Prophecy & Eschatology, Part Four
Prophecy & Eschatology, Part Four
a lecture series by Dr. Michael S. Heiser
This is the last of a four part series on prophecy and eschatology by Dr. Michael S. Heiser. Earlier parts of the series can be watched here, here and here.
This last session focuses on possible timing of the Rapture followed by a question and answer session. These videos were obtained from the Salvation Through Faith YouTube Channel. Please go out to their channel, subscribe and like some videos to show your support. Transcript is below. Enjoy!
Transcript:
Michael Heiser 0:12
Let's pray. And then we will jump in our Father, we thank you for receiving for those who were able to come, pray that You would give me clarity of thought. And that we would be able to think through some of these things. Help us in our own minds to parse these things out and deepen our interest, our commitment to finding the information, we need to know that the things that you've put in your word for us to discover, help us to be energized, again, just be driven to tap into those truths. And then to apply them to ourselves, but always be charitable toward others. Your name we pray, amen. Okay, the first slide, of course, tells you what we're going to talk about tonight, I decided after, I can't say much deliberation, it just sort of hit me today. At the end, if we have time, I have a couple of slides that I will share a few you know what to call them? A few thoughts with you, sort of by way of summary, but also to, to let you know, a little bit of the things that I feel I'm able to tell you that I'm fairly convinced of you're pretty well convinced. And then, you know, some of the things I'm still waffling on as far as some aspects of at times, because you know, a number of people have asked, you know, we, you know, what do I think so I'll give you a few of those. And I'll try to walk you through why I put the things in the list that I did a little, it'll just be a few points. It's not going to be a full blown. Here's what what Mike thinks. But I think it might be a little helpful. And we can catch a few things, too, that we only really touched on in passing. But I think there's some core ideas that that are pretty evident in Scripture. And if we sort of zero in on those, you can sort of build on them as well. We'll get to that at the end. And hopefully we'll have a little more time for q&a If there is if there are any questions. So I want to sort of approach the rapture timing issue from the perspective of what is the hope of each system. So again, if you, if you're someone here who doesn't believe in a rapture, I don't want you to feel left out of the discussion. So I wanted to have this slide so that you can sort of compare and contrast where everybody's at. Because in the first week, I thought, a good way to frame the question someone asked, well, you know what, you know, what is someone who doesn't, you know, leaving a rapture believe in the kingdom or whatever? What is their hope? You know, what are they looking forward to? So I want to start here and give you that brief overview. And then we'll zero in on the systems that split this the coming of Christ, the return of Christ into two events, like we talked about, on the second week, are you a splitter Joiner. And then last week, we hit the seventh eighth week of Daniel, which ties into that, and both of those things will factor into very naturally what we talked about tonight. So the first position here, preacher and pre mille, I'm guessing most of you are probably that it's very common tradition within evangelicalism. That view says, well, here I am, and we're somewhere in the here and now and somewhere out there, there's going to be a rapture. And then after the rapture, there will be this seven year period. We'll call it tribulation. After that is the second coming. And then there is a 1000 year millennial kingdom on earth. And then after that, we have the eternal state, new heaven and new earth, whatever it is, you want to call it, by whatever phrase and so the hope of this system is a rapture that is preceded by nothing in the way of signs. Remember, last week, we talked a little bit about imminence. It's easy to sort of define imminence. One way if you have this seven year period that you think is the last week of a 70 week cycle. Okay, there's a certain timing that goes with that. And if you see clear borders here, there are things that you associate with the prior event and the second event. And really the signs that Jesus talks about, this system puts in here, preceding the second coming, but nothing preceding the rapture. This is the only system that defines eminence as nothing needs to occur before this event in the prophetic calendar, all the other systems would say that some of the signs that the preacher pre mill puts in here, if we remove this event, then very naturally, there are things to look for, on the way to, you know, the blessed hope, which would be, you know, their systems, their rapture event in here or no rapture at all in a second coming. But in this system here is what is usually thought of as the blessed hope being removed from the tribulation taken with the Lord. And then the events here play out on earth. And the Lord returns seven years later. Now, the mid trib position has the seven year block and right in the middle is when they say the rapture happens. So in this system again, you will you will read those who take this position as describing certain things that you could possibly detect in terms of signs and things that will happen to let you know that the tribulation has begun. And once you see the beginning of the Tribulation, then you know, it's three and a half years from that point. So you know when the rapture is going to happen, and then obviously, because you can do the math, okay, three and a half and three and a half, you know, when the Second Coming is coming right after the seven year expires. So this system would not define imminence as there's nothing to look for blink of an eye, okay, this is the this here is the only system that does that. Then of course we have the kingdom and the new heaven and new Earth eternal state. Now, this one you may not have heard of the most familiar positions of rapture positions are pre trib, mid trib, and then post trib. I'd say in the last maybe 2025 years, maybe a little longer. Mar Marv Rosenthal, who was very active in ministry to Jews and Jewish Christians came up with a different view called the pre wrath Rapture. It's sort of like the mid trib, there are a few differences. We have a tribulation period, just after the midpoint, after the midpoint sometime after the midpoint, we don't really know that second, three and a half years, in that second, three and a half years, then the rapture can happen at any time, any moment. So we have to have, we have to pass the midpoint. The Rapture occurs after the three and a half years expires. And then we have a second coming millennial kingdom and then the eternal state now, this is called pre wrath because it does not equate the full seven years with the Great Tribulation. The Great Tribulation in this system is a smaller unit of time that begins and is really triggered by events in the middle of the 17th week of Daniel, namely the abomination of desolation. So once that happens, once you pass the midpoint, then the Lord can kind of come back at any time. And he's coming back again with the purpose of taking the Christians off the earth. Because there's going to be a terrible, terrible time of extreme persecution within the second three and a half years but not equated to the second three and a half because then he'd be a mid tripper. He's a he has a pre wrath theorist, hence the name. Post trib again has the seven year tribulation. At the very end of it, we have the rapture comes down in the air takes believers up and comes right back down again. In the second coming, so that happened, that transpires right at the end of the seventh eighth week of Daniel, again, all these systems assume that the tribulation period is the seventh eighth week. We talked about that assumption last week. And there's no verse for it. But it's it's an argument built on other considerations. So right at the end, we have the second coming and again, the kingdom and the eternal state. All of these positions are splitters. They have two events wrapped your second coming. The difference between them is the timing and the spacing between the two events.
