I’ve been promising for a while that we were working towards a study on the End Times (Eschatology), and that day has finally come. We’ve been walking through the Gospel of Mark, and we have come to Mark 13, where Jesus prophesies of the end of the age. But, as anyone who has ever looked into Eschatology knows, there are all sorts of questions that come up when considering the End of the Age. So, I realized, as I was building up to Mark 13, that it would not be enough to just study that one chapter. To rightly understand what Jesus is saying, we need to take a step back and work through all of the issues relating to Eschatology. So, this morning, we will begin a new sub-series that I am calling “The End of the Age”. In this study, we will walk through the major prophecies regarding the last things. We will start in the Book of Daniel, looking at Daniel 2, 7, and 9. We will jump across to the book of Revelation. And, then, finally, we will land back in Mark 13. So, we are going to be here for a while. This subject is so large that 30 minutes on Sunday morning is just not going to be enough. So, there are four things that I’m going to do. First, I am going to ask for your patience on Sunday mornings, as these sermons are probably going to be longer than normal. Second, I have made a handout that I want all of you to have that will help you understand the differences in the views of Eschatology, and the overall flow of this series will follow it. Third, I am going to devote our Sunday evening services to diving deeper into the distinctions among the views. Finally, every week, I will post both the transcript and recording of my sermons to my blog and provide a link on the church’s Facebook page. I’m taking the extra step, through this subseries, to add citations and a bibliography to each sermon, which you’ll find on my blog. I’m doing this so that, if you want to check my work or dive deeper into the study, you can take my sources and do so. If you don’t do Facebook or blogs, I’m glad to print you out a copy of my sermons.
Today, I want to begin with an introduction to this study, and I must warn you up front. I find it ironic that the Lord would so arrange my series in the Gospel of Mark that we would land on this subject on Pastor Appreciation Day. It’s ironic for a couple of reasons. For one, I feel that the responsibility of any pastor is to preach the whole counsel of the word of God, even when that is hard. If you are to appreciate me for anything, it should be for that. It’s also ironic because on this day when you express your appreciation for me, I am going to challenge one of the deeply held beliefs that you might very well have. You will notice on the handout that there are four different views of Eschatology shown. On the left-hand side are what are known as the “Historic Views” of Eschatology (premillennialism, amillennialism, and postmillennialism). They are called “historic” because they have all three existed since early in church history. These three views each have their own distinctives in the particulars of The End Times (and we will get into those on Sunday nights), but they all have some important points of agreement. All of the historic views teach that the Kingdom of God was inaugurated with the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. This means that right now, Jesus is ruling and reigning over this earth. The historic views also agree on the nature of Israel. Israel was not and is not primarily a race of people. True Israel is a people of faith. So, these historic views do not see Israel as a separate covenant people. The church of Jesus Christ is the true Israel. Lastly, the historic views generally agree on the final resurrection of the dead. They all agree that there will be one resurrection of believers that occurs when Christ returns. In other words, the historic views do not believe in a separate, secret rapture that occurs before the final resurrection.
But, there is a fourth view, called dispensationalism, and you will notice on the handout that I have detached it from the historic views and placed it on the right side of the page. I’ve shown it in this way for two reasons. First, Dispensationalism is a new position on Eschatology, in terms of its development in church history. Second, it differs considerably from the historic views on some important themes. To understand this, we need to consider what dispensationalism is, where it came from, and what makes it different. Dispensationalism was originally developed in the 1830s by John Nelson Darby, and it then went mainstream with the publication of CI Scofield’s reference Bible. Darby and Scofield were influenced by three movements. For one, they were involved in the fervor of the Second Great Awakening, a revival movement that was concerned with moral reform within the church. This led to a conclusion that the institutional church had been corrupted by its close relationship with the state. The early dispensationalists were also caught up in a new interest in the Jewish people and how God’s promise to the Jews would be fulfilled. They were additionally influenced by a system of prophetic conferences that had developed both in Britain and the US which led to all sorts of predictions about when Christ would return. All three of these same concerns influenced several heretical movements of the time, including the Millerites, Jehovah’s Witness, and the Mormons.
Dispensationalism broke from the historic views of Eschatology in three important ways. First, out of a concern for what might happen to the Jewish people, they invented a new way of interpreting the Bible that saw Scripture being divided into “Dispensations”, which were definite times in history in which God dealt differently with humanity. They did not just see the OT as a different administration of God’s covenant of grace (which was the dominant view), but as a totally different way that God provided salvation. In each dispensation, God creates a different test of obedience that man must keep in order to be accepted. So, in the OT, God provided a test of obedience through the law, but in the NT he provided it through faith.
