May 27 2025 2 Guys and A Bible The Nature and Time of the Abrahamic Inheritance

And hello everyone and happy Tuesday afternoon. Welcome back to Two Guys and a Bible here on Fulfill Radio, a voice you can trust. So far it's one guy and a Bible. I sort of kind of suspect that maybe William lost track of time because of the holiday yesterday. I know that my wife and I were sitting at supper at a local restaurant just a while ago, and she said something about the show. And I go, oh, oh yeah, I've got a show tonight, don't I? And so like I said, I sort of kind of suspect that William may have possibly forgotten. I just sent him a text message a moment ago to remind him, but there's no telling where he is. And so may have to do without William tonight. I hate to do that. I always enjoy his thoughts and his insights into the things that we're discussing here on Two Guys and a Bible. And I want to say this folks, what William and I have been talking about over the last couple of weeks is really, really an incredibly important element of eschatology. And that is how the Abrahamic promises segue into the hope of Israel. Well, because after all, the 12 tribes of Israel sprang from, you know, here you have Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, who became the 12 tribes and what have you. But we have to understand that the eschatological promises did not begin with the 12 tribes. The 12 tribes, as William and I have discussed at least over the last two or three programs, the eschatological promises of a new heaven and a new earth, a heavenly country and a heavenly city began well before Abraham. They actually started, that is to say, the promise of the resurrection, the promise of the defeating of Satan, the promise therefore of life began in the garden and it continued right up through the Noahic promises. For instance, in the garden, God cursed the land. And just recently, in fact, Larry and I were discussing this on a recent program, somewhere over the last five years, I don't remember precisely when it was, but it's been a few years ago, I was reading through Genesis chapter 5, you know, try to go back every once in a while, just read the narrative to refresh my mind, refresh my memory about what was said. And in Genesis chapter 5, verse 29, when it's talking about Lamech, the father of Noah, Lamech was told that Noah would give relief from the curse of the ground. What? I thought we'd been told, and this is certainly part of the Reformed Amillennial perspective and the Postmillennial perspective, that we're told relief from the curse, deliverance from the curse, redemption from the curse of the ground won't come until the new heaven and new earth. But here is Genesis chapter 5, before the actual flood, and Lamech was being told that his son was going to give relief from the curse of the ground. And here's what we find. By the way, my friend, Mike Bennett, excellent thinker, excellent student, just recently posted an article on Facebook. I immediately stole it, and it's now published on my web page, website, DonkayPreston.com. And by the way, our bookstore has been completely revamped. We were nearing the maximum capacity of whatever all is involved in that, and so Alan Morton's been working feverishly to redo our bookstore. So anyway, I posted this article, and here are the insights that Mike Bennett gave in this article that he wrote. And again, it's posted there on my web page, DonkayPreston.com. Before the curse, God said he gave to Adam and Eve of every plant of every tree that was in the garden, and they were supposed to multiply and multiply and multiply and subdue the earth. Well, man became sinful. Well, to back up, God cursed the earth because of Adam's sin. Then you come to the time of Noah, when the very thought and intent of man was to do evil continually, and God said he was going to bring a flood on the earth. And I hope that I'm not, or that you're not seeing my screen flashing, flashing, flashing. I don't know if you are or not, but as I sit here, it may be my shirt. Who knows? So anyway, here is God talking about the evil and the wickedness of the world, and he's preparing for the flood. But Lamech, once again, Noah's father, says of Noah, he is going to give us relief from the curse of the ground. Here's the curse under Adam. Noah is going to give relief from the curse. Well, guess what happens in Genesis 8 and 9 after the flood? After Noah comes out and makes the offerings for peace, what does God do? God gave Adam and Eve not only every fruit-bearing plant, not every kind of fruit, not every kind of green stuff, but he also gave them the meat of animals to eat and told him to be fruitful and multiply. Do you see the progression of thought here? Noah gave them relief from the curse. Now, then, of course, we have the promises of new heaven and new earth that are found in the prophetic scripture. But in regard to the curse of the earth, Noah gave relief, and God expanded the blessings on mankind, the blessings that existed before the curse. You can have every plant, every green thing for your food. After the flood, you can not only have all of the plants, all of the fruitful trees, you can have the flesh of animals as well. That wasn't a curse. That was an expansion of the blessing before sin. This is