End Times Controversy: with Dr. Dean Davis

okay we are live hey everyone thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of remnant radio uh we're gonna be talking about uh the controversy behind in times like four kind of primary controversial theological topics when it comes to eschatology uh before we introduce you to our guest i wanna let you know a little bit about remnant radio who we are and what we do uh remnant radio is a theology broadcast we stream every monday night 8 30. whoa just kidding tuesday at 4 00 pm central standard time we don't stream monday night 8 30. that's going to be hard to stop saying uh but we're at theology broadcast we interview pastors and teachers from different churches and denominations uh anglicans methodist lutherans presbyterians baptist our goal is to kind of suspend our presuppositions and study god's word and learn from our christian brothers whom many of them we disagree with but our goal is just to make sure that we're challenging ourselves to study god's word as god's word and not nullify it by our tradition in our own theological echo chamber we're entirely crowdfunded if you want to support us you can give on paypal one-time gift or you can give on patreon be a monthly giver as low as five bucks a month and get tons of extra content to my left your right we have michael rountree the contest radio yes and speaking of extra content we just filmed some that's right for our patreon account we try to do that uh every week and most every week at least and uh and so we're always trying to put that out there as a thank you to those of you who have supported this ministry and uh just wanted to give you guys just a little bit of uh a glimpse of kind of what's ahead and what's to co and what we just did let's start with what we just did yeah uh new year's eve many of you will be familiar with it we uh that video has gone i don't know it's gone remnant viral it's viral for us i mean 30 000 views in three days i mean that's pretty pretty uh pretty great so uh anyway we did a marathon testing prophecies so people shared their prophecies and kind of well-known voices in the charismatic world and uh the scripture tells us the first tim uh first thessalonians five to test everything and so we did and i think the the results were quite interesting so make sure you check it out it's time stamped because it's eight hours long so you can find your little segment that you want to listen to had uh dr michael brown and had dr michael brown on it and uh jack dear sam storms and many more so uh anyway we had that and then uh but i want you guys to for sure know about our new schedule for the new year uh because josh is now full-time remnant radio uh we're gonna start doing more daytime broadcast daytime for us in central time uh so four o'clock central time mondays tuesdays and then we'll also have a wednesday show we're gonna have three shows a week from four to five from four to five each time so it's gonna be at the same time the first three days of the week monday and tuesday will be our interviews and then wednesday former co-host of remnant radio michael miller is going to be joining us uh for a podcast we're we're kind of floating names for it right now but it is going to be about the gifts of the holy spirit and that specific topic so um anyway so that's gonna be coming up that won't be this wednesday that'll start in a week yeah why the time change simeon asks well because if i'm full time i don't have to work a full-time job and miss a night with my wife and kids right i can just spend during the workout josh has typically worked a separate full-time job and then remnant's been on top of that so he's had to do it at night but uh anyway without further ado let's jump into this topic so uh dean davis is on the other line with us right now and uh dean if you could just maybe take a moment introduce us to yourself introduce us to your ministry and just any any resources or books or websites or ways that we can connect you uh that would be great tell us a little bit about yourself okay well i'll uh i'll be brief first of all thank you both so much for having me i consider it a real privilege um my name is jean davis i live here in santa rosa california served as a pastor for probably about 35 years i'm retired now and i've devoted a lot of my time to writing primarily although occasionally i'll do a few seminars the book that we'll be discussing today is the high king of heaven and i've written that and several others i'll interrupt you for a moment dean here is the book high king of heaven definitely recommend this to you guys it's got a uh it actually has an endorsement from dr sam storms who's uh kind of a crowd favorite on the show and he's always on josh is everything good having a nervous attack like i'm like why is this not working i'm trying to click the button it switches to you i got it i got it up finally okay i just saw your jaw drops okay anyway it's a thick book but it will answer every question you've ever had about the end times so uh a great that's a great resource well i'm saying this book can solve every escalator we'll see we'll see you said it was the moment the scope of this book is simply breathtaking that's what sam said nice okay okay so i interrupted you i wanted to show them the book but uh continue along dean well i wanted to mention i have really tried to make this book as available as possible because it's big and fat it gets expensive so i i decided to make it available on kindle for 2.99 so you can download the kindle app onto your computer so if if you're out there in the uh in faraway lands and you're very poor by all means don't let that stop you i really would like you to enjoy that that book um they're at redemption press which is my publisher they i've asked them to sell it at the lowest possible price in hard copy so you can get it for about 18 there and that should help you um nothing much else i i i do have a website um the name of my ministry is come let us reason and if you'll just google that in and with my name attached you'll find the website i did want to mention um that a friend of mine a kindred a millennial spirit named sean mcgrath has start has put together a beautiful website um basically presenting biblical eschatology from an a millennial point of view and the address there is amillennialism.wordpress.com so those are a few resources for your for your listeners wonderful wonderful well the cat is out of the bag he is all millennial but you're gonna hear a little bit more about that now um you call it the great end times debate uh so dean could you just maybe introduce us to the nature of the debate what are the kind of key points that we need to be thinking about with regard to this debate very good yeah i would like to do that well i do call up the great end time debate and probably most people find eschatology pretty intimidating because there's so many points of view out there so i want to first of all talk about the debate and then i'll talk about the points of view and i'll keep this short when you're dealing with eschatology most of us are concerned with what i