They will I largely make the same assumptions, they will take certain passages, slightly different ways to get this variance, as far as the timing and the spacing. This view down here, referred to as the historic pre millennial position, does not believe in a rapture. The blessed hope for this position is the second coming a single event. Again, be here, it's the rapture it, the hope is that I'll be out of here, when all this bad stuffs happening. Now, you know, when you get to the post trip, it's like, well, you know, we went through it anyway, you know. So you can't really call the rapture the blast at Hope. But the hope really, you know, focuses on the end, like the historic primo position, what the differences are, you still have two events here, even though they're virtually back, you only have one here. And there's really no interest or no need is probably a better way to say it. There's no need to have a precise seven year period preceding Second Coming. It's a lot more variable or flexible. But you have the second coming kingdom, and new heaven and new earth, the our millennialist. Same hope as the historic pre mill, the second coming. And then after that is the new heaven and new earth that we don't have a 1000 year kingdom set up and then the eternal state, it's all the same thing. So this is mill now. These two are somewhat close. But what the fundamental division is, is that since the historic pre mill position has this little element, this millennial kingdom, they're going to insist that when Jesus returns, he actually governs on Earth, again for the specified 1000 years hence, it's a it's a millennial position. It's one of the millennial positions in the Amil system. They view the millennial language as referring to the here and now the church the age we're in now is the kingdom. And that's all there is. Whereas the historic PRI mill says, Well, yeah, you know, we're, in some sense, the kingdom is here, but there's going to be a future time after Jesus comes back, that he will actually set up a system of government honors and rule on the earth. And that's sort of the fundamental distinction, even though there's there's a lot of overlap here. Now, all rapture positions, presume certain things, they need to split second coming passages into two events. That was week two. They all characteristically have, again, this literal Millennial Kingdom idea, historic pre milled does to without a rapture, but all the rapture positions are going to have that the prophetic tribulation period, what I mean by that is, again, some, they're going to take some statements in the Old Testament, Daniel nine is probably the most obvious but they're going to take language in the Old Testament as specifying a specific period on Earth, as a time of great tribulation that could essentially be mapped out and the 73 could Daniel's really important for that, because of the whole timetable that it is presumed to lay out. The other thing they assume is a mostly, there's some variants here. And this is part of the reason why you get a pre amid a pre wrath or a post trib Rapture. The progression of events in the book of Revelation, if you've read the book of Revelation, I imagine most of you have probably a number of times, there are sealed trumpet and bowl judgments. There's a difference of opinion as to whether they're all in linear sequence. You got the seals, and then the trumpets of interval, you know, just the whole sequence? Or if some of them overlap with each other. And then the question becomes, which ones and how many. But all of those positions have the assumption that there is indeed a linear progression of events in the book of Revelation that you're supposed to read Revelation, as though it is unfolding linear time, but in the future. Now, you can catch that. I'm saying it that way, because a lot of people don't think revelation is supposed to be read in a linear fashion. Most of those, I don't want to say all but I'm almost willing to say anyone who takes that sort of position You can pretty much rule a rapture out, they're going to be Amil or historic pre mill, because they do something different with the Book of Revelation, I'll show you in a moment. Now, most rapture positions, presumed the following. So this isn't, we're not unanimous here, but most of them will make an equation of the seventh eighth week with the tribulation period. The exception is the pre wrath view. For them term tribulation, or Great Tribulation is not seven years. It's a portion within the 70th week of Daniel. So there's not a one to one equation there. Also, most rapture positions do acknowledge that there will be signs to look for either before the rapture, depending on how far into the 70th week you put the rapture, there might be things to look for. Or the second common again, the exception is the pre trib pre mil, that's the only view that's going to define imminent says, there is just nothing that needs to happen before the rapture could happen. That view is is the exception. Timing factors. Here, we sort of get into what we'll take a brief look at tonight. The belief that the tribulation period judgment is only for the Jews is an important factor. In the timing question, you know, in other words, how is any of it for Christians? Or is none of it for Christians? And this is a period of judgment. Okay. And so, does the church go through any of it? Or part of it? And which part? How long? Okay. So this whole issue is, is is quite significant. As far as what you think, what's the relationship between these two events, the rapture, and the second coming. This is again, tied to the seventh eighth week, again, the presumed quest connection, because for some, this period is seven years and the church is entirely divorced from it. For others, it's part and the church, either is still divorced from it or goes through part of it again, it just, it just depends. Now, here, here's why the questions raised if you link, the seventh eighth week, to the tribulation, think about what we looked at last week, what Daniel nine says in verse 2470, weeks are determined upon who somebody fill in the blank for me, determined upon thy people. And I city. Okay, and speaking of Daniel, it has to be for the Jews and for Jerusalem. So the assumption is that, as the angel describes, the seventh eighth week in verse 2027, is when we have the abomination and all this terrible destruction happens. That if all the other weeks were for Israel, and for Jerusalem, that stands to reason that the 70th week, which again, is presumed to be this tribulation time, it stands to reason that that week also is predictive of events that will happen specifically to national Israel. And its people. That's very logical thing to presume, because that's true. And because we can't equate national key term national Israel and the church, because those are two different things. The assumption is that the church is not going to endure the suffering of the Tribulation, it's somehow out of the picture. There are rapture positions that don't buy that entirely. Again, if you move the rapture into the tribulation, then you either have to redefine the tribulation, like the pre wrath position does as a little part of the second half. Or you have to say, you know, I think the church is going to suffer too. You got to make one of those two choices. But the question is raised because of Daniel 924 70, weeks determined upon by people and thy city, and then you extrapolate from that. So this is a big deal, and an area where there's going to be disagreement.