Second, because of these divisions in the Bible, Dispensationalists hold that there are two different covenant peoples, Jews and the Church. Jews are still under the old covenant law and are saved by obedience to it, while the church is saved through faith in Jesus Christ.
Finally, Dispensationalists teach that the kingdom of Christ is entirely in the future. We are currently in the sixth dispensation, the church age, and the kingdom of Christ will not come until the rapture, great tribulation, and the battle of Armageddon. The church is waiting on the rapture, which is often referred to as a “secret” event, because it may happen at any time and those who are left behind will not understand what has happened.
There were several influences that caused Dispensationalism to skyrocket into the mainstream and become widely accepted by Evangelical Christians. One influence was the popularity of the Scofield Reference Bible, which sold over a million copies in the 20th century. Another influence was the fact that, early on, it seemed that Dispensationalists were right. World War I and II proved to be the bloodiest wars in human history, which gave support to their idea that the world would continue to get worse until the end. Also, in 1948, the Allied powers reconstituted the nation of Israel and took great pains to bring the Jews back to their homeland. This heightened the creditability of the Dispensationalists, who claimed that the Great Tribulation would begin within a generation of the re-establishment of Israel. Then, beginning in the 1970s, pop-culture became obsessed with the End Times through the popularity of Hal Lidnsey’s book, The Late Great Planet Earth. This influence in pop-culture continued through the 90s with the Left Behind series by Tim LeHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Movies like the “Omega Code” and “Left Behind” went mainstream and influenced youth groups and church culture.
With all of this influence and popularity, it proves hard for a preacher to take a different course. Most of my fellow pastors and most of you probably see yourself in the history I just described (as do I). It would be easy to say, at this point, that Eschatology isn’t really all that important. It would be easy to give you a watered-down, middle-of-the-road, everyone-is-right take on all of this. But, as I’ve aged, I’ve come to understand that Eschatology does matter. How you believe the world will end determines a great deal of how you will live right now. Besides that, there are some concerning errors that Dispensationalists make which set them up for a break with the historic Christian faith. I find that there are three concerning problems with dispensationalism.
First, there is the problem of the Dispensationalist’s interpretation. The idea that God is doing something completely different in the OT than he is in the NT ignores the testimony of the NT itself. In John 5:39, Jesus tells the Pharisees, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.” In Luke 24:27, it says of Jesus, “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” 2 Cor. 1:20 says, “For all the promises of God find their Yes in [Jesus].” From these passages we see that all of Scripture, from the beginning to the end, finds meaning and fulfillment in Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh. Jesus is the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. He is the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. He is the ark that delivers his people through judgment. He is the ram in the thicket that takes our place. He is the Passover lamb whose blood takes away the sins of the world. He is the Great Prophet who will lead his people out of captivity to sin. He is the King who rules forever from the throne of David. There is no division in the way that God saved in the OT and the way he saved in the New. God saved Abraham by faith in the promise of the Messiah, and the Roman Centurian, Cornellius, was saved in the same way. The dispensationalist is also wrong in the popular way that he interprets prophecy. Jack Van Empe popularized the idea that the Christian should “have a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other.” This has led to the practice of watching the headlines and reading them back into the Scripture. This is not the way you should read the Bible. The Bible was written in a specific time to specific people with a specific point, and our job, as good Bible students, is to understand that meaning.
Second, there are problems the dispensationalist view of salvation. Dispensationalism makes salvation a matter of obedience, not grace. They hold that faith in Jesus is the obedience that is required of you in this dispensation. But, in the NT, faith is given as the opposite of work. In Eph. 2:8-9, Paul says that you are saved by grace through faith, and this is a gift from God. Rom. 4:4-5 says, “To the one who does not work but believes… his faith is counted as righteousness.” Phil. 3:9 says, “Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ.” Faith is the means by which we receive the righteousness of Christ. As John Calvin said, it is the empty hand that receives a gift. God is not looking for your obedience; he is looking for your dependence. Dispensationalism also distorts salvation because it creates a wall of separation between the Jew and Gentile. According to them, Jews remain under the Old Covenant and will be saved by that covenant, while Christians are saved through Christ. This flies in the face of everything the NT teaches. Romans 11 teaches that Gentiles have been grafted into the same tree that Israel was a part of. Eph. 2 says that Jew and Gentile are now one people in Christ and that the wall of separation has been torn down to make one people. Gal. 3 says that there is neither Jew nor Greek, but all are one in Christ.
