, because they listened to what Paul had to say, but then they searched the Scriptures daily to see if what he was saying was true and that’s our encouragement to all to all of our listeners.Dave, so that deals with prophecy, but what about eschatology, is there a difference here?

Dave:

Well, the prophecies we’ve been talking about, that were once eschatology in the future for people way back in the past, but they have been fulfilled, most prophecies have been fulfilled, which as you said, is the great proof.But that gives us confidence that what the Bible prophesies about the future which has not yet been fulfilled will indeed be fulfilled.And that involves future events, the Rapture, the Second Coming, they are different.The great tribulation, the rise of Antichrist, the millennial reign of Christ and finally the eternal state and so forth, there’s a great deal that is yet to be fulfilled and we have absolute confidence it will be.Now, exactly when it will be fulfilled, that’s the big question.

Tom:

Now Dave, you just made a comment, you said the Rapture and the Second Coming as thought they were two events.Well, that’s our question for today coming from you book, In Defense of the Faith.It begins; you distinguish between the rapture and the second coming as though they are two separate events.How can there still remain two comings of Christ?Where does it specifically say so in the New Testament?

Dave:

Well Tom, that’s a question that people often ask.Some people say, well, there are two phases of one event separated by 7 years.I don’t care if you want to say that, but that the Rapture is a distinct event, distinct from the second coming, it’s very clear in the Bible.People talk about the return of Christ, the second coming of Christ.Well, you have to distinguish when is he coming? coming for whom? coming to do what? and so forth.There are big differences.At the Rapture he comes for his saints and resurrects the bodies of the dead saints who have been with him, their souls and spirits in heaven.It say, those that sleep in Jesus shall God bring with him! Thessalonians chapter 4 and he takes the saints to heaven.At the second coming, he comes with his saints.Zechariah 14 says when his feet touch the mount of Olives he brings all the saints from heaven with him.Well, if he brings all the saints from heaven with him he must have taken them up there, that’s at the Rapture.We also know that at the Rapture he does not touch this earth, his feet don’t touch this earth; it says again the same chapter! Thessalonians chapter 4, the dead in Christ will rise first; we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air.Sometimes people say, Well, where is this Rapture, you know, what are you talking about?

Tom:

Dave, growing up Roman Catholic, I knew, sort of, that there would be a second coming. That Christ would return. That I was taught, but never did I have any idea—it doesn’t say a couple of comings.That is, I wasn’t taught that you could split this into two events.

Dave:

Well, you have Reformed theologians today, Calvinists, Lutherans and so forth, like the Catholics, they believe they are just going to kind of wind it up and Christ will return to the earth and begin his reign.That’s not what it says.There are so many differences between the two.If you went to Matthew 24, for example, it says, when you see all these things fulfilled you know he is right at the door—I think that’s verse 33.But then verse 44 says, in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.Now, wait a minute!You’ve got two different events—it has to be.You can’t have one event that is both at a time when any idiot knows that he is coming.Even Antichrist goes out to meet him, Revelation 19 says.But nobody knows he is coming and unless you are really watching and waiting, in fact, he’s coming at a time when you wouldn’t expect him, you couldn’t say that about—some people believe in a Post-trib rapture, some people believe that second coming and the rapture one event—he kind of catches us up and we meet him and we turn right around and come back into the midst of Armageddon, no way to treat your bride.Furthermore, there is no time for the judgment seat of Christ, no time for the wedding in heaven, Revelation 19, and how can he come both at a time when everybody expects him, all the signs are fulfilled and when nobody expects him, at such a time as you think not the Son of man cometh.Now someone says, yeah, but show me—the questioner began—show me where in The New Testament does it say that.Well, we have a simple response; where in The Old Testament does it say there would be two comings?