Again, the issue of the sequence and overlap of the judgments in the book of Revelation is going to Have you factor presence or absence of the church in Revelation four through 18. And here's what I mean by this in Revelation one through three. That is the message that Jesus gives to John about the various churches in Asia Minor. So a lot of the discussion is about churches. One of the arguments I'll show you in a second is that after chapters four, you don't have the word church, show up in the book of Revelation. In fact, verse one of chapter four says, After these things I saw and and stuff going on in heaven. And so the assumption is that there's a transition in Time and events where the church was part of the picture here. And then once we hit chapter four, when John starts getting information about the future, the church is not in the picture anymore. So this issue is the church present or absent? There's other views, you're gonna say it is in chapters four through 18, I'll show you why. This question is sort of dovetails with this one, that it would make sense to not have the church in these chapters when all the bad stuffs happening. That would make sense because the tribulation period is for the Jews, not the church. So these these ideas go hand in hand. I'm just trying to distill them here. The last issue we'll touch on tonight is how to interpret Matthew 24. Matthew 24 is in the New Testament, so every rapture position has to say something about it. But Matthew 24, it's Jesus longest sermon, other than the Olivet Discourse, or excuse me, the Sermon on the Mount. It's his longest sermon, maybe a little bit longer than that. Definitely his longest sermon on prophecy. There, there's actually a lot said in that chapter that allows you to create a chronology of events. There's a lot of ambiguities in it too. But because you're looking at a basic chronology, there's a disagreement over how that chapter influences the whole issue of the timing of again, the presumably separate events of the rapture in the Second Coming. You know, people who don't believe in a rapture are going to look at Matthew 24, an entirely different way, they're gonna say, it's all about second coming. It's all about second comic, it's all about saying how they're going to filter it through that decision that we talked about in week two. If you're splitting the events, you got to do something with the passage. You've got to here's the problem. You've got to find some explanation for the passage that matches that you're at least you're comfortable with the match, matches what said in First Thessalonians, four in First Corinthians 15. And we talked about those two weeks ago, too. So here are your major factors. Let's take a brief look at them. Is the church removed before the wrath of God and I put wrath so that I sort of account for the pre wrath or is here, but is the church removed from the prophetic picture? Before things get bad done before this great tribulation before the wrath of God? Embracing or rejecting that idea influences how you look at other passages, key text, here's one of the key sort of proof text. Everybody has to do something with. You turn to God from idols versus lines. This is Paul, to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven. Now he's already talking to Christians, he's already talking to the church. So it's not referring to the first coming. It's obviously referring to the second coming, because it's Paul, he's living in light of with the hope of the Second Coming or whatever prophetic events that are out there. So you're waiting for his Son from heaven whom he raised from the dead Jesus who delivers us from the Greek preposition is EQ can mean from or out of. That's the rub. Who delivers us from the wrath to come? Now let, there's two things to think about here. If I translate it delivers us from the wrath to come. That sounds like I'm delivered before I get tangled up in it. Before I encounter it, I'm delivered From the wrath become if I translate this out of, oh, the mid tripperz Like that one, because then you're already in it and you're delivered out of it. So which one is just a rule of thumb for Bible interpretation? Do not base any doctrine on a preposition. You should never base any position on a preposition, because they are no aureus ly elastic in meaning and translation. The short answer is, who knows? Could be either, both are completely possible. But that's only the first thing to think about. The second thing to think about is the wrath to come. Can anyone suggest more than one way to take that phrase? I've casted as referring to the tribulation, a prophetic period out there, that's really bad. What else might it mean? Yes. Judgment. You bet. Aren't haven't we been had been delivered from the wrath to come? Most of your Christian you have. In other words, it may not have anything to do with the tribulation period at all. Zero. It might just refer to hell. Who knows? You can go either way. Another verse, same epistle. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love. And for a helmet the hope of salvation for God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now this one sounds more like hell. Okay, but there are those who say, God hasn't destined to us the church to go through the Tribulation. And salvation is not ultimate here. Again, to those who make this argument. It's not the ultimate salvation. It's salvation from this hell on earth, known as the tribulation. So here, it's just it's a semantic issue. Again, which one is which wrath? Is it? Who knows? The logical question is, if if you're going to take, you almost got to take them both the same way to be consistent? Because you got the same letter and same writer First Thessalonians. If you think this one refers to hell than what's keeping you from thinking the other one does? Well, I need that one to get out of the tribulation. Well, at least you're honest. You know, and you might be right. You might be right. You know, setting aside the whole idea of, of I'm going to articulate a theology, because what I want to happen is that, you know, is a problem, but, again, everybody does that somewhere. Setting that aside, you know, you have to either say, you know, I think I can have one and the other, I think it's six of one half is another, I'm just going to make it in this passage, it means this and that passage means that or I'm going to be consistent and have the same approach the same interpretation for both and then that'll take you somewhere else again, in your in your view, go ahead.
Speaker 1 28:37
Consistent with prior internal to the passage to salvation from tribulation are gone, if you took that to mean deliverance from tribulation, the salvation to with the reduced in significance to salvation.