Finally, Dispensationalism has problems in actualization. Practically speaking, dispensationalism just does not work. Hal Lindsey famously labeled the generation that saw the rebirth of the nation of Israel to be “the Terminal Generation”, because Jesus promised in Matt. 24:34 that “this generation will not pass away” before all this is fulfilled. Just last month, a so-called “prophet” from Africa predicted that the rapture would happen on September 23rd, and this set off a social media firestorm, with people leaving instructions for what unbelievers are to do with their property once they are gone. J. Vernon McGee was famous for asking why we should be engaged in cultural and civic improvement. He would ask, “Why polish the brass on a sinking ship?” So, if you are the terminal generation and there are, at most, only forty years left for humanity, then why have children? Why learn a skill, pursue a career, gain education, build a house? Why be involved in politics, work for a more just society, or serve in your community? If the dispensationalist is right, we should all be celibate, monastic missionaries. But it also doesn’t work practically because, time and again, Dispensationalists have been wrong. I’ve heard my whole life that the very next technological advancement will be the mark of the beast. The next liberal politician will be the Antichrist. The next great catastrophe will presage the rapture. And, time and again, those things have passed. Lindsey’s own prediction has been proven wrong twice over. In Scripture, a generation is 40 years, and with the establishment of Israel in 1948, we are three years short of two generations.
With all that understood, I want to call us to look at the prophecies of the Bible with fresh eyes. I want us to understand prophecies of the end of the age in their right context, not by using our newspapers, but by using Christ. The first place to start with this is in Daniel 2:31-45. As a matter of context, it’s important to remember that Daniel is one of the many Jewish exiles that were taken into captivity in Babylon after God used that nation to judge his people for their unfaithfulness. Daniel is brought into the court of king Nebuchadnezzar, where he is educated in Babylonian traditions and religion. Yet, through all of that Daniel remained faithful to the Lord. One mistake we might make in reading the OT is to assume that God moves from plan A to B to C to D. So, he made Adam and Eve, they sinned, so he moved to plan B in Noah, and then he sinned, so he moved to plan C in Abraham, and then the nation of Israel sinned, so he moved to plan D in exiling them, and on and on. But, the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile in Babylon were all part of God’s plan, and that is exactly what God tells Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar here. Nebuchadnezzar has a dream where he sees a massive image made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and clay. He’s troubled by it, so he puts his wisemen to the test, asking them to give him the dream and its interpretation. They all say it’s impossible, so he sets out to kill every scholar in the land. Daniel asks for a day to pray and seek the Lord for an answer, and the Lord does just that. So, what we read is Daniel’s interpretation of the dream. This dream reveals that God has a plan for the world that involves empires. The first empire is Babylon, the head of gold. After Babylon will come another kingdom, the Medo-Persians. After them, an empire of bronze, the Greeks. And finally, there will be an empire of iron, which in its latter days will be like iron and clay mixed together. This was the Empire of Rome, defined by their brilliant use of iron and its fragile political state (like clay).
These predictions of future empires are impressive enough, but the most amazing part of what Nebuchadnezzar dreams comes in a fifth and final kingdom. Verse 44 says that in the days of the kings of the fourth empire, Rome, God will establish a kingdom that shall never be destroyed. The dream depicts this kingdom as a stone that no human hand has hewn, which grinds the other kingdoms to bits and then grows into a mountain that fills the whole earth. Who is this stone, and what is this kingdom? The stone is Jesus Christ, the king of kings and the Lord of Lords. In Matt. 21:42, Jesus asks, “Have you never read… ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’… And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” The mountain that grows out of the stone is the kingdom of God. In Matt. 13, Jesus compares his kingdom to two small things that grow into greatness. He says the kingdom is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of the garden seeds, but which grows to cover the whole garden. And, it is like leaven, because a little leaven will leaven the whole loaf.
The kingdom of God is not a future reality. It will not begin after Satan has had his day in the seven-year tribulation. Jesus is not waiting, hoping that the world will avoid catastrophe. Jesus is the king who, right now, rules over all the world. This is why we pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” This is why we do good works, so others may see them and glorify our Father who is in heaven. This is why we pursue justice, vote for wise leaders, pray for peace, resist evil, and witness to the Gospel. We do all of it because Jesus rules over this world, and his kingdom will grind to pieces those who resist him, and he will reign until he has made every enemy his footstool.
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