Tom:

Well, that’s really a good point.The second coming—Jews, believing in The Old Testament, say no, there is only one coming, the coming of the Messiah and that’s it.So, where in The Old Testament, just to pick up where you started—

Dave:

Well, even the Catholics that you just mentioned or the Reformed, they believe in two comings.They certainly believe Christ came once, they also believe he is coming again.Well, that’s two comings.Where, in The Old Testament would you find two comings?Never in The Old Testament does it say there would be two comings.Now then, how would you know that there would be two comings?Same way you would know in the New Testament that there are yet two comings, because you could not put into one event in one time frame what the Old Testament said about the coming of the Messiah.It says for example, Isaiah 53, there’s contradictions unless there’s two comings.It says, He is cut off out of the land of the living and for the transgression of my people is he stricken.No, it says he will see his seed, he will prolong his days, the pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand.Isaiah:9:7Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.
See All... says, of his kingdom and peace there will be no end.That’s what the Jews were expecting, the Messiah to set up a kingdom.That’s one of the reasons why they say Jesus couldn’t have been the Messiah because he didn’t establish peace, he didn’t set up a kingdom.But wait a minute!It also said he would be crucified; he would be cut off out of the land of the living.In fact, Daniel 9 says—it gives you the very day the Messiah would come, 69 weeks of years from the going forth of the command to rebuild Jerusalem.You can go back to 445 BC Nissan 1st, and count it, that brings up to April 6, 32 AD, the very day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and was hailed exactly—we talked about it last week or the week before—exactly as Zechariah:9:9Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.
See All... prophesied.But wait a minute!Then Daniel says, oh, it’s all peaches and cream, it’s great, the Messiah ascends to his throne—no, he didn’t say that!It said he would be cut off and not for himself, for the sins of the people.So how can you be killed and at the same time establish a kingdom that will never end?There had to be two events; you could not put into one event in one time frame what the Old Testament said about the coming of the Messiah.You would have to know there would be two.In the same way, you can’t put into one event in one time frame what the New Testament says about the return of Christ.He’s coming at a time of peace, Luke 17 or Matthew 24—as it was in the days of Noah they are buying, selling, building, planning, partying and so forth.You can’t put that at the end of the great tribulation.No, he’s coming in the midst of war.We know he’s coming to rescue Israel in the midst of Armageddon and to destroy the Antichrist.You just couldn’t put into one event in one time frame what The New Testament says about the coming of the Messiah.

Tom:

Dave, I want to do something—it’s not too much aside in terms of where we are going with this, but you mentioned Isaiah 53, absolutely stunning chapter.I’m going to read the whole chapter, its twelve verses, but just to give our listeners a real weight of what we’re talking about.Now you set it up already that the Jews were expecting the Messiah and he was going to take the sandal of the Romans off their necks.They were oppressed by the Romans and they were looking for somebody to deliver them from this.So they looked to all the verses in The Old Testament that seemed to be saying that the Messiah would be a conquering hero and so on.Now we get to Isaiah 53; let me read some of these verses.“Who hath believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground:he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows,—we’re comparing this with the conquering hero—and acquainted with grief:and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”

Dave:

Well, that shows the rejection of his own people.

Tom:

Absolutely.Verse 4:“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows:yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.”Again, this doesn’t sound like the anointed one.

Dave:

Not the one that they are expecting.

Tom:

Exactly.“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities:the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Dave:

As someone who is going to die for their sins.

Tom:

And it will say that very specifically.Verse 7, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth:he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.He was taken from prison—

Dave:

Now Tom, let me interrupt.He didn’t open his mouth because he was standing in our place, he was taking the judgment we deserve, he didn’t deserve it.

Tom:

He had no excuse as standing in our stead.

Dave:

Right, he could have opened his mouth but he was taking our place.

Tom:

Right.Verse 8, “He was taken from prison and from judgment:and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off—you said earlier, (cut off means to be killed)—He was cut off out of the land of the living:for the transgression of my people was he stricken.And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death;”—

Dave:

He was crucified between two thieves and buried in a rich man’s tomb.

