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Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a

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moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. And

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today, I'd like to challenge you with the question, are we interpreting biblical prophecy

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according to biblical principles or fanciful principles? We are studying at New Geneva

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Orthodox Presbyterian Church this year in our midweek Bible study, a comparison of millennial

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views, that is, views of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when we talk about those

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millennial views, we are asking, when is it that the Lord Jesus Christ will return? Almost all

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Christians believe and accept and look forward to the blessed hope of the literal return of our

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Lord Jesus Christ to earth, to indeed bring great blessing and power and glory and salvation

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to the entire world, to the entire creation. And we so look forward to that. And he promised that he

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would. He promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against his church as they indeed did

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storm the gates of evil, calling souls to the Lord Jesus Christ and beginning to build indeed the very

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kingdom which he began while he was here. And that is going on apace. And we at New Geneva want to

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facilitate as best we can. But there are several views that differ on precisely when the Lord Jesus

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Christ will return. And there are four major views that I would like to review for you and then show

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you which one we think is the most biblical. And first of all, there is what is called the classic

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premillennial view, the premillennial return of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's called the historical

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premillennial view of Christ's return. And that view indeed holds that Christ will return before he

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inaugurates a literal 1,000-year rule here upon the earth. That's why it's called premillennial,

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because he'll come before the actual literal 1,000 years of his reign here upon the earth when he

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brings great power and blessing and glory and salvation to the entire world. And then number two

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is the dispensational premillennial view. And this differs actually substantially from the historical

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premillennial view. And it's relatively new in the history of theology, too, centuries being a

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relatively brief time when we look at historical theology. And the dispensational view was indeed

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hammered out in England in the early 19th century by men like John Nelson Darby or C.I. Schofield here

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in America. But in any case, the dispensational premillennial view has in common with the historical

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premillennial view that Christ will return before a literal 1,000-year reign here upon the earth.

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But they also include, in the dispensational premillennial view, they have incorporated the

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relatively new idea of a rapture, for example, or a literal seven-year great tribulation with one

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main Antichrist having made his appearance with a great battle of Armageddon at the end. And they

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have also incorporated a relatively new idea of the establishment of a literal temple built by Israel

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in which the Jews will worship before they come miraculously to Christ and at which the Antichrist

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will stand and establish himself during the great seven-year tribulation after the rapture. All of these

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things I've just mentioned differ substantially from the historical premillennial view. And they differ

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as negatively, I would assert with you, and we'll keep establishing that as we go along. But then there's

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the amillennial view, which states that we are not going through a literal 1,000-year reign of the Lord

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Jesus Christ, but that we are presently in the millennium right now. And the idea is that the 1,000-year

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reign of Christ, which is mentioned only, by the way, in Revelation chapter 20, that that millennial view

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is a symbolic number, symbolic of an indefinite great period of time, which could be thousands and thousands

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of years. And that is the amillennial view, which also states then that Christ is reigning presently

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with his saints, with his church, and he is calling people then to himself and building his church until

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he returns again. And the post-millennial view, then finally, number four, the post-millennial view.

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And that view agrees with the amillennialist in saying that the 1,000-year reign mentioned in Revelation

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chapter 20 is a symbolic number, and that the 1,000 years mentioned there is an indefinite extended

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period of time, and the post-millennialist would say, in which Christ will use his church,

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he will use you and me, he will use us to build a glorious time, a glorious period in which there will

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be peace and blessing and great power and glory and salvation brought to the earth before

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Christ returns, literally. So that is the post-millennial view. That is, Christ will return

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after the millennium. So these are the four basic views. And what we would like to do is illuminate

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for you that last one, the post-millennial view, because almost all churches in America today,

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most likely your church, I'm not going to say that that is the case for sure, because I don't want to

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presume to say what your church is teaching, but we find in most evangelical churches today that the

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dispensational pre-millennial view has taken the field. Almost all evangelical churches in America

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today teach the dispensational pre-millennial view, complete with the features of a rapture of the

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church, and of an antichrist appearing, and a literal seven-year great tribulation, and the

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building of a Jewish temple in Jerusalem, and then with a great battle of Armageddon in the last days,

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with perhaps other things like the mark of the beast, and so many people speculate on those things.