would refer to as the consummation for the second coming of the lord jesus christ and all that will happen when he returns i would call that the narrow focus or the narrow view of the debate but there's a little bit better way i think a more biblical way of thinking about the debate i would like to say that the broad view of the debate is what is the nature and the structure of what we call salvation history most people when they read the bible they kind of create a mental timeline you have the creation you have the fall you have a long era of preparation and then you have the first coming of christ which inaugurates what i call an era of fulfillment and where the debate enters in is there's a lot of different pictures or scenarios about what that era of fulfillment looks like so i would define the great end time to be the wide view is that it's about nature and structure of salvation history and especially about the last days or the era of fulfillment one of my goals in writing the book and one of my goals in speaking with you today is to try to assure you that i think in the end the solution to this debate is pretty simple and i'm going to try to present that to you let me go through the contestants in the debate very briefly and i'm going to do this in what i consider to be the proper historical order for chronological order first of all you have a millennialism which appeared very early in church history and it was enshrined in the decay and the apostles creed and it has been the default eschatology of the reformed protestant movement pretty much right along a millennialism says that you have the first coming of christ and then at the end of the present evil age after a difficult season which i like to call the last battle the lord jesus will return once and he at that time will raise the dead he will transform the living saints he will judge the world in righteousness he will destroy the present earth and cosmos with fire and he will introduce the new heavens and the new earth so the amillennial view has a very simple view of the consummation and this is what intrigued me about it when i first ran across it when i was in seminary so many years ago the second contestant is what i would call historic pre-millennialism and basically it goes like this the historic pre-millennial view interprets old testament prophecies of the kingdom fairly literally and as a result they're looking for a stage in salvation history where that literal interpretation of old testament prophecies fits in so the lord comes once at the end of the present evil age we have a last battle a great tribulation then christ comes but there is a partial resurrection a partial judgment and a partial recreation which leads into a literal 1 000 year millennium in which these old testament kingdom prophecies can be more or less literally fulfilled at the end of the millennium you have the consummation of the consummation in the last judgment and the creation of the new heavens and the new earth one thing to note when you're thinking about eschatology is as soon as you introduce a millennium a future millennium you begin to multiply these eschatological events which scripture says christ will perform that would include resurrections transformations of living saints the last judgment and so forth and to me this is a tip-off that there's something wrong with pre-millennialism because the bible is pretty consistent in looking for a single return of christ a single resurrection a single judgment we can talk about that a little bit later the third contestant in the ring is post-millennialism it's kind of a kissing cousin of a millennialism but it has a very optimistic view of the course of the era of proclamation the view is that as the gospel goes forth from the church things will be getting better and better and better some post-millenarians start the millennium with the conversion of the jews sometime during the gospel era and they feel that that will trigger the binding of satan and the advance of the kingdom and the and and basically when the lord returns he will return to a christianized world so this is a super optimistic eschatology but it does view the consummation as a single return of christ the fourth one which is sort of a johnny come lately is dispensational pre-millennialism and without getting into the weeds on this because i'm sure you both you all know that's a very complex system it's a form of premillennialism that adds a pre-tribulation rapture so you have the first coming of christ you have an era of gospel proclamation then you have a secret rapture seven years later you have the second coming of christ which inaugurates the millennium and then at the end of the millennium you have the consummation of the consummation now i think it's very useful to note that in dispensationalism you really have three consummations or you might want to prefer to say a three-stage consummation you have a rapture then you have the second coming and then you have another coming at the end of the millennium so it's getting pretty complicated and my conviction is and it has been for going on now 50 years that the lord really wants his sheep who tend to be simple to understand eschatology and therefore he would probably make it simple so it creates a bias in me that this is too complicated to be true the final view the final contestant in the ring is a view called preterism and um this again can get a little bit complicated but basically you have two schools of preterism partial preterits such as rc pool sprole hank canograph and others would say christ comes once the error of proclamation unfolds but many of the prophecies that jesus gave were fulfilled in 70 a.d at the destruction of jerusalem and so partial preterism does look for a glorious second coming of christ kind of like a millionaire does but they feel that many of the end time events were fulfilled in 70 a.d for example they believe that the antichrist was nero and the great tribulation took place during the battle of jerusalem and so forth the final contestant is the full preterist who basically says the consummation occurred in 70 a.d and i'm unclear as to how the full preterist actually views the future of the physical universe but after 70 a.d when you die you enter the new heavens and the new earth so those are the contestants in the ring and i admit that it can get a little complicated but here's something to simplify it if you really look beyond all the trees to the basic debate you have two fundamental different opinions two different contestants one of them is what i would call present millenarians they believe that the thousand years of revelation 20 symbolize the era of gospel proclamation and then you have future militarians who believe no thousand years is literal and it begins at the second coming of christ most of these views can be categorized either present millennial or future millennial so that's the big question i think uh mike and josh that we want to try to solve in the great end time debate so i've i've heard um i i don't want to misquote you so you'll have to correct me if i get just the general uh portions of it