really, really important. And like I said, boy, my screen is just, it's really flashing. I don't know whether it's me getting too close to the camera with my shirt. I just don't know what it is, but it's never done this. So I hope it's not interfering with your vision. So here's what we see in the development. From Noah onward, you come up to Abraham, and you have God calling Abraham out of the Ur of the Chaldees to go to a land that he had never seen, challenging him to believe though he had not seen. Now, God blessed him along the way, gave him evidence to know that he was with him. He would protect him. He would guide him, but he still didn't know where he was going. He did not know what awaited him. And William and I talked about this last week, about how challenging it is to consider what it was really like for Abraham. I mean, folks, look, I say this all of the time. You know, I love to go to automotive swap meets. The last swap meet that I went to, I drove over 150 miles, one way. Okay, it took me two and a half hours. To go 150 miles in the days of Abraham would take weeks and weeks. Look at the average, eight, nine miles a day, maybe, if you got all these kids and all these cattle and what have you. So the point I'm making here is that Abraham's willingness to launch out in faith to go to a country that he had never seen, didn't know anything about it, didn't know about the people, didn't know if they'd be hostile, didn't know if they would be welcoming. He knew nothing, but he was willing to do that. Talk about faith. And William and I jokingly took note of the fact it's difficult today to get people to step out in faith, just to go to worship service. And yet we like to sit in our warm or our cool buildings on padded pews. And we talk about how love I the Lord. And we sing our songs of dedication. And if it's a little bit too cold, if it's raining and thundering and lightning and carrying on, I just don't think I'll get out today. We live according to a different standard. And it's really kind of sad at times. I've got to tell you, there have been times in my ministerial life in which it would come heavy snows and I would show up in the church building anyway. And a little handful of members would show up and we go, hey, let's go ahead and let's worship the Lord. Now, not impugning anybody's faith necessarily. I mean, you've got snow, it's dangerous and what have you. Our soul salvation doesn't hinge on whether or not we get out in snow. I'm not suggesting that. But some of the most enjoyable worship services that I've ever, ever participated in was when this little, really tight knit, small group of people on this very inclement day managed to go through the snow, mech it, and just sit around in this little tight knit group and sing praises and worship and just, you know, really, really informally. So, to consider the faith of Abraham and what it took for him to lead the era of the Chaldeans. It's easy for us to pick up our Bible today and read about that. Whoa, what a fine man of faith Abraham was. And yet it hasn't soaked into us. Not experientially, hasn't soaked into us what an incredible challenge that truly was. Okay, back to the point. And that is that we find that the promises of Abraham, what was the promise of Abraham? Notice Romans chapter four, verse 13, for the promise that he would be the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Now, Paul is setting a foundation. And remember, he's writing in a context in which people have been raised under the law. And I believe we have brother William Bell signing on tonight. So, we'll see if he makes it. Okay. Well, in the meantime, folks, consider here, Abraham is being told, and listen, he doesn't know the extent of the world. But what he does know, he's being given a promise that he would be the heir of the world. But wait a minute, is Abraham being given the promise that he's going to get dirt? Well, there was that physical element of the Abrahamic promise, to be sure, because in Genesis chapter 15, section following, the Lord told Abraham, he said, lift up, the Lord did said, lift up your eyes to the east and the west and north and the south, and all of this land, as far as your eyes can see, I will give it to you and to your seed. Okay, that's physical. But there was a spiritual element to it that Hebrews chapter 11, 11 to 16 talks about, and that Abraham, had he been mindful of the land from which he came out, had that been where his expectations, had that been where his hopes, had that been where his love genuinely was, then he never would have left that country. But he looked for a city whose builder and maker is God. There's Mr. Bill. Can you hear me? I can hear you very well. Glad you could join us, William. I am too. Sorry about that. Well, I was telling the audience when I very first came on tonight that it may be as a result of the holiday yesterday, it may have slipped your mind that tonight was Tuesday night. No, no, no, no. I took a nap. And my alarm didn't go off. Okay. Well, I had to plead that Jan and I were at lunch or semi supper. And Jan said something in passing about the program tonight. And I was like, oh, yeah. Because the holiday yesterday just completely messed me up on that. So anyway, glad you could make it. Hope you had a good nap and