Michael Heiser 29:07
You're right, you're right. If if you're gonna take them the same way, then then all the elements surrounding them, yeah, you would need to be consistent. At least, it feels like you would need to be consistent. To me it feels that way. Yeah, I mean, but But Mike didn't write the rules, you know, for cosmic Bible interpretation, either. Okay. You know, I'm very fond, especially when I get into it on the internet with critics who say, they give you either or fallacies all the time till it just makes your eyes bleed. Okay. You know, I'm not I'm gonna reject what you say and then that the truth must be what I say well, like, Why do I only get two choices? I don't want to do that either. You know, they're just because to me, it feels like boy, you know, I think I need to be consistent here. That doesn't mean that it's required. I don't I can't Tell you can't point to any any passage that says thou shalt take this word consistently everywhere. I don't have anything like that. But for me, I, I like to feel like I'm being consistent. Across the board, I like to probe things that way. Is the church present or absent? from Revelation four through eight in argument, the word church occurs 19 times in Revelation one through three. And once in chapter 22, it does not appear even once in chapters four through 18, which describe the tribulation period. And again, this is taken from Ryrie Ryrie is a pre trib pre mil, that's his position. So he makes this observation and on the basis of this observation, not only this, but this is a this a significant derived on the basis of this absence, the absence of this word at Clay sia in Greek, he says, Look, that has to mean something. And for iria, it means that the church is out of the picture in these chapters. And since what happens in these chapters is all this bad tribulation stuff. His conclusion, based on that and some other things is that the church is removed, it's raptured off planet prior to the tribulation. Now, alternatives will say this, or anyway, this, this is, again a text Ryrie will refer to, after this, I looked like chapter four, and come up here and then the reference to a trumpet. So he said, the rapture happens right here in chapter four. And that's why we don't have the church there. Now, the other view is this. While the word church doesn't show up, the occurrence of the word saints feel like it like in Paul's epistles, this does occur in chapters four through 18. Here reference references. So the other view says, look, okay, at Clay, see it doesn't show up. But hoggy, Oi saints, the word that the New Testament uses for New Testament Church believers that does show up. So to this view that suggests that the church is on earth, think and Ryrie points this out. He's being honest, he's not going to hide anything. But to go back here. So which is is the church present or absent? I don't know. Can you have to make a decision? Which argument do you think is more compelling? You can't really have both. So again, you have to make a decision. If you have the church in, in these chapters, then that opens the door to other possible views of Rapture. But if you'll notice, the distribution. Here we have chapter 1316, and 18. So it kind of goes toward the end. So even positions that don't have a pre trib rapture are prone, especially when you get toward the end again, if you think revelations a linear sequence, and that writer on chapter 18, you're getting close now to the end of the tribulation period. If you want to Rapture before this, if this argument really matters, then you might have to fudge on what you think STS means at any given point, again, to make the system work, you know, whatever system it is you prefer, and you might have good arguments for that. You know, they might be arbitrary. It just depends. On is the book of Revelation linear? In other words, when I open the book of Revelation, am I correct in assuming that the writer is giving me a flow of time that proceeds in a straight line? Now, most people are certainly used to reading the book that way, because that's kind of how we read books. Okay, it's just one thing happens. And then the next thing happens, the next thing happens and you're just used to reading things in linear fashion. So proceeding from that, again, if you want to make an argument about the absence of the church, you really do need some sort of linear flow. So you can say, these chapters right here or church isn't there it's before and it's after, when you start using words like before and after, you are thinking in a linear fashion. So this is important. chapters six through 16 are where you get these judgments. And here's how the linear view looks at things, the seals, seal judgments start, and then there's seven of those. And when the seventh one is up, then the first trumpet, then you have a succession. When that one's over, then you have the first bowl. And the seventh bowl is the end of the final day of the Lord. So you have 21 judgments in a row in linear sequence. This is how your standard pre millennial position takes it. And certainly all of your wraps your positions will take it in linear fashion. But is that right? Well, not everybody thinks so. Fact, a lot of people don't think so. I don't know who would be in the majority here, probably pretty close. Most, the most widely known non chronological view is something called the recapitulation review. It's basically a repetition of cycles. So the view is that all those judgments, seals, trumpets bowls actually convey the same set of events, the same set of ideas in different ways. And they cycle through each other. They're repetitive, there are three, instead of three sets of seven linear judgments, there's three sets of seven, each of them is a cycle that tells the same story each time, but in slightly different ways. If you take that view, you do not have a linear time sequence and Revelation, it undermines it. Here's what it looks like, I couldn't really find a good graphic of this. This is from Beals commentary, when you can always get the slides and look at it more closely. But when the seals start in chapter six, you have certain elements, you've got the horse, some something about conquest here, and the sword taking piece from the earth and another horse, you have these horses and all this bad stuff going on fam and blah, blah, blah. So you have four catastrophes, you got to invent a really broad term for this for catastrophes. And then you have the woes intensify, approaching the end, so you have more catastrophes here, then there's some sort of interlude about the 144,000 in the two witnesses, and whatever that is, and then you have a final end. So here's one cycling through catastrophe level one, catastrophe level two interlude and the final battle, the final conflict, and then the trumpets will give you four catastrophes, and then you have these woes, then an interlude then the end, you know, you get the idea. So some people are, are not disturbed by the fact that this three sets of bold judgments do not use the same terms a lot. Remember, the splitting or joining session we did two weeks ago? Some, some people really need the exact same vocabulary used for every n times event to feel that it's one event. As soon as you have differences. It must be to I'm going to split them.