correct you said it uh omnilinealism was the default historical position of the early church and again you you feel free to correct that if that wasn't a perfect quote um i've also heard that said of post mill or partial preterist they'll also make the claim that there was a church father who believes exactly what they believe pre-millennials will say that often and because post mil yeah that's right and because post-millennialism is so close to all millennialism is there a real way to distinguish the difference in the early church fathers well i am not a great student of the church fathers i i know a little bit about who tilted pre-millennial and who tilted post it has always been difficult to sort out matthew 24 the olivet discourse because there's kind of a blending there between the fulfillment that took place in 70 a.d and then the fulfillment which i believe will take place at the end of the age so there are preterist interpretations i'm sure in the ancient church of some of the things that the lord said the post-millennial view the the earliest father that i know who tilted post-millennia would be augustine he was actually quite optimistic about the progress of the gospel he felt that the world would be christianized my understanding is that he believed that the thousand years was literal and by the time you got to a thousand a.d you would have a very very christianized world yeah i i've read before that uh clement of rome as well as ignatius um and i think both of these were disciples of john who wrote revelation um at least in accordance with church history that they were all millennial is that correct in your understanding my my research was done in a book called the momentous event by william j greer and i really appreciated his historical researches he said the amillennial early fathers were clement polycarp the decay we don't know who the authors are that for that barnabas of rome caius hippolytus and origen uh the premium premillenarians included papias justin martyr tertullian so there was a division there none of them believed in a in a millennium that was characterized by the reassention of the jewish people they was a very christian version of the millennium uh the more jewish emphasis came in after the reformation according to my understanding yeah okay so we've talked about all these different uh these different perspectives here's here's i think the question that and this is what really interested me what you said that that you think it's actually possible for us to resolve this debate you know we had somebody in our chat saying you know like i'm a pan-millennialist so you know we're gonna pan out it's all gonna pan out in the end so um is it really possible for us to for the church to come together in our eschatology yeah well you know i'm sure from ephesians that that we are all on a journey towards truth but to answer your question in simplicity it takes time but i believe as the church history unfolds we get more and more light we have great light now on justification for example or the trinity and i believe the answer is yes we can we can get an answer too that you can resolve the great end time debate um let me say a few words on that if i could please because i think this probably is the single most takeaway from our time today um i'm going to talk as we go further this afternoon about the four underlying issues in the debate but i i want to talk about what i call the super underlying issue the one big issue and that of course is hermeneutics how do you interpret the bible and in particular how do you interpret old testament prophecies of the kingdom of god and the book of revelation do you interpret them essentially literally which typically generates a future millennial view or do you interpret them figuratively typologically as being fulfilled under the new covenant and therefore in the church and in the two stages of the kingdom of god that christ taught about now how shall we interpret those those two areas old testament kingdom prophecy and revelation 20. here's a text that really has helped me create a great deal when jesus was on the mount of transfiguration he appeared to his disciples in glory and to on one side he had moses on the other side he had elijah and of course moses represents the law and elijah represents the prophets so peter gets a bright idea a brainwave he says we're going to build three temples three shelters here three tenths one for you lord and one for moses and one for elijah and god the father in his glory descends upon the situation and he says this is my beloved son listen to him i felt the holy spirit really quickened that to me he's saying to us that the lord jesus christ is the the final arbiter in all areas of doctrine including eschatology and including how it is we should interpret old testament king prophecy kingdom prophecies and the book of revelation we listen to christ now question is how exactly do you do that how do you listen to christ here's the three rules that i think ultimately will bring every listener and every viewer that's really seeking the truth on eschatology i think these three rules will ultimately bring them to the a millennial position first of all you anchor to what i call the didactic new testament and that's a big fancy expression just means anchor to the gospels and anchor to the epistles those are the didactic or teaching portions of the new testament if you build your eschatology on daniel 9 or if you build it on zechariah 12-14 or if you build it on the revelation you are sure to fall off a cliff the reason is that god the father said i want you to listen to him he is the supreme teacher above the law above the prophets he will help you understand what they meant so the first rule is anchor to the didactic new testament the second rule is realize that divine revelation was progressive now let me just explain this as simply as i can in eternity past according to the reformed theology that i embrace god decreed an eternal covenant a covenant of grace and you can find the essence of that covenant in john 3 16. if this was his plan of salvation god who's god so loved the world he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life god is the is the party in the covenant the believer in jesus is the human party christ is the mediator of the covenant the promise of the covenant is eternal life this is the plan that god settled upon in old testament times god revealed this plan but he did so under types and shadows i like to speak of this as a veiled revelation of the eternal covenant a good example is the passover you see that the passover lamb was slaughtered it was placed over the doorpost and the lintel of the israelites and in the judgment the final judgment god passed over it it's a type it's a shadow it's a picture of the things of the eternal the things of the lord jesus christ so if you're going to understand old testament kingdom prophecy you have to understand that god veiled his truth in old testament times using the imagery drawn from history and nature and the law and then in the new testament when jesus appears we have a full unveiling of what was