So I've just been going back over some territory, William, talking about the incredible faith of Abraham and talking about the world that he was promised to inherit. It wasn't the physical land. And unfortunately, our dispensational friends, they think the almost the entirety of the Abrahamic promise was physical dirt. And they get all bit out of shape. And they just they tell us constantly, you know, I mean, Harold Camping, Harold Lindsay, Tim LaHaye, John Wolbert, you name it, all of the big names in the dispensational world tell us Abraham and his seed never, ever, ever inherited all of the land promises. And yet, the Bible is really clear that they that he did that they did. And it's simply undeniable. So when it talks about Abraham look for a city whose builder and maker was God, he looked for a heavenly country. What is that inheritance of Abraham, William? Well, that's the inheritance that we were talking about before from Genesis 12. That runs back to Genesis 3 and verse 15. That's the inheritance where God had promised all families of the earth will be blessed through Abraham. And so this is the kingdom of God. It's the new heavens and the new earth. It's that world of Romans 4 and verse 13. So, you know, that's the salvation that God had promised to Abraham. That's, you know, the inheritance that's mentioned in Galatians chapter 3, verse 29, etc. So that promise is not the land of which he speaks about in the previous verses. The physical land, you know, that's the world that they were to inherit, the world of righteousness that was to be inherited. And so that is the promise that God had made to Abraham. You know, it seems to me, William, that we face today a whole lot of a similar problem that Jesus encountered when he was here. And that is, I know in my debate with Dr. Richard Carrier, he began by saying, what I expected him to say, but he began by saying Jesus shared the common Jewish expectation of a physical kingdom, a nationalistic kingdom, you know, a physical savior to come and whip the Romans, etc., etc. Nothing could be farther from the truth. And yet today, the dominant view in all of evangelical Christianity is, oh yeah, Jesus is going to come back. Well, no, he's not going to destroy the Romans, but he's going to destroy the Russians and the Chinese. And this 200 million man horse army, and which every time I think about this, I just think about how ludicrous it is. William Shatner You know, as you're saying it, I'm wondering who the Chinese think Jesus is going to come back and destroy. Dr. Richard Carrier Or the Russians for that matter. William Shatner Or the Russians. Dr. Richard Carrier Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're fighting for Jesus. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'm sorry. That just really doesn't make a lot of sense. But you know, I pointed this out in a recent article and in the book on the millennium that I'm currently finishing. And boy, I made great progress yesterday on my day off and today as well. I finalized my table of contents, finalized my pagination. Now I've got to set it aside, put it out of my mind for a couple of days, come back and take a fresh look at it and see if I still think it's ready. You know how that goes. But one of the points that I make in the book is how the Bible very often uses really, really big numbers when it's not trying to indicate mathematical calculations or literal numbers. And that's seen, and I use this in my debate with Anthony Aquino. I used it in my debate with Chris Day. In Revelation chapter 9, we have an army of 200 million soldiers on horseback. And I know that you remember Harold Camping, Jack Van Impey, you name it, all of the big dispensational televangelists over the last, what, 40, 50 years have been telling us, oh, this invasion of 200 million soldiers, 200 million horsemen is just right around the corner. Well, in preparation for both of those debates that I mentioned, I just decided for fun, and this is before I discovered GROK or CHET, is it GTP or something? CHET. Yeah. So anyway, I got on that and I used the search function of good old Google, how many horses are there in the world today? In 2024 is when I was doing the search initially. Well, lo and behold, in 2024, there is only an estimated, only an estimated 60 million horses in the world. Interestingly enough, the great majority of those are in America and South America. So it raised an interesting question, okay, if there are only 60 million horses in the world in 2024, 2025, and the majority of that, of that number is in North America, South America, number one, I'm fairly convinced that America wouldn't give China and Russia all of our horses. Pretty well convinced that the South Americans, although Venezuela might, but I'm still pretty well convinced the South Americans wouldn't give all their horses to Russia and China. And there's only an estimated 15 to 20 million horses in all of Russia and China combined. So the question is, where would Russia and China come up with an extra 180 million horses in order to comprise this 200 million horse army? And then just the other day, as I was continuing my research, I asked GROK, how many horses, what is the estimate of how many horses were there in the first century in the time in which John