I use the illustration of the harmony. The situation with the four gospels don't agree. Do we harmonize? Or do we keep apart? And then we talked about do I harmonize the Second Coming passages? Or do I divide them into two events? It's the same issue here. When when the vocabulary is different for these catastrophes? Are they completely different events? Or are they the same events just using different words and different symbols and different images? Some people are thinking, yeah, sure, why not? You know, they're all sort of same general kind of category, I'm fine with seeing cycles repeated. Bible does that lots of places like Book of Judges, you know, you have this sort of endless cycle of judgment and oppression and God raises up a judge and they go off the deep end again. And so there's an analogy to the idea. But the idea is taken to the book of Revelation. And that influences the way you look at the whole book. Is that right? I don't know. Rapture elements? This one was a slide we looked at two weeks ago. Everybody who espouses a rapture is going to take First Thessalonians four as the rapture. That's sort of like the go to passage. So let's look at it, you got to shout, an angel trumpet, and something going on in the clouds. So we have these elements right here. Okay, fix those in your mind once again. So we got certain set of rapture elements, we've got Daniel nine. And the seventh eighth week, is described this way. He this this bad guy prints, which most people assume as the Antichrist, he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week, going one week, at seven years, half of the week, first three and a half, he shall put an end to the sacrifice and offering and on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate until the decreed and is poured out on the Desolator. So in the middle of the seventh eighth week, something that Jesus and other people call the abomination of desolation happens. So let's fix in our minds, we've got certain elements for Rapture. Right here, shout Angel, trumpet clouds, somewhere up in the sky. And we've got a seven year tribulation with the abomination happening in the middle. Got it. Matthew 24, why don't you turn to Matthew 24. Because again, everybody who who has a rapture and a second coming has to do something with this passage. Matthew 24, give me a chance to get there. You want to start at verse 15? Again, the whole chapter is essentially Jesus answering the question, hey, you know what's going to happen at the time of the end? And what will be the signs of you're coming? And so Jesus launches into this long discussion. What do you see in verse 15? Anybody keep going. Go ahead, you can read it
Unknown Speaker 42:25
will be the time because
Speaker 1 42:28
you'd have to escape from this
Speaker 2 42:38
terrible time it will be for pregnant women and nursing mothers will not have this escaping.
Unknown Speaker 42:46
There will be trouble that is beginning.
Michael Heiser 42:52
To stop there. It sounds like sounds like it's bad. Okay, so it sounds like the tribulation keep going.
Speaker 2 43:01
It again, and at this time, no one would survive. But for the sake of those who have been chosen, it's linked. Because that time someone says to you look, here's the Messiah or don't believe there will appear multiple signs and false prophets performing great, amazing things. So it's even possible there. Some people say to you, listen, he's out in the desert. Don't go. Or look, he's hidden away in a secret. Don't believe it. Man does come, there'll be like lightning, flashes and East and fills the sky for western horizon. Wherever there's a dead body. That's where you find that immediately following the trouble of those times,
Michael Heiser 43:51
immediately following the trouble of those times keep going. Some of our dark
Speaker 2 44:02
stars will fall from the sky ours attempting to escape in the sign of the sun of manual here in the sky. All the tribes in the land will warn the snowman coming
Michael Heiser 44:22
so we have the clouds coming in the clouds we've got the shofar which is the trumpet. And we have an angel keep going
Unknown Speaker 44:32
gather together his chosen people are gathering
Michael Heiser 44:35
that sounds like a rapture doesn't it? Doesn't have a rapture is it's not a dispersing it's a gathering keep going.
Speaker 2 44:51
Creepy Brenda's began to scrub leaves appears notice summer has proven in the same way when you see all these Things You are familiar with time is near, right at the door. Yes, I tell you that this people will certainly not pass away before all these things happen. Heaven and earth are passed away in my work whenever possible. That day and hour will come. No one knows, I think angels in heaven, not the sun, only the Father, the Son of Man's coming up just as it was in the days of Noah. Then people went on eating and drinking, taking wives becoming Rachel today, there's no interviewer. And they didn't know what was happening until the flood came and spoke to them all away.
Michael Heiser 45:38
Go back to the reference to the I don't know what terminology used right around verse 29. Is that the abomination reference? Or something like that? Go ahead and read that.
Unknown Speaker 45:48
Immediately following those times.
Michael Heiser 45:53
Yeah, what is what version Do you have, by the way? Anybody else have have the word abomination in there so we can get a feel for how it's translated in a couple of versions. I can open it up. I don't want to take the time. Somebody read Matthew 2429.
Back up a little bit. 15. Okay. Yeah, read that then. Seven. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah, that one, okay.
Okay, so we have a reference to the abomination. That was faster, and I thought it would be verse 15, so when you see the abomination spoken of, and then all this bad stuff happens when is the abomination happened according to the seventh eighth week, in the middle, right. So this must be the midpoint of the Tribulation, if we're going to take seventh eighth week Daniel as Catch this. If you take the seventh eighth week as a synonym for the tribulation, then you have a seven year tribulation and this must be the middle point. And what that means is, you don't get the language about the gathering the angel, the trumpet, you don't get any of the stuff you find in First Thessalonians. Four until after the midpoint. So that creates an issue. If you're a pre trib, pre Miller, what do you do with that? Well, what you do with it, is you have to back here, I have choices right here, you got some choices to make. Either you have to have those set of signs in the angel, the gathering the trumpet, all that stuff, you either have to argue that both of those signs are sort of both the rapture and the second coming. You have to argue that the imagery is the same. But as soon as you do that, the other side, your opponent is going to say, Well, why don't you just have one? In other words, if you're going to use the same images for two events, what's wrong, which is saying that those two events are actually the same event? And the answer is, nothing's wrong with that. It's a decision you have to make you again, either split them, you're firmly convinced that a split is necessary. And therefore, you have to look at the imagery and apply it to both and say Matthew 24 is talking about the Second Coming. It's not talking about a rapture, the context is the second coming. And it just so happens that those images in First Thessalonians four are also relevant there. I just did it. I just made that argument for you. And then I would defend that argument. Whereas the other side's gonna say, Oh, give it up. Okay, just it's just, it's the same thing. Just one event. You know, so the struggle is really going to be other passages where you're either persuaded you gotta have to events, or you still have one. But no matter what your view is, and there are plenty of pre trib, pre Miller's out there who will have a view of Matthew 24. Same thing for your pre wrath there's your pre your mid triggers your post harbor ZZ, because that's basically to event to events that are really want anyway. But all the other rapture positions that are not post trib have a way of dealing with Matthew 24. So that their system is intact. Everybody does that. I just want you to be alerted to the fact that again, we