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And I have just found over the years that the speculation on these things have really discredited

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the entire view. I've been hearing, ever since Hal Lindsey in the 1970s, speculation on things like,

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who is the antichrist? They've been identified so many times, and come and gone. Or the mark of the

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beast. There's been the mark of the beast that has been speculated upon from time immemorial,

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right? Whether it is indeed a mark in the hand and the forehead, whether it be a chip under the skin,

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right? Or perhaps a barcode, a set of barcodes on the forehead and the hands. And so many of these

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things, once again, have come and gone. Or whatever the modern events might be. So these things have been

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for me, at least, and this is just my own personal perspective on this. I have seen so many amateur

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prophecy experts who are obsessed with all of these kinds of details. And what I have seen is a kind of

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amateur prophecy, a kind of a tarot card reading by a prophetic astrologer, where random Bible texts

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are laid out like tarot cards predicting the future. And you pull out a tarot card, if you will, about the

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rapture. Oh, and you put that card on the table and say, this is coming in the future. Why the rapture

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is almost here? Because other things are transpiring, right? So you pull out another tarot card of the

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great tribulation. And you say, oh, the literal seven-year tribulation is about to be here because so

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many of the elements are there. We see it. It's bound to happen. And then you pull out another

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tarot card text, if you will, on the Antichrist. And oh, he is about to be identified. Hillary Clinton's

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name adds up when you lay it out numerically to 666 or whatever else it might be. I have just seen so

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many prophetic speculators, prophetic astrologers, if you will, who use Bible texts as a kind of tarot

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card reading in which the future is predicted. And it has become a hobby that almost every

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evangelical has become an expert at. But which, in the end, when you lay out their tarot cards

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and the future that they have outlined comes to naught. So that has been very exasperating to me.

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And as I ask myself, what is, then, how do we actually interpret biblical prophecy? One of the

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questions that we have to ask ourselves is, does our interpretation of Scripture arise organically

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from the text? Or have we superimposed a preconceived system on the text, as our prophetic astrologers do

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with their kind of tarot card system, as happens in dispensational premillennialism? There is,

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for example, a false dichotomy, a false division between literal and symbolic interpretations of so

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much prophetic literature. I know that the dispensational premillennialist prides himself

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on interpreting Scripture literally. But when you actually look at the text of Revelation, for example,

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you see that there is so much symbol and so much that is not quite literal, like, for example,

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just a few examples we can take from the book of Revelation, for example. The soiled garments of

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the Christians in Sardis. They're not literal soiled garments. They are indeed pictures of sinful

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behavior. Or the promise that Christians will become pillars in the temple. Not literal pillars,

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of course, of course. We would say that's silly to say, but rather that they will be staunch stalwart

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members of the Christian church that Christ is building. Or we think of Christ's offer to sell gold or

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white garments. And I said, these are all spiritual realities. We indeed do spiritualize the text. Revelation

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is meant to be spiritualized. So there is a false dichotomy oftentimes between literal and symbolic.

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We also must ask, then we must ask a question, as one of my favorite commentators has always done

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on prophetic literature. What is our interpretation? Shall our interpretation be biblical or shall it be

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speculative, like our prophetic astrologers do with their tarot card texts? Should our interpretation

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be biblical or should it be speculative? Dear listener, we must always assert as well, this important point,

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biblical symbolism is not a code. The tarot cards are always meant to be a prophetic code of the future,

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meant to tantalize and to titillate, and of course, to make money on behalf of the astrologer. I'm not

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saying that every person obsessed with biblical prophecy is trying to make money from it. But there

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is a kind of gee whiz, golly, and thrill to this, right? No, biblical prophecy is not a code. It is a set

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of patterns and associations that we come to in the text. Symbols are meant to call forth associations

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with the meanings of symbols, dear listener. We have, then, an introduction to apocalyptic

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that we're going to be doing at New Geneva, and we've already begun, and I would like to invite you

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to it. We probe some of these ideas, dear listener, and we do so with a great deal of fun,

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though, too. Boy, it's been fun already. We are meeting and we're studying the book Paradise

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Restored, and that is the title, Paradise Restored. It's a study of post-millennialism, that is, how

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indeed will Christ bring to full fruition in this side of his return? How will he bring about a glorious

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kingdom that has restored paradise, as the author of this book, David Chilton, asserts? That's David

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Chilton, C-H-I-L-T-O-N, and his book is Paradise Restored, and the subtitle is A Biblical Theology of