was writing on Revelation 9, talking about a 200 million horse army? It is estimated according to projections and, you know, you can't be rigid on these, but it's estimated that there were only four to five million horses in the entire world in the first century. So how could John say these things will shortly come to pass when there's only four or five million horses in the world? Boy, that does not compute. It does not. And so we're dealing with people today who want to tell, oh, we're going to take the Bible literally. And yet even on this one simple illustration, world history is not anywhere near at a point of time in which 200 million horses could be raised, trained, and put into an army to invade Israel by Russia and China. But that's the kind of mindset that we are facing when we try to share coveted eschatology with people and talk about audience relevance. What would the idea of a 200 million horse army say to a person living in the first century when the most horses they might have ever seen was 20 or 30,000? The Romans did use horses a lot. But back to the point that I'm trying to make, the Jews had this incredibly literalistic perspective of the kingdom and of the Messiah. And all the time Jesus is saying, no, my kingdom is not of this world. It's just not of this world. The kingdom does not come with observation. And Jesus said, why do you not believe me? Well, it's because you can't hear my words. Well, they heard audibly his words. They just didn't get it. Why? Because Jesus said, I'm from above, you are from beneath. So this is the great difficulty that we encounter today. By the way, do you have Peter Lightheart's commentary on? I don't have them in my library. I have read them before. Or at least I've read from them. And I use them for a while in my studies. I just don't own them. No, they are not cheap. I agree. I got them when they very first came out in 2018, 19, somewhere along in there. And I think I paid 105 for the set. So yeah, they're not cheap at all. But one of the things, and he's an all millennialist. He believes we are in the millennium now. He believed that the millennium began in AD 70. And it's absolutely amazing to me how Peter Lightheart recognizes the apocalyptic nature, figurative nature of the language of the book of Revelation. And yet one of the reasons that he gives for not believing the millennium is consummated and over is because, well, the Lord said lions were going to lay down to the lambs. The purely literalistic, physical interpretation of Old Testament prophecies concerning the kingdom that in many other places in his book on Revelation, his commentary on Revelation, he talks about the spiritual nature of the kingdom, the spiritual victory that is ours. It's not a physical victory. It's not a physical army. So, William, why don't you give us some thoughts on this conflict between what we are facing in regard to trying to get people to see the proper hermeneutic of interpreting scripture, the nature of the kingdom, even the nature of the parousia, the nature of the resurrection versus this materialistic viewpoint that permeates the future's views. You know, I wish I had the magic bullet for that to make it so simple for people to see. You know, you can tell them over and over again, and it just doesn't seem to register. As a matter of fact, I had a gentleman writing me today and talking about 1 Thessalonians 4, Matthew 24, et cetera, the coming, and why he didn't believe that Jesus came in 70 AD because he thinks that it's a reference to something physical. And he cited 1 Thessalonians 4, and I just kind of wrote him back. I said, well, you know, you might want to try to explain why the Thessalonicans believe that the event had actually come without all of that physicality that you're talking about, along with some of the other things that are in the text. But that becomes the major issue with a lot of people in trying to understand it. And, you know, I've always looked at John, the Gospel of John, where over and over again, Jesus is having these conversations with the Jews, and on almost every occasion, there's a communication block between what he's saying and what they're thinking. He talks about the kingdom and one having to be born again, and here comes Nicodemus and say, well, how do I do that? Do I go back into my mother's womb and be born? So he's thinking about how he entered the old covenant kingdom, the world in terms of his natural birth, and becoming a part of that. And here's Jesus telling him as a grown man, a quite mature one at that, that you've got to be born again. And so he doesn't understand what that actually means. And then you go to chapter four, and you're dealing with the woman of Samaria, and they're talking about drinking. And Jesus tells her that she could drink living water, and if she drank that, she would live forever. And she asked, well, you know, you don't even have anything to draw with. I remember when I was a kid, you know, we had wells. You'd have to, you know, there's a rope, and you drop it down in the well, and you pull up a bucket of water. I did that. Yeah. So that was, you know, when we'd go down to my grandfather's house in the country, as we say. And so you had that situation, but that's what she was thinking, that she could drink. It