have this marriage between the 70th week and the tribulation, like they're synonymous terms. If you do that, you're going to have trouble here. Okay, if you don't do that, if you do something different, be creative. I mean, think about it, do something different with the 78th week and the tribulation like like the pre rafters do, they don't equate them and they still have a rapture, it's just a different time. But be creative, you have to have some relationship between the two, the Daniel issue, and then the Matthew 24 issue, every position is going to have to create some sort of coherent alignment of those two passages. And the different ways you do that will produce different systems, different timings. Now, what time is it? What is it? Five to? Okay, I do have five minutes. All right, since since I've been asked a lot, you know, what do you think I threw in two slides down here. I'm not going to tell you my positions, because, you know, I'm still thinking about things. I will sort of by way of summary tell you the things that I think you can sort of really latch on to that have a high degree of certainty is one of the questions last week was, you know, do we sort of have a hermeneutic of despair? Is there anything you know, we can know about? And times for sure, yeah, there's some things. There are some things that are, you know, have more clarity than others. And I want to I want to share for me what a few of those are. So in this column, I have strong suspicions. We'll just call them that. I don't want to call them absolute certainties. But strong positions, I would say this much stuff over here. This much, at least is true. And over here, there are points of uncertainty, things that I'm not so sure about. First one, I would say that the kingdom of God is here in some way. Definitely. Colossians 113. I don't know how much clearer Paul could make this. He Jesus has transferred you into the kingdom of his dear son. He's using the past tense. He's speaking to Christians. Right, then. How much cleric can it be? So the kingdom can't be totally future in some way it is here. But the question is, is that all it is? In other words, if I was an armed millennialist, I would say, I stopped right here. Churches a kingdom. That's it. End of discussion. That's all there is. It's all there's going to be. Move on to the next topic. I'm not so sure about that. Fact. I, you know, I'm I really, really doubt that this is all there is to the kingdom. I do think we will see an earthly rule. But beyond that, you know, terminology. I would quibble about. Next one. I think we have to affirm that the church and this is consistent with this one. The church does inherit the Abrahamic covenant. Why do I say that? Because Paul does. And I don't want to disagree with Paul. A, Paul says point blank in these four verses, that if your Christ's you are Abraham's seed and air according to the promise, how much clearer can he be? We do inherit the covenant and if you remember the first week, this is a big deal, because the covenant is for concluding that Israel is still going to get the land and the kingdom of God Jesus is going to return to Israel. Temple is going to be rebuilt, and there will be a literal kingship of Christ in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. So all millennials will say Nope, none of that's going to happen because the church inherits the covenant? Well, I think it does. But again, my question is, does that really rule out a future for national Israel? Ultimately, it depends how you read this passage right here. Because this is Paul's wish and hope for the salvation of Israel. Does his hope for the salvation of Israel include or exclude the land? He's not clear? So I think it very well could. I just don't know. That's why it's in the uncertain column. This is real clear, that isn't that we also have to agree that the church is the household of David. Go to x 15 1617 set the stage for you. This is the so called Jerusalem Council, where they have to meet about you know, do we have any rules that apply to the Gentiles you know, Paul's come back here and told us about all these Gentiles being saved and Wow, isn't that an amazing thing? I never would have seen that come in. Because you know, we're Israel were Jews. It was our Messiah and all this kingdom stuff and while the Gentiles are being brought in, and we believe that this is really of God, and but now like, you know, we got this mixed church thing and some of the stuff that Gentiles do really bothers Jews and vice versa, what do we do? So they meet here. And James, in these two verses, quotes a certain passage. Okay, let's hear it in Acts 15. For somebody want to read those two verses. After this, I will return you know, we build a tandem database. I will be building rather than magnify the CV for my name.
I will rebuild what is the word tabernacle their tent, I'll rebuild the tent of David. salvation of mankind as somebody go to Amos. Amos 910 through 12, I believe is the passage. This is the passage that James is quoting. It'll read a little differently than James CITES. Somebody want to read that when they get it
Speaker 2 57:43
people sort of, say disasters not overtake Ermita. That day will raise up the booth of David and his hall and repair its branches, reaches arrays of its ruins and rebuild it and possess the remnants of Eden. All the nations who are called, declares the Lord.
Michael Heiser 58:04
Sounds real similar except the Edom part. remnant of Edom, in Amos and an x we get the remnant of mankind or something like that. Problem is Edom and a DOM mankind are spelled exactly the same way in Hebrew. But James takes that reference, again, mankind sort of if we want to think of Edom Edom was attached to Israel peripherally It was sort of an outsider, but not an outsider. It could they were descendants of Aesop's. So they were outside the chosen line, but they were still related. And so James is taking that idea. And sifting that through Paul's testimony of the salvation of the Gentile and lots of other Old Testament passages about salvation, the Gentile, Isaiah 66. And he's like, man, we didn't see this coming. But there it is. But the part I want you to focus on is this tent of David. If you were Amos and you were living in Amos this time, okay. You've seen the kingdom split. You got part of the kingdom is history. And then you got the little kingdom of Judah struggling along the dynasties. Wicked. You got a bunch of bad kings. And then Amos comes along and says, you know, God says he's going to rebuild the tabernacle of David, what do you think that is? Think it means the church. James did. I mean, that's what he does with it. He views that passage as proof that God was bringing in the Gentile. And if that's the case, and it is because that's what he says. Then the church is the household of David, in some sense. out. Does that rule out a visible kingdom? Ruled by the Davidic Messiah when He returns? I don't think so. Because he's gonna return doesn't rule out of return. That's for sure. Because Paul talked about the return Blooding at times too. And so did Luke. So that everybody, but again, the millennialist will take this and say that don't need a kingdom. I'm just not sure. Because, you know, it doesn't really say that that's that. That's something you're that's a conclusion you're drawing from it. And it doesn't really say that. It says this much. But it doesn't really say what you're extrapolating the church, I think, again, transparently, the church is the temple of God. How do I know that? First Corinthians 316, First Corinthians 619, one of these references is singular, the other is plural. Paul says, Don't you know that you, either singular or plural? are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you? How clear Could he be? Why would he say that? Because the presence of God, the glory cloud of the Old Testament, lives in each believer, and each believer collectively forms the church. The body of Christ. Body of Christ is what who is Christ? What was he he was the in Flashman, the incarnation of what deity? What he is very consistent. But if we affirm with Paul, this, because that's what he says, does that mean there's no need to rebuild the temple? Personally, I don't really see any need to have a Temple rebuilt, doesn't mean it won't be. And I don't think this rules it out. I think