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Dominion. That is, that the Lord Jesus Christ is taking dominion of all of creation right now, and

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he's doing it through the church, and we can see the progress of it for the past 2,000 years, dear

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listener. Even as the church has grown and flourished to over 1.4 billion adherents, is what

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Mr. Barrett, who is a chronicler of church figures, he estimates that there are indeed 1.4 billion

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Christian adherents, that is, followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, associated with the church in one way,

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shape, or form. Doesn't mean they're all born-again Christians, but it does mean at least they profess

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to be followers of Jesus Christ. So we see the flourishing of the church bringing so many

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blessings and benefits over the past 2,000 years, and that's going to continue. That's going to keep

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going and growing until there is indeed a flourishing, a paradise that is restored, even as Christ works

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through us. Well, that is just a thumbnail sketch, but it is based upon the proper interpretation

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of prophecy, dear listener. That's the important thing to note. It is based upon a biblical

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interpretation of prophecy, not a speculative tarot card type reading of prophecy. No, we must, first of all,

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when we interpret a prophetic text, we must keep in mind its genre, that is, its kind of writing. Now,

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every genre has its own rules and style for composition. The definition of apocalypse,

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for example, and revelation is of the genre, that is, the type or kind of writing called apocalypse.

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So is the book of Daniel, almost half of the book of Daniel, from chapters 7 through 12, is considered

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to be apocalyptic. Much of Ezekiel is apocalyptic. We can say the same thing for Zechariah. Our Lord's

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Olivet Discourse in Matthew chapter 24 is also considered to be apocalyptic and an apocalypse. That is,

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the book of Revelation or Ezekiel or Daniel, like we just mentioned. Apocalypse is defined as, and here's

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my definition of apocalypse, a record of divine disclosures made known through the agency of angels,

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dreams, and visions, employing vivid and sometimes bizarre images for historical realities meant to

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comfort and encourage saints in or under distress and oppression. That's a very important distinction,

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several important distinctions to make, dear listener, because these bizarre and vivid images

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and symbols that we see in Revelation are not prophetic tarot cards that your average amateur believer

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can just lay out and say, here's what's going to happen next. No. These visions and symbols are images

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for historical realities that are designed to comfort and encourage that first audience, the saints who

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were under distress and oppression, not meant to titillate some prophetic astrologer with his prophetic

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tarot cards 2,000 years later. No, no, no, no, no, no. Very important to understanding and interpreting

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biblical prophecy properly. And there are some standard features of the genre of apocalyptic that I'd like

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to go over here with you. And first of all, then, 10 different rules, features, if you will, for interpreting

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the genre of apocalyptic. First of all, apocalyptic, by its very nature, reveals spiritual realities through the text.

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The text was not meant to be interpreted literally. No. The genre of apocalyptic, by its very nature,

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spiritualizes the text. We just did that, didn't we? I just pointed that out for you. In Revelation chapter 3,

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we have to the Church of Laodicea, he offers to sell them gold or white garments or eye salve,

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and these are all spiritual realities, symbols that point to spiritual realities, spiritual insight by

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eye salve, righteousness by white garments, or gold as to precious truths of the gospel. These are all meant

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to be spiritual things that the text communicates to us. Revelation 19 verse 8 is another one.

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It was granted to her, Revelation 19 verse 8 says, and that is the church. The her, there is the church.

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It was granted to her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure, for the fine linen is the

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righteous deeds of the saints. You see how the very nature of that symbol of white linen, bright and pure,

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is interpreted by Revelation by John himself as the righteous deeds of the saints. This is true

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throughout apocalyptic. Do not let your teachers say that Revelation should be interpreted literally.

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No. Apocalyptic, by its very nature, reveals spiritual realities. The text was not meant to be

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interpreted literally. Apocalyptic spiritualizes the text by its very nature. Well then, number two,

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rule number two, apocalyptic mostly uses numbers symbolically, not literally. Your literalist

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teachers get this very, very wrong. Because apocalyptic, by its very nature, uses numbers

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symbolically, as Psalm 50 verse 10 says, right? When we talk about the year 1000, for example,

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the 1000 year nature of the millennium. Millennium comes from the Latin word for mile, meaning 1000.