would be some type of literal water that she would drink. And Jesus was trying to tell her all the time that he was the living water. And so those examples go all the way through the gospel of John. You know, you get to chapter six, and there's a story about the living bread, the manna that comes down from heaven. And Jesus tells him, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. And after, you know, a little bit of that conversation, the scripture says they all turned back, you know, pretty much and stopped following him because they couldn't understand what he meant about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. And he says, you know, the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, they are life. And he was just trying to tell them, you know, this is all about obedience. This is about faith. This is about adhering to the word of God. And they didn't get it. So this concept of the spiritual realm, as you were talking about before, that which is above, you know, as opposed to that which is beneath, they couldn't get it. And that's where so many people are stuck today. They're still stuck in the beneath and they can't get what is above in terms of the realm of the spiritual things that Jesus was talking about, as far as the fulfillment of all of these things. You know, when it comes down to resurrection, I am the resurrection. And he who believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And he who lives and believes in me shall never die. In John 8, 51, when Jesus was having that conversation with the Jews, they said, okay, now we know you have a demon. Abraham is dead and the prophets are dead. So who are you making yourself out to be? And they're going back to a physical concept and discussing physical death when Jesus is in a whole different realm and a whole different sphere. And yet we get, you know, people will read that, fail to understand Jesus' statement, I am the resurrection, and then run straight to 1 Corinthians 15 and Thessalonians 4, et cetera, and argue for a physical resurrection instead of trying to interpret that text in light of the foundation that Jesus lays in the gospel. So those are the problems. Now, what can you do besides tell them, you try to demonstrate it, you try to illustrate it, and yet they still refuse to see. And it's a continuing and it's an ongoing struggle. And yet, what a thrill it is over the last several years, William, that you and I have seen more and more and more people that have opened their eyes. I got an email today that was just so gratifying. You know, he was a person that was raised among atheists and came through your ministry and mine, came to understand. And he said, I read the Bible and he said, I came to believe in the Lord, but he said, I kept running onto these passages of Christ coming back in that generation. And he said, I was totally stumped. And he said, then I heard you and William say, when the Lord came and he said, boom, it was over. And he said, what a joy and what a thrill it is to see the answer. And the numbers of people that are coming to see that truth is just growing exponentially. Just as an illustration of this, folks, William and I have both spoken at conferences before, if you want to call them conferences, in which there might've been 10, 12 people present. I personally spoke at a conference one time in which there were a grand total of six people present. And by the way, I've heard from one or two of the people that attended that conference many years ago and said it had a profound impact on them. You never know. You literally never know what you are doing, what the impact might actually be. And you think, well, there's nobody here, so why even go ahead? But yeah, you just never know. But as I started to say, William and I have been at conferences before when just a handful of people were there and people have a tendency to get discouraged and what have you. And yet, just as an illustration, when you go to Facebook and you start typing in, doing a search on preterist Facebook pages, good grief. I mean, they just pop up like crazy. And some of them, yes, there are not many, 30, 40, 50, 60, 100 people, but there's one Facebook preterist page that I'm aware of that has over 15,000 members. Yeah. It's run and owned by a guy named Dan Maines, who is a preterist. And there are others, Preterist Doctrine, which is, I co-owned that with Alan Morton. We have over 3,000 and growing members just on that one. And there are any number of different preterist Facebook pages that are up to 1,500, 2,000, 2,500 members. Now, is there some overlap? Well, I'm sure there is. I'm not suggesting that there's totally independent numbers. But the point of fact is, here are literally thousands of people who are at least, at the least, they're interested in the message of covenant eschatology. And so, that just tells you that while it's discouraging at times, when we hear from so many different people, like I've heard from several over the last couple of weeks, well, if this is the new heaven and new earth, I don't want anything to do with it. That's one of Sam Frost's former preterists. That's one of his favorite sayings, which is just ultra, ultra sad to see somebody who once understood the spiritual nature of the kingdom, and now they've