hidden in times past so when he speaks on the sermon on the mount he says don't think that i came to abolish the law and the prophets i didn't come to abolish i came to fulfill them i came to fulfill in history the meaning of what they pointed towards and i also came to give you the ability to understand them so that's the second rule and the third rule which is just flows from that is anchor to the new covenant hermeneutic when you go into the old testament you need to use the new covenant hermeneutic well what's that augustine said it this way and i just think it's so wonderful because it's so terse and pithy he said the old covenant is the new covenant concealed the new covenant is the old covenant revealed that helps you to disentangle and interpret correctly all these old testament kingdom prophecies which our pre-millennial brothers want to interpret literally but that will take you to the understanding that no those were types and those prophecies used typological language to point forward to the things of the new covenant that would appear in history in the last days when the old testament prophet spoke of the last days they were speaking of the days of the new covenant and so we must interpret what they said in light of the fulfillment under the new covenant so i'd say there that's my arrow i've shot my arrow on the super underlying issue of the great end time debate and i think if you'll really think about that it will ultimately help you to resolve them uh and understand it okay so i'm gonna read back these to make sure that we're succinct and then i want to read a comment from uh donald uh kamer k-a-m-m-e-r um so your your points are didactic new testament so stick to the didactic teachings of the new testament realize that divine revelation is progressive that things continue to be illumined uh and then also know make sure that your your hermeneutic of eschatology is anchored in a new covenant hermeneutics um that the the the old testament is present but it's revealed in the new testament it's not that that that other revelation is inferior but that it's it's being again expounded upon it's kind of a further articulation of your second point there um this is what uh donald says and even before i read this there's almost 200 of you watching this program drop a like i've got 18 likes in here this is ridiculous come on guys come on the show ain't free you know you got to give us something okay so uh the the problem with here let's let's read donald's comment the problem with anchoring uh the didactic uh anchoring to the didactic is that it assumes that historical texts have no didactic intent uh what are your thoughts there in talking about these kind of historical eschatological uh passages that are assuming that they don't have any didactic attempt how would you um uh i guess speak to donald and those who have his position there um am i understanding you to say that old testament kingdom prophecies do not have a didactic intent is that is that the gist of the question i think the gist of the question is saying that like the the passages in daniel that are historical uh that are more of a narrative text that are speaking uh prophetically i know it's a prophetic literature but it's happening historically that that's not didactic he's suggesting that this um maybe like a daniel 9. essentially all text is didactic i think is the point that he's making all texts have some kind of didactic application i think is what he's trying my framework for using that expression didactic new testament is the notion of fulfillment certainly god intended to teach his old testament people certain principles uh historical truths moral principles and so forth but the underlying or deep-seated meaning of them he did not teach them openly they were a mystery as it says in the new testament so the lord jesus comes into the world and he unveils the mystery of god which is the gospel or the covenant of grace and he teaches us the true deep underlying meaning of what was indeed taught to the old testament saints you have to have some place in the bible where you are given the keys the didactic keys to unlock the mysteries of history and the old testament law its various institutions take for example the institution of marriage if you just read the old testament you would say well that's an interesting story about how god created adam and eve but when you get to ephesians 5 you see that he was engaging in a typological historical act he was creating a picture for us to understand how when god put adam to sleep and open up his side and took a rib out of him he was giving us a picture of how he was going to put christ to sleep and pull his church his bride out of him and bring the bride to him so the didactic new testament gives us the key or the interpretation to understanding the historical teaching of scripture as well as all the law okay um one of the one of the things that you talked when you talk about anchoring in the didactic new testament um i want to be i want us to be clear here because i i don't want anyone to come at you with like a charge of marcianism like we value some parts of the bible uh higher than others i know that you're not saying that um and maybe you could clarify you're you're not saying that it sounds like you're saying more we interpret maybe you know sometimes they say interpret the unclear by the clear interpret how would you word what you're trying to say to make sure that it doesn't sound like we value some parts of the bible more all of scripture is profitable right ii second timothy we understand that but it's profitable for different purposes i would love to preach out of genesis chapter 2 and the creation of marriage that's one of my favorite sermons it's very profitable but the didactic new testament in this case ephesians 5 and other texts in scripture enables me to do so so it's profitable in a different way it it it profits me to be able to open up the rest of scripture you know very few preachers will will go into the old testament kingdom prophecies and preach out of them unless they're strong dispensationalists and then they'll interpret them literally but many many christians are just afraid to read it it just doesn't feel relevant to them my contention is that if you've mastered the didactic new testament and the new covenant hermeneutic if you really then you can go back in there and you can see christ and you can see the church and you can use this as part of your testimony to the world and part of your ministry to the saints the understanding that the didactic new testament is the doorway into old testament kingdom prophecy and the revelation what it does is it it gives you back the bible it gives you the whole bible to preach from and to see christ in remember when in john chapter 5 jesus said you think that you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life but these are they that speak of me this is the teacher he's god is saying listen to the teacher these are they that speak of me all the old testament speaks of christ and the eternal covenant and we need the new the didactic new testament to understand what it