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So when we talk about the church's view of the millennium, we're looking at that 1000 year period

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that only chapter 20 of Revelation articulates for us. So it's very important to get that 1000 year

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number that 1000 year period very clearly defined. And we must always consider that apocalyptic

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by its very nature uses numbers symbolically. The number 1000, for example, is almost always used

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in a symbolic fashion. Psalm 50 verse 10 says, for every beast of the forest is mine,

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the cattle on a 1000 hills. Oh, no, is that a literal number? The 1000 and first hill, however,

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the cattle do not belong to God? No, it's symbolic. Or from Job chapter 9, where Job, in his complaint

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before God, when he lays out his complaint before God says, if one wished to contend with him, that is

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with God, one could not answer him once in a thousand times. Now that is a symbolic number two,

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is it not? Is it maybe that the thousand and first argument? We could get over on God? No,

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of course not. Or famously from 2 Peter 3 and 8. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved,

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Peter tells us, that with the Lord, one day is as 1000 years and 1000 years as one day. Once again,

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the number 1000 being symbolic. And the number 1000 is indeed symbolic in Revelation chapter 20,

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verses 1 through 6. And I'll just read you a couple of verses from that. Then I saw an angel coming down

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from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the

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dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. Once again,

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that is a symbolic, spiritualized number, if you will. And it compares, for example, with the number

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10, which is used also in Revelation, a much smaller number, right? 10, indeed. 1000 is a multiple of 10,

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a much greater multiple of 10, isn't it? And it's meant to compare. For instance, in Revelation 2.10,

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where indeed our Lord, he assures the saints there, do not fear what you're about to suffer.

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Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested. And for 10 days,

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you will have tribulation. For 10 days, you will have tribulation. That is obviously a symbolic

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number. The number 10, a short, brief period of time compared to the vast number 1000. And that is

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indeed meant to be so. Our Lord is comparing and saying that your period of tribulation will be much

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briefer than the period of great blessing and glory and power and salvation that will transpire during

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the 1000-year period. So you see, numbers are symbolic in prophetic literature, in apocalyptic

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literature. Well, rule number three, apocalyptic uses vivid, imaginative, sometimes bizarre metaphors

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to portray contemporary, that is near or soon to be fulfilled, historical realities, not far-off

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future events. This is a very important principle, dear listener, and you must get this one

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thoroughly understood before you go on. Because letters, prophecies, almost all apocalyptic literature

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was written for the generation to whom it was addressed, the generation in which it was written.

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And that's true of the book of Revelation. That was true of the book of Daniel. That was true of the

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book of Ezekiel, too. In all of those apocalyptic sections, they were meant for the first audience,

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and they were meant to comfort and encourage the saints who were in or under distress and oppression.

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And that was true in the book of Revelation. So that must be constantly maintained. How does the

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book of Revelation begin, for example? The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his

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servants, that is, the saints that lived in John's time, to show his servants the things that must soon

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take place. Not in some far-off future period in the year 2001, huh? Right? He made it known by sending

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his angels to his servant, John, who bore witness to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ,

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even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those

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who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. The time is near. John wrote that

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to the people of his first audience that lived during his time, right? Soon take place. The time

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is near. Not 2,000 years later, dear listener. So, we will continue then to pursue this introduction

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to apocalyptic. We have seven more rules to properly interpret prophecy, and I hope to go over those with

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you then again next week. But I would also like to invite you, once again, to our Bible study on this,

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to our midweek Bible study, which occurs on Thursday night at 7 p.m., and we are doing this at Leo's Place,

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just a really fun place to gather. We have a room all to ourselves. We eat pizza and talk, and we have fun.

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Our families are there. Individuals are there. We invite you to join us, and it's just an open period of

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time in which we'll do some study, but also leave time for questions and for comments. And if you

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disagree with us, hey, come and present your case. We'll be glad to entertain it and to listen to it.

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But indeed, we will be presenting a view that's not often heard, and that is the post-millennial view

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of Christ's return. And we hope to at least interest you in it and present it and put it out there for

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your consideration, dear listener. New Geneva as a church, and that's our midweek Bible study,

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but New Geneva as a church meets on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and

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Boulevard. We encourage you to join us for worship, to visit us, and we'd be glad to have you. That's

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10 a.m., our worship service, on Sunday at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard.

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And you can call us for more information or comment, 208-523-0196. 208-523-0196.