devolved, that's the only word that I know to use for it. They've abandoned, obviously, the truth of the nature of the kingdom, and they're expecting a literal, physical, recreated earth and material creation. And because they don't see that, then all of a sudden, Jesus failed or all these preterists misunderstand the Bible. Well, lots and lots of people are coming to understand the truth. Jesus never promised a new literal, physical heaven and earth, and that's so easily proven. That's the thing about it. It's so easily proven. But anyway, to go on here about this Abrahamic promise, once we can begin to see, and William, is this not pretty self-evident when Hebrews 11 tells us that what Abraham was looking for that he saw far off was this heavenly city and this heavenly country? Doesn't that tell us right then, right there, definitively, Abraham was not interested in a physical earth? That's correct. I don't know. Am I looking at that too simplistically? No, I mean, that's what he's saying. The text says that he saw it far off. Another point about that is when you're looking at it, the writer uses the word now in that text, and Abraham's not on the earth at that point, and yet he's still looking for that. So, was he looking to be raised and placed into a physical world? I don't think so, from that perspective. So, it shows that even beyond this realm, he was still looking for the inheritance. Yeah, and this gets back, we touched on this a couple of weeks ago, this gets back to the very nature of the resurrection. As you were pointing out there, what Hebrews is pointing out to us, the Hebrew writer saw himself and his audience as living in the now time that Abraham anticipated, that Abraham anticipated far off. By the way, William, doesn't the fact that Hebrews says Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc., they all saw the promises far off? What did far off mean? It certainly didn't mean immediately, as far as that goes. Far off had to do with the time. It's like the Lord said in John 8, once again, he says, Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad. He was looking down to the time of Christ, when in the last days, those promises would be fulfilled. And of course, Hebrews is almost at the very end, not quite at the end, but very close to the end of those days, when those promises were about to be fulfilled. As the writer says, even in chapter 12, they were receiving the kingdoms. So, this is already materializing at that point, that already but not yet has pretty much reached that point of extremity where the inheritance is being received. Yeah, and to me, this has driven home so incredibly powerfully. In Hebrews chapter 12, and a little bit of a backstory here, as you and I did a quite lengthy study of the term Zion. How the word, how Zion, which was the physical capital of the city of Jerusalem, the physical capital of the nationalistic physical kingdom of Israel. Pardon me. Well, Zion became a type, it was a type and a shadow of the heavenly Zion. And when we deal with messianic prophecy, Zion was to be the locus of every eschatological tenet that you can possibly imagine. It was to be the locus of the resurrection, of salvation, the kingdom, the proclamation of the gospel, on and on and on it goes. Okay. So, Zion is the epicenter of eschatological blessings. Is that a fair way to express that? Yes. Okay. So, Zion, prophetically, is the epicenter of eschatological blessings that would flow to all nations. And here in Hebrews chapter 12, the writer says, you have come to Mount Zion. I don't know of a better way to dispel the idea that the New Testament saints were looking for a physical, geopolitical, quasi-military, but surely geographical restoration of the physical Zion. I'm really, really, really sure that the writer of Hebrews was not writing to a group of people who are standing at the bottom of literal Mount Zion. But he defines that Zion for us as the heavenly Jerusalem. That's the nature of it. And so, when people tell me, and I've shared this before, but I'll share this again, because it is such a story to me. You knew James D. Bales, certainly knew of him. James D. Bales was a fantastic minister in the church of Christ. He was one of my heroes growing up, as a matter of fact. And James D. Bales had terminal cancer in his closing years, but someone told him about preterism. Several people did, tried to get him to comment on it. And James D. Bales made a comment one time, and a little bit more of a backstory here. James D. Bales did some of the finest writing against premillennialism that you will ever read. Just fantastic stuff. Well-reasoned, tremendous logic, et cetera, et cetera. So, when James D. Bales was asked to comment on covenant eschatology in Max King, he said, my eyes are not seeing what my ears are hearing. You remember that statement? I do. I think you even wrote on it, and I did as well. Yeah. Yeah. What was James D. Bales doing? James D. Bales was reverting to the dispensational hermeneutic, a hermeneutic that he had preached against, a hermeneutic that he had written against for years and years and years and years. And he had said, I had his books in my library right over here in the bookshelf behind me. James D. Bales said, the premillennials are looking for the wrong kind