says so uh before we're gonna get back on track with uh some of our uh uh you know the the the great end times debate we'll get back on track with some of those questions have one more audience question before we do that uh chip i can't pronounce your last name chip it's just going to be chip for now he says ask him why reformers like martin luther reject the book of revelation he said so i guess in one of these commentaries i'm not sure which commentary he's referring to but chip only has so many characters in youtube so i'm not sure if he ran out of characters or uh if uh if he knows which specific commentary is that what you're saying yeah so he says that luther uh is a reformer and he rejected the book of revelation he was asking uh why do you think that is well i first of all i didn't know that he did i know that calvin found it too difficult to and he just decided not to write a commentary on it which i thought was a great loss but i don't i think the revelation found its way into the canon relatively safely i don't think it was the anti-legomena book at all um and i i love it it's a fabulous book and i'd love to have the opportunity to talk about it with you folks yeah yeah yeah i would to be fair he said the same about james that's true he said the same about james and i would say that that was a right straw epistle i know for sure he didn't like james if you can if you let us know uh i guess the finality of that chip if you do have the resource to center away i'd be interested in looking into that when martin luther first translated and published the new testament he thought revelation should not have the same status or authority as the gospels or letters of paul or peter and so he put it at the end but he didn't number it okay uh i don't know that he threw it out entirely i i my impression was that he just didn't like it as much oh well like lots of people so i put leviticus at the end of my bible okay whatever okay so um so yeah let's come back to the great end times debate itself you wanted to give us uh you wanted to give us these three interpretive principles how does this play into the great end times debate and beginning to settle it i have a little trouble hearing you there mike would you say okay sure so you wanted to give us these three principles for interpreting the old testament so how does this play into the great end times debate oh well with your permission maybe we can go on to these four underlying issues because they that's very very important um and uh please do yeah show you how the didactic new testament gets relates to each of those issues sure that sound like a plan please do all right well let's talk a minute let's talk about uh first of all let's identify the four issues then i'll say a few words about the kingdom of god and i think this will be very helpful um the elements of of eschatology are rather numerous i've enumerated them the kingdom of god the millennium the antichrist the last battle the second coming of christ the resurrection the transformation of the living saints the catching up of the saints into the air sometimes referred to as the rapture the last judgment the great conflagration at the end of history the burning up of the universe essentially and the creating of the new heavens and the new earth those are the elements of eschatology but as i thought about it and meditated on this over the years i felt that i hope and trust it was the lord who said these are the four underlying issues if you can resolve these four underlying issues then this the picture of salvation history that you're looking for will be will come into pla come into view so the first issue is the kingdom of god what is the nature of the kingdom and what is the structure of the kingdom and basically how many stages does it enter the world and the second one is the one that we've been talking about the proper interpretation of old testament kingdom prophecy the third one is the meaning of the millennium and then the fourth one is the consummation or the nature and the structure of the consummation if you take your didactic new testament which is the gospels and the epistles and you bring those four questions to them i believe if you study hard and get down on your prayer bones and open your heart to the holy ghost you will come out an amelinarian and that's a wonderful wonderful simple approach to solving the problem now let me give you the first example here and you guys feel free to interrupt me if i'm getting too long-winded because i i don't want to be rude on your on your wonderful show but let's talk a minute about the kingdom of god when jesus came into the world he said he he he picked up the message of john the baptist and he said this is the good news the kingdom of god is in hand in the gathering in the gospel of matthew it's the kingdom of heaven is into ham repent and believe the good news so the message of christ is the kingdom of god now the jewish expectation was actually quite similar to many of our pre-millenarian brothers they believed that the messiah would come and establish a theocratic kingdom he would be a latter date david a descendant of david he would use his supernatural powers and maybe his military powers to expel rome he would then begin to extend the religion and the and the influence of the lord across the earth and the mosaic law would spread across the world and then after a certain season of time which the jews referred to as the days of the messiah there would be a great consummation a final battle a final resurrection a final judgment so the jews were looking for a theocratic davidic mosaic covenant not covenant but kingdom that was the vision that they had it was based upon a pretty literal interpretation of old testament kingdom prophecies but what did jesus say about the kingdom what was his understanding it's not of this world yeah i i my go-to text on this is john chapter 3. nicodemus comes to christ and he says he says you know teacher we know you're you know we know you're a teacher come from god no man can do these miracles that you're doing unless god is with him jesus goes straight to the issue that is burning in nicodemus's heart are you the messiah are you bringing the kingdom and he says truly truly i say to you unless a man is born again you cannot enter the kingdom of god and then he further discusses with nicodemus the the spiritual rebirth that go into a great discussion on can a man be born twice etc and he talks about how this birth comes about through the holy spirit and then very interestingly says as the son of just as the serpent was lifted up on on a pole so the son of man must be lifted up so that whoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life he's saying that the kingdom of god is a direct spiritual reign of god the father through faith in the son by the power of the holy spirit which is entered through the preaching of the gospel and repentance and faith towards christ so what he's doing here is establishing no the kingdom of god is not some theocracy and i'm not going to start an army and if you try to put me as a king i'm going to just disappear and i'm going