you can have your standard premillennial system without a temple. I don't think it's essential, but a lot of people want it. So it's okay. I don't think this rules out that but this I'm more sure of that I am that. There will be discernible signs prior to the Second Coming. astronomical. I say that because of Matthew 24, signs in the sky and all that kind of stuff. And historical stuff happening on the earth, like the Antichrist and all that kind of stuff. So regardless of what position you take, even if you're pre trib pre mill, I found that the pre trib pre mill people are the ones that are most tuned in to reading the newspaper and figuring out where we're at. And they're the ones that are saying nothing needs to happen. But they're the ones that just they're just right there. Every news event, where does that fit into the prophetic timeline? Where are you worried about it? It's not that needs to happen. I mean, I don't get it. Even even that system, even though in theory, there's nothing that needs to happen. You can tell that there is a sense when Jesus in Matthew 24, starts talking about all this stuff going on, even though they'll they'll put the signs into the tribulation period, close to the second coming, because that's, that's kind of where they're at. If you do that, why would you do that as a pre tripper? Because if you can pin that down, and he can do the math and work backwards, and you'll know when the rapture is fair, it's Harold Camping. Okay, you know, the whole spiel. This is what everybody's doing, even though they believe in imminence. Boy, they sure want to know. And so we're looking for signs that will appear later, I won't be here at church won't be here. It'll be off planet will be with the Lord. But man, if I can pin something down over here that I just get out my calculator and work back. I know when it's gonna happen. That's really cheating. But there is truth in the sense that, yeah, there are passages that say that begin if you're pre trib, none of this is before the rapture. All of its before the second coming somehow in the seven year period. If you're not a pre tripper, then you know this takes on a different meaning to you. You're plotting out you're looking for different things for different reasons, you know, different parts of the tribulation. This obviously, I don't know if I want to call it a I think I would call it a sort of a kind of a lesson in futility. Maybe not a complete waste of time. It is interesting, to some extent, but you're guessing where plus you have genius Just saying, look, the day of the hour. No man knows. Now, I'll grant you. If you guess they're there, I don't want to get into it. But the big one is, what is the sign of the Son of Man? We know astronomically speaking, that there were signs that accompanied and map with extraordinary precision, like down to a 90 minute window, the first coming the birth of Christ. Okay. The question is, is that what the sign of the Son of Man means? In other words, is the same set of circumstances that were at the first coming in the sky? Is that going to repeat? And is that what mean the sign of the Son of Man means? Who knows? Nothing ever says that. But if you guessed right, you could map this to within six months or a few months. You can map it all out. But you're guessing, like attend other different places too. And I think this is what Jesus is getting at. Look, you're not going to know. Here's some things to look for so that you're ready. But you're not going to know. So don't worry about it. I mean, just be be satisfied with what I'm giving you a few last things. These are things I would I would say just don't have a prayer of being right. Okay, so we're gonna, we're gonna have the negative perspective here. I don't see how you can get a partial Rapture. Okay, rapture is tough enough. You got enough questions there. But to say that the rapture is only for the holiest people in the church. That when I'm real skeptical of I think you can rule out Gog and Magog as Russia. This is one of the things that I just love to hate. Hebrew is not Russian. Roche does not mean Russia to balls does not mean you know, whatever. to Garma. Semitic is not indo European, because there's just no relationship at all. I think we can rule that one out. This one is a little more interesting. Go to Revelation 20. I would say we need to rule out Gog and Magog, whatever that is, as an event separate from either the Second Coming or the day of the Lord. The only other place in the Bible where God and or Magog are mentioned, is Revelation 20. And it occurs after the 1000 years. Nevertheless, you will read all sorts of books that have Gog and Magog happening somewhere in the tribulation with amazing precision, somehow completely ignoring revelation 20, which is over here. So you literally and I have seen people do this, you literally have to say things like, Well, I just think that's another Gog and Magog.
Really? Like there's one in the old time, the only other time it's referred to as here. And that's just like another one completely different than the other why? They had the answer is I need it for my system to work. I think we can rule that one out. And lastly, I think there's a last one on here. People will take sides on this, that the antichrist must be a Jew. And then you'll have other people who are flipped over and say he must be a Gentile. He can be either. There's actually a there's actually a long line of tradition that argues either way, if you think the Daniel 11 and Tikus you have to be sort of into prophecy to follow this, but I'm gonna throw it out here. If you think that that anti against the fourth what he did, in committing the abomination in the middle of the second century BCE, if you think that that was sort of a blueprint for the abomination that you imagined yet future. That's great, because there's a lot to suggest that but he was a Gentile. Very clearly. On the other side, there is a long line of tradition. Let me put it this way. There's a Jewish line of tradition that looked at the tribe of Dan very suspiciously very negatively. And that was picked up on in the early church by Irenaeus. And a few others got him Hippolytus who believed that certain passages indicated a great enemy will rise from Dan and be a rival to Judah because Dan and Judah are often diametrically opposed in certain genealogies and there are other weird things going on with Dan. So there was There was a tradition shared by Jews and Christians that the Antichrist would come from either the tribe or the region of Dan. I'll give you one sort of oddity in the book of Revelation with 144,000. Where do we get the number 12,000? From? How many tribes foe? How many tribes are there in Israel? 12. Look at the list. Dan is not there. But it's still 12 tribes. Dan is omitted from the list, Dan's omitted in different places in the Bible for for inexplicable reasons. And so the rabbi's in the early early church noticed these anomalies. And also the location of Dan, in the far north, there's, there's a whole Old Testament tradition called the enemy from the North. It's a motif that repeats, it's also it's in Ezekiel 38, and 39. By the way, this northern enemy that comes down, attacks, Jerusalem, and all this kind of stuff. Dan is part of that because of where Dan moves, Dan's tribe originally was in the South. I know I'm getting into these boring passages in the Old Testament, like tribal allotments, man, that's exciting reading there. But if you look at it, some of the some of the best stuff is in these odd passes. If you look at it, the tribe of Dan originally was in the south right about Judah, like near Jerusalem. They move they leave, they leave their tribal allotment, and they migrate north into a region called Buchon. Which was viewed in the Bible and outside the Bible as the gates of hell. Is that a coincidence? I don't know. But there's again, some Jewish thinkers and some early Christian thinkers that notice stuff like that and go, oh, there's something up with Dan just doesn't look good. So you actually have a long line of tradition, that will go either way, on this issue. So I don't think I have it in this list. Because you can't really be dogmatic. There's just no way to say it must be this or that. But that's it. Any questions? I'm actually a little over which I did not anticipate that. Any questions? Yes.
