Why Are You Where You Are in Your End Times Beliefs?

1. Why Are You Where You Are in Your End Times Beliefs?

2. Pre-mill, Pre-Trib Rapture (LaHaye, Ryrie, MacArthur, Scofield) Rapture 1000 year millennial kingdom 7 year tribulation new heaven & earth “Church age” WHY ? made before interpreting key passages, so as to guide your interpretation DECISIONS

3. Historic Premillennialism 1000 year millennial kingdom new heaven & earth “Church age” WHY ?

4. Amillennialism “partial Preterism” can be amill Heaven “Church age” = the Kingdom WHY ?

5. Postmillennialism “partial Preterism” can be post-mill “golden age” ?? time Heaven “Church age” establishes the Kingdom WHY ?

6. Why Are You Where You Are in Your End Times Beliefs? GOALS No view of end times is self-evident in the text. 2. All views of end times depend on certain assumptions that guide one’s interpretation of key passages. 3. Knowing what assumptions YOU make will help you understand your view and the views held by others.

7. Topic: The Kingdom of God What is my view of the kingdom of God? (What do I mean by the term?) On what basis do I hold that view? (Where does my view come from? How would I explain it from the Bible?) What would make me change my view? (What would have to be different in my mind?)

8. Your View of the Kingdom of God? Does the 2nd coming of Christ resultin an earthly reign of Jesus for 1000 years? NO YES WHY?

9. Your View of the Kingdom of God? Premillennialism is committed to the concept of an earthly reign by Jesus Christ of approximately a thousand years (or a substantial period of time). Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 1215. Does the 2nd coming of Christ result in an earthly reign of Jesus for 1000 years? YES

10. Your View of the Kingdom of God? Amillennialism is the idea that there will be no millennium, no earthly reign of Christ. The great final judgment will immediately follow the second coming and issue directly in the final states of the righteous and the wicked. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 1218. Postmillennialism rests on the belief that the preaching of the gospel will be so successful that the world will be converted. The petition, “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” will be actualized. [After this] Christ will return. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 1213. Does the 2nd coming of Christ result in an earthly reign of Jesus for 1000 years? NO

11. Your View of the Kingdom of God? Does the 2nd coming of Christ resultin an earthly reign of Jesus for 1000 years? NO YES WHY?

12. Abrahamic Covenant Gen 12:1-3 1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Gen 15:5, 18 5And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” …  18“To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.

13. Abrahamic Covenant Gen 17:1 1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless … Gen 17:2, 8, 9-10 2… that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” 8And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.” 9 And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. 10This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised.

14. Abrahamic Covenant Gen 22:15-18 15 And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven 16 and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, 18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”

15. Abrahamic & Sinaitic Covenant Exodus 23 20 “Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way … 22 “But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries … 23 the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites… 24 you shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them …. 30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land. 31 And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. 32 You shall make no covenant with them and their gods.

16. Abrahamic & Sinaitic Covenant Deut 11:18-24 18 “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 20 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth. 22 For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, 23then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves. 24 Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea.

17. Gen 15:18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates. Exod 23:31 And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. 1 Kings 4:21 Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines and to the border of Egypt. They brought tribute and served Solomon all the days of his life.

18. Abrahamic & Sinaitic Covenant Leviticus 26 1“You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God. 2 You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord. 3 “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, 4 then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5 Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely. 11I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. 12 And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.

19. Abrahamic & Sinaitic Covenant Leviticus 26 14 “But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, 15 if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you … 17 I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you … 23 “And if by this discipline you are not turned to me but walk contrary to me, 24 then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. 25 And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant… 27 “But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, 28 then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins.

20. Abrahamic & Sinaitic Covenant Leviticus 26 32 And I myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled at it. 33 And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. 34 “Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. 35 As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it. And you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. 38 And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. 39 And those of you who are left shall rot away in your enemies’ lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them.

21. Abrahamic & Sinaitic Covenant Leviticus 26 40 “But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, 41 so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, 42 then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43 But the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes. 44 Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God. 45 But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.”

22. Leviticus 26 and the New Testament Leviticus 26 2 Cor 6 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. • 11 I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. 12 And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. • 45 But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God.

23. Leviticus 26 and the New Testament Leviticus 26 Luke 1 68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people  69  and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, 70 as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, 71  that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; 72 to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, 73 the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us 74 that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, • 42 then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.

24. Kingdom Expectations and Answers (?) Acts 1 6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

25. Kingdom Expectations and Answers (?)