to give you a lecture on bread i'm not going to do that is is the result of the new birth so at least now we know from john chapter 3 there's a first spiritual stage of the kingdom well now what about the structure of the kingdom there we want to go over to matthew 13 and let me stress if you're going to study the didactic new testament go first and foremost on the issue of the kingdom of god to matthew 13 the mysteries of the kingdom i'll bring this to a close very simply here if you will study the parable of the wheat and the tares you will see that the lord jesus envisions a season in which the wheat and the tares are growing together the kingdom of god and the kingdom of satan the followers of christ the followers of satan the reason that they're living together is because emissaries from the kingdom of god are going over to the tares and preaching the gospel in hopes that they'll be turned from tears into weed then he says at the end of the age the son of man will set forth his angels and he will return and he will gather out of his kingdom all things to defend and then the the the the wheat the sons of god the children of god will shine in the glory of their father in the kingdom of their father so he identifies two stages to the kingdom of god the tares will be taken out of his kingdom the kingdom of the son of man and they and the wheat will enter into the kingdom of the father so i think that the mysteries of the kingdom and all the other parables and the entire didactic new testament teach that the kingdom of god enters history in two stages the first stage begins with the death resurrection of christ and especially when the spirit is poured i identify the beginning of the kingdom of god the entrance of the kingdom of god into the world i identify that as the day of pentecost that's when they were born again that's when the nicodemus promise began to be fulfilled and then the kingdom of the sun or the era of proclamation unfolds below these 2 000 years now and at the end of the age christ will return he sends forth his angels he gathers out of the kingdom those who are the tares he gathers all of his saints to himself at the piracia the world a new world of new heavens and new earth is created and he enters and then you enter into the eternal state the kingdom of the father what i would call the era of reward and retribution the key thing here is that the didactic new testament which you find in matthew 13 other parables and all throughout the epistles the book of acts teaches that the kingdom enters the world in two distinct sages separated by a single parasia at the end of the age a single coming again of christ so that's if you believe that and understand that this new covenant which and this kingdom which christ has introduced let me go back the promise of the eternal covenant or the new covenant is eternal life but you could just as well say the promise is the kingdom of god you get to be born again you get to enter the kingdom of the sun you get to be transferred from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of god's beloved son you now have eternal life they're basically identical so if you if you anchor to the didactic new testament and you realize that all of these kingdom promises which you find back in the old testament are fulfilled in this simple two-stage kingdom there is absolutely no way that you can interpret old testament prophecies in a literal manner you are forced to interpret them typologically figuratively as being fulfilled under one or the other stage of the kingdom of god end of end of spiel okay could you expand on that a little bit uh maybe give us an example of an old testament kingdom prophecy that a pre-millennial might understand literally i'd be very happy to i was going to talk a little bit about some of the principles involved but if you'd like i'd be very happy to do that yes please yeah yeah yeah why do we do that i think an example might help here uh so maybe an old testament kingdom prophecy that given the hermeneutic that you just spelled out the manner of interpretation you just spelled out uh that we're we're demanded we must interpret this uh more figuratively yeah would you like me to give a few thoughts on or just take you to one and show you uh maybe just take us to one and show us oh i'd love to do it let's if any if all of you who are out there in tv land have your bible open to psalm 2. um i could give a couple of examples but i thought this would be a very a very good one okay i like this one because you can see how an old testament jewish saint would read it but then you can also if you're at all familiar with the didactic new testament the book of acts and and uh hebrews and so forth you'll know that this is that this is interpreted for us by the new testament okay so let's just read it together i'm reading out of the new american standard why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing the kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the lord and against his messiah or his anointed saying let us tear their fetters apart and cast the courts away from us so we know from the new testament that at least in part this was fulfilled at the crucifixion of christ right actually four i believe it is they they are praying and they specifically quote this and they say herod and the jewish people were gathered together against the the lord and his messiah now let's read a little further he who sits in the heavens laughs the lord scoffs at them then he will speak to them in his anger and terrify them in his fury but as for me i have installed my king upon zion my holy mountain now if you were an old testament jew you'd say oh boy i can't wait the descendant of david is going to sit on the physical mount zion and there he is going to rule and reign and he's there's going to be a great temple and the gospel will go forth and and not the gospel but the law will go forth and the kingdom will advance from zion but we know from the new testament that this is not fulfilled physically or literally it's a spiritual fulfillment god the father has seated christ on the zion above hebrews 12 says you've not come to a mountain that can be touched but you come to the heavenly zion you have come to the heavenly jerusalem so god the father has seated christ in the heavenlies the didactic new testament has revealed for us the mystical meaning of what the prophet here was saying now this is very interesting now this is the voice of christ speaking if you go down to verse 7 i will surely tell of the decree of the lord or of my father he said to me you are my son today i have begotten you now if you go to acts 13 when paul was preaching at antioch he specifically spoke of this text and he said its fulfillment consists in the resurrection of christ who was begotten but from the dead by god the father and he was installed as the firstborn over all creation at the father's right it has a spiritual fulfillment in the heavenly reign of christ or the kingdom of the son now what is the reward that god the father has for his son verse 8 ask of me as your inheritance and the very ends of the earth as your