Speaker 3 1:12:26
For example, in the Evangelical Church of God and Church of God who don't believe in a rapture, they kind of substitute in the place of safety. And I came in first grade, and it's the one that says, Watch and pray always, that you might be accounted for these things that are scanned before the sun.
Michael Heiser 1:12:48
So even safety within within on the earth
Speaker 3 1:12:54
kind of goes along like this, or gressenhall is a place of safety. And let's see. So it appears that there's going to be a place of deliverance minister, either blessing. Revelation is not this great, going out and encountering some resistance, and not being able to penetrate to a certain area of frustration gives out and then goes out on the whole earth and spewing out His wrath on the entire population. Does
Michael Heiser 1:13:34
that does that have a name or it's just you're just associated with that with those groups? Okay. Interesting.
Speaker 3 1:13:42
That's basically the evangelical church.
Michael Heiser 1:13:48
What's, what's the history of that? Is that is that an offshoot of Armstrong's old worldwide? Because I know I know, they had sort of an evangelical derivative of that. Okay. Anybody else?
Speaker 2 1:14:15
All the time. And before that it doesn't come straight. Notice the Zachariah is clearly talking about the land of Israel, not really another conference.
Michael Heiser 1:14:31
So how does it does it apply it to either the rapture or the second coming in the note?
Why would they mourn? I guess if it was the tribes of Israel Think with me here. I don't I don't know how it could be a rapture event because if the rapture is the removal of the church, then you'd have to invent some You know, or discern or create some sort of argument, why that would make them mourn? And if it's toward the end of the tribulation, they've had lots of reasons to mourn before that. So why single that out? You know, I don't? I don't know, I'd have, I'd have to see how it's plugged in to know what I think of it. But those are just those are two or three things I'd want to know right off the bat. Sure, it doesn't say anything. It doesn't apply it in some way there.
Speaker 2 1:15:37
I'll see you later. This is Emma stood out with me. Contrasting the erroneous translation.
Michael Heiser 1:15:53
It's interesting, you'd also have to know what what the word there is for tribe? Because, you know, I don't I don't know if Tom had how much precision there is between tribe and nation. In other words, is, is a word that could be used for an Israelite tribe, is that ever used of a non Israelite nation? And I don't have that in my head. But if it was, that might be a reason why other translators would actually choose world there. And they would have to take the 12? Well, there's no there is no 12. It just says, All right, all the tribes or all the nations, that would have to be part of the rationale for choosing the translation world, or nations instead of tribe. But that's a really good example. Because I mean, if that's the case, you're getting into word usage. And you can tell by virtue of the translation choice there, that really takes you in different directions. And I'm not saying that the translator is being a trader here or anything like that. You just have to make those choices because you can't, you can't put both in your translation. You got to choose one. So I'd be interested in in doing a word study on that and see if there's any usage that's non non Israelite, for that. Anybody else? Sure, go ahead.
Speaker 2 1:17:27
Notes on that when he was putting on the bed was used for i o these days. David had a friend who once thought that the rapture was synthetic would hopefully occur on crucifixes for the Day of Atonement just because Corinthians referred to as tracing through the eye.
Michael Heiser 1:17:58
Do you have your Lagace open? Because I'd like to know if that's a transliteration shofar. I'll tell you why. If that really is the shofar in other words, if that's not just an interpretive translation, if you can establish that a shofar, since that's connected with the sign of the Son of Man, that takes on importance because if you take revelation 12 as a series of astronomical signs, and you literally take that as a Celeste as a series of celestial events. You can pinpoint the birth of Christ again to within a 90 minute window and that event coincides with the blowing of the shofar okay, it's Rosh Hashana as well, in other words, everything in the Jewish calendar and everything in the Greco Roman Astro theological calendar aligns at that moment. So if that is the shofar that would suggest it certainly doesn't prove. It would it would be one argument that you would use to suggest that what's going on in Revelation 12 is the sign of the Son of Man. And so the question is, can you really is that a legitimate assumption to make? Because if it is that suggests that the same concatenation of events is associated with the Second Coming as was as they were with the first you see all the extrapolations I just made there. Okay, but the fact that you can do that, I actually have that on my computer. I have that mapped out. I can tell you what it is. But is there any point to it? You know, I just made two or three not leaps of logic, but leaps of faith. You know, I guessed at that. I mean, who knows? So this is one of the reasons why I say, you know, I know, I know prophecy is interesting, but there are people who would hear what I just said, and literally spend the next 25 years of their life trying, trying to prove that trying to nail that down. Why? I mean, at the end of the day, what you have is one big really cool guess. That's all you got. It's what it'll be 25 years from now. It'll be a guess it'll be what it is today. It's a guess. So I would be interested if that's I don't want to hold you guys about I'll look when we sit down. I want to know if that's a translation or a transliteration of shofar. Anybody else? Any other question? Seeing none, thank you for coming.