Tom:

Joseph of Aramathea, right? —”because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.”

Dave:

Contrast that with Mohammed who did plenty of violence, that’s how he lived, not Jesus.

Tom:

“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief:when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied:by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death:and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

Dave:

On the cross as they crucified him he said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

Tom:

Dave, I remember a while back, probably more than a year ago, when we were talking about Isaiah 53, you said, Look, here’s a little thing that you might do for those of you who have Jewish friends.Just read Isaiah 53, don’t tell them—

Dave:

Type it out on a piece of paper so they don’t know where it came from.

Tom:

And present it to them and say, who do you think this is?Who do you thing is being referred to here?And they will probably, more than likely, say, oh this refers to Jesus.However—

Dave:

They think some Christian wrote it, but it’s written by their great Hebrew prophet, Isaiah.

Tom:

So the point here is, what do you do with this with regard to only one coming of the Messiah?It doesn’t fit, it doesn’t work.It has to be…

Dave:

He comes once as the Lamb to be crucified, it said he would be crucified, prophesied before crucifixion was even known on this earth.

Tom:

That’s Psalm 22?

Dave:

Yes.He comes as the Lamb to be crucified, but he will come again as the Lion of the tribe of Judah and you have both of these in the Old Testament, he’s not schizophrenic, you can’t have these both at once.So there is just no question, two comings of the Messiah in the Old Testament, no question.Two comings yet before us of the Messiah.Once he comes to take his bride, the church to heaven.He said, John 14, I’m going to go away and prepare a place for you. If I go away I’ll come again, I will receive you unto myself.He talked about his Father’s house of many mansions, that’s where he is going to take us.That sounds like he is taking us off of this earth to heaven.There’s no doubt about it, Tom, we don’t make this up.

Tom:

We, but Dave, it does take a little work.As I said, coming out of Roman Catholicism I had no idea of these things because I didn’t read the Bible.But on the other hand we could look back to the disciples.They’re a little confused by this as well.The Rabbis were confused by this as well because, as Jesus said to the two on the road Emmaus, what’s the Scripture?

Dave:

Luke:24:25Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:
See All..., 26, 27, “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”But they didn’t understand it.John the Baptist didn’t understand it.The Rabbis certainly didn’t understand it, they mocked him—what are you doing on that cross, ha ha—we have proved you are not the Messiah—if you’re the Christ, come down.In fact, the thieves said it to begin with, but if he wasn’t on the cross he wasn’t the Messiah because it was foretold.

Tom:

And Dave, it’s amazing to me and I don’t know why, you know, sometimes we lift up even the disciples because they are in the Bible, you know, they can’t do any wrong, but we have John the Baptist saying, The Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world.But he didn’t really understand it, did he?

Dave:

Then he sends two disciples, when he is in prison, to Jesus asking, Art thou He that should come or look we for another?No, they were definitely confused about this, but it’s quite clear in the Scriptures and Paul would prove from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Messiah, laying it all out before them.This is the great proof that we have, that Jesus is who he claimed to be, that he is God, he came to this earth as a man through the virgin birth, he was rejected by men, rejected by his own, they crucified him, they nailed him to the cross, exactly as they said it would be.He not only was nailed to the cross, that wouldn’t save anybody, but as he hung on the cross it says, you just read it in Isaiah 53, it pleased Jehovah to bruise him, you put him to grief, you made his soul an offering for sin.So he took the penalty that our sins deserved and he paid it in full.And as he gave his Spirit into his Father’s hands he said, It is finished, Tetelesti, it meant paid in full.He rose from the dead and now he seeks an entrance in everyone’s heart.You open your heart to Him, you believe that he did this for you, you are saved, and you have eternal life as a free gift from God.This is not our idea but what the Bible teaches.There’s no other way.If Jesus didn’t pay the debt, nobody paid the debt.But He did, He fulfilled all the prophecies.