possession now a jew would read that and say man we're going to get an army together we're going to wipe out all those those heathens but no the gospel fulfillment is that god the father is giving him a people he's giving him a bride as the church goes forth then the bride is gathered in as a as a possession as a people for his own possession so there's a fulfillment an evangelistic or new covenant fulfillment of that text then he says you shall break them with a rod of iron and you shall shatter them like the earthenware several times in the new testament this verse is quoted in reference to the second coming of christ it's not a war like messiah who goes forth and he and he bashes the nations into submission no this is the last judgment when he returns and all who did not submit to him are judged and so now you have boy wouldn't you love to just preach out of this michael next sunday this next verse now therefore o king show discernment take warning o judges of the earth worship the lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling do what kiss the son do homage to the son so that he does not become angry and you perish in the way his wrath may soon be kindled how blessed are all who take their refuge from him what a precious gospel text refuge yourself in the lord jesus christ flee the wrath to come because christ is your refuge so the didactic new testament found in the book of acts found in the epistles helps me to unlock the mystical meaning of the psalm number two the premillenarian or the or the the orthodox jew is still looking for a literal earthly interpretation of this but the new covenant said the new testament said no it's spiritually fulfilled in the invisible kingdom of the sun which will eventually at second coming of christ give way uh to a visible kingdom of the father so um there are people in the in the comment section i think that might have misunderstood your your uh that we even asked you to unpack and talking about the didactic text taking like a primary focus or an interpretive lens as the as the illuminated data the illuminated doctrine of eschatology um in understanding the other genres of literature in light of what is clear so so i want to just kind of continue to reiterate this is a great example you are not claiming that psalms 2 is um invalid that it's uninspired that it's less uh it's less god's word what you're saying is that we see we see a didactic text making sense of prophetic literature um or or psalms or poetry um so that we're we're using our clear text to interpret the unclear right we'll all agree that poetry and prophecy are more vague let me give you an example of this you remember remember when in luke 24 when jesus was speaking to the disciples of emmaus and he was he was opening up the scriptures to them and their heart burned within them and then he showed up among the 12 and he did the same thing he showed how in the old testament all these prophecies had to be fulfilled and then there's this great line in luke 24 i believe it's verse 24 he opened their mind to understand the scriptures this is so precious i mean the holy spirit opens our mind to decode the typology and the mystical sense of the old testament it's beautiful text it's all altogether inspired altogether holy without you know every jot and tittle of the old testament is precious but it's impenetrable second corinthians 3 paul says there is a veil that's over the minds of the unbelieving jew because he can't see it his mind is not opened yet but when he comes to christ the veil is taken away so i if you if you see that the old testament is veiled then you can see you need the key to unveil it and that would be the the didactic new testament the reason dispensationalism went completely off the rails and i love my dispensational brothers but i must tell you the they anchored to daniel 9 they anchored to the revelation they anchored to old testament prophecies and they just they just flew over the didactic new testament and they subordinated that to the old testament when the exact opposite is what god said he said listen to him listen to jesus christ because he will open up the meaning of those mystical old testament verses which are impenetrable okay so uh i'd like to summarize a little bit and we're in a in just a few moments we're going to have to conclude this episode and we'll continue with a part two tomorrow and for those of you who are looking for like total defense of one side or the other he is defending on millennialism and that will continue tomorrow however he's really trying to lay a foundation here and there are four areas that i want you guys to not miss that he's uh he's begun to highlight two and tomorrow will be the next two uh these four areas that if we can settle on the answer to these four we can resolve the great end times debate that's right so so number one the kingdom of god its nature and structure number two the proper interpretation of old testament kingdom prophecy those are the two we talked about today number three for tomorrow the meaning of the millennium number four the consummation its purpose and structure we're going to talk about those two tomorrow but uh allow me what i'd like to do uh dean is just uh explain my understanding of what you said and then have you correct me wherever i messed up okay um because i i want to just make sure that everybody's on the same page here so number one in that first category the kingdom of god its nature and structure what i heard you when you talked about the nature of it you talked about that it's spiritual right now that jesus when he introduced the kingdom for instance to nicodemus you're born again you can see the kingdom so don't be looking for theocratic israel to be reestablished and dominating planet earth the kingdom is here the kingdom is now just as jesus preached so you you taught that it was this spiritual nature now and then you talked the structure of it and you went to matthew 13 the parable so you had the the parable of the wheat and the tares and so during this present kingdom now reign of christ we also have a mixture of good and evil and satan is mixing in uh the tares with the wheat and and this will give way at the consummation the the parasia that second coming of jesus uh and that uh that jesus will come and he and he judges the wicked at the exact same time that the righteous are caused to flourish forever and ever and ever and so and so you you looked first at the nature and structure and that when we look at the didactic portions of the scripture that we're just we're as you said will be a millennial so that was your first argument uh and then your second argument i believe uh under proper interpretation of old testament kingdom prophecy i think i've maybe already touched on it a little bit but that we look how did jesus and the apostles interpret old testament kingdom prophecies right instead of looking at it like an old testament jew might have who uh many of whom missed misunderstood those prophecies expected theocratic israel to be established and to kick rome's butt instead of instead of looking at like that look at how the new testament interprets the old and when you when you adopt that hermeneutic then you'll interpret psalm 2 a certain way and you'll interpret isaiah 11 and isaiah 2 and other passages a certain way and so that's michael's summation of what i think you just said so please throw tomatoes at me you can take it tomorrow [Laughter] so i've i've this is shocking to me because you're saying if you take the prophetic literature literature literally you're looking for a kingdom to be established now and i'm looking at these groups of people after looking at these prophetic reviews and these are people who are prophesying civil war and the kingdom now and let's fight for this kingdom now like they also take a hyper literal eschatology view that's shocking i see so dean to just kind of let you in on on what he's talking about maybe you remember at the very beginning we had this we talked about this prophecy review marathon where we were reviewing um prophecies that some charismatic christians made about uh 2020 and i think josh i guess so the point that you're making is they have a highly literal eschatology that they're now applying in literal ways and some of some people calling for civil war it seems to have a similar effect that i would say that they're having a more consistent pattern of eschatology as the the jewish people in the days of jesus that caused them to miss jesus coming yes well i know that you grew up in a church that you called it jew worship where it was like that's almost i didn't grow up in that church okay um i was very much around a community without outing them it would be hard to kind of articulate who that was but uh yeah so i worked for a very popular television broadcasting network that i i would have i'm sorry i didn't mean to throw you into the [ __ ] it's too late now i wish i could pull you out that's okay it happened anyway yeah okay so i i think what we'll do is we'll uh we'll stop right there and dean we'll continue with the the next two tomorrow if you guys are tuning in tune in uh tomorrow four to five central time we're gonna talk about the meaning of the millennium and the consummation its purpose and structure and dean is gonna tie together all of these arguments for why he is a millennial now uh remnant radio we have people from all perspectives we've had pre-trib rapture post-trib rapture millennial pre-millennial uh post-millennial and everything in between so uh so we have all of these perspectives on the show i think what we like to do now and dean this is something we always typically do is uh is is we ask for just a summary of just like maybe not even a summary a golden nugget to take away what's your what's your closing thought your nugget that like if there's one thing you want everybody to walk away with this time what would it be so i'll i think my i'm just going to throw mine out sure we adopt the new testament hermeneutic to interpret the old testament i like it that's that's the number one it for me how did jesus and the apostles interpret the old testament that's how i want to do it let me say in my in my book and i'm doing an abridged version because nobody buys 700 page books out of it it goes through every single old testament kingdom prophecy that is cited in the new testament and in every case they use what i just referred to the new covenant hermeneutic they interpret it typologically as being you know veiled revelation of the new covenant in every case then in the book i also go through all of the pre-millennial favorites in the old testament and i try as best i can i'm not saying i did it perfectly but i think i did a pretty good job i take these principles of the new covenant hermeneutic and i go into isaiah 60 or i go into zechariah 12 through 14 or as like you said earlier isaiah 2 or isaiah 9 isaiah 11 and and daniel and and to me it just was like a flower it just opened up so beautifully why because these prophets were speaking about us upon whom the ends of the ages have come in these verses are for us and they and they should fill us with joy and they should fill us with preaching power it's not some distant thing that happens a thousand years hence it just isn't like that anyway that's my two bits i i hope i'm not overly enthusiastic no i love it i think it's great i'm excited about things i'm really i'm really thankful that you came on the show today and unpack this for us and i'm looking forward to tomorrow can you let us know uh just briefly i know michael mentioned those two points what do viewers have to look forward to tomorrow as we unpack uh that next section we'll look forward to it okay uh yeah yeah look forward to it that's a good thing to look forward to what what exactly will be unpacking as uh is my question what exactly will be unpacking uh tomorrow talks go ahead what would we be unpacking tomorrow in our next session oh well i think i'd like to very briefly go through the millennium uh i think it's i think it's a very easy side to discuss probably could do it in 10 or 15 minutes then what i recall a biblical scenario of the consummation what is the i was telling michael earlier today that the plum the peach the prize of all eschatology is to have a clear conception of the consummation of the second coming of christ it is intended to be a stupendous source of spiritual courage and and energy and power because we are going to need it in these last days so i want people to understand the blessed hope of the church and how glorious it is so that they will be able to to be very strong and very courageous in the difficult days that are in front of us amen that's uh all we could hope for uh for those of you who are out there make sure to like subscribe share that would be a blessed job wouldn't it uh uh yeah like subscribe share make sure uh to hit the subscribe button so you come out uh so you get notified when we come out with content just like this sign up for patreon for patreon we just released a video on released we filmed the video we're going to release it probably here in the next hour or so where we give commentary on some of the comments uh from our new year's eve prophecy video go check that out if you haven't seen it i think it's very informative and it's uh enlightening i think about the culture uh and the place we are in the prophetic here in america um trying to discern through that would be helpful for our listeners so go check that out i think again uh make sure to subscribe next tuesday oh yeah thank you thank you for coming on the show dean we we appreciate your time uh and make sure that you subscribe we're coming out with shows now monday tuesday wednesday are our new show times and all of those times are gonna be 4 p.m central standard time uh so it seems to work out seems to have a good viewer retention around these time slots and uh we'll get to be home with our families which is in the evenings yeah yeah cool okay guys thanks so much for joining us god bless you guys see you tomorrow 4 p.m blessings you

Channel: The Remnant Radio

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Length: 66min 35sec (3995 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 04 2021