of kingdom. They're looking for an earthly kingdom and physical Zion. That is not what the promised. And he talks about the spiritual Zion. And yet, when confronted with covenant eschatology and the fulfillment of all of those eschatological promises that were posited in Zion, he said, oh, well, well, I don't see it. Therefore, it can't be true. And that shows how pervasive, and it shows how powerful the physical mindset can be, and yet how wrong that physical mindset can be. Let's go back to the book of John, William. Jesus performed seven signs, correct, in the book of John? Can you name one of those signs, turning water to wine, you know, raising Lazarus from the dead, whatever the sign might have been, can you name one sign that Jesus performed that pointed to an equal or greater physical reality like it? To an equal or greater physical reality. Right. I can't think of one that pointed to an equal or greater physical reality. All of the signs that I remember were pointing to a greater spiritual reality. Yeah, let's go back to the creating wine out of water. I don't know of anybody in the world, maybe Papias of the late first century, you know, with his idea of the messianic kingdom and, you know, literal meats and literal wines and grape vines and all this kind of stuff like that. But realistically, I don't know of anybody in the world that would take the position, oh, look, Jesus turned water into wine. And boy, oh, boy, when the kingdom is established, he's going to do it on a bigger and better scale. He's going to make more wine than you can possibly imagine. I don't know if anybody teaches that. So what's the point, ladies and gentlemen? Here is the book of John that lays out seven signs, and the climactic sign was Jesus's death, burial, and resurrection. And John closes his gospel by saying many, and he's just recorded the resurrection of Jesus and his appearance to his apostles and disciples. And he said many other signs did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. Why didn't John say, well, now look, I want you to know the physical resurrection of Jesus, that points to the fact that one of these days we're going to be raised physically from the dead as well, a greater physical event than even his physical resurrection. I wonder why he didn't say that. Yeah, you know, even in John 2, where he refers to the statement, destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up. And the text points out that he spoke of the temple of his body. People confuse that, and they think that he's talking about his physical body, but he's talking about, you know, raising that house not made with hands, and again, dealing with the kingdom in that particular text. So there's nothing there that suggests that he was, you know, reverting back to some physical concept. You know, that was the argument of the Jews. Well, forty and six years has this temple been in building, and in three days you're going to raise it up. But that is not what Jesus was talking about. He was talking about the spiritual body and dealing with, you know, his, in contrast, you could say from chapter one, but also looking at it in chapter two, where he talks about the spiritual body. So that was going to be the new tabernacle that would be raised up as, you know, as we see in 2 Corinthians 5 and Hebrews 11 and 12, as you were talking about before, that heavenly Zion. Yeah, and if we get, if we can just get people to understand the spiritual nature, the non-material, non-nationalistic, non-militaristic, non-geographic nature of the Abrahamic promise, that goes an awful long way into understanding covenant eschatology. Because we've said this over the last couple of weeks, William, pardon me, and next week we want to go into Galatians to develop this, and we'll try to finish out here. We don't have much time left, but we'll try to develop this a little bit more here in Romans chapter four about this, the nature of the kingdom. But when we get into Galatians, we really want to focus in on the fact, a fact that we have already stated a couple of different times. Number one, here's the nature of the Abrahamic promise, the nature of the Abrahamic inheritance, not physical land, not a physical kingdom. Whatever the Abrahamic covenant and Abrahamic inheritance was to be, it was to come at the end of the law. Let's go right back to Romans chapter four. If the promise that he would inherit the world, or would be the heir of the world, was to Abraham and his seed through the law, then it would not be through the promise. Wow. For if those things are of the law, or excuse me, if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of the effect. Now, he's writing at a time when the law was still in effect. William, did the Jews believe, and doesn't this get into the Judaizing issue a little bit, but didn't many of the Jews believe that the kingdom would be brought in through the law by means of faithful observance of the law? Didn't many of the Jews of Jesus' day believe that everything was related to Torah? Oh, yes. So, when Paul says, guys, the Abrahamic promise is not received through the law, he is striking, number one, at the very heart of the Judaizers, because the Judaizers were saying to the Gentiles, okay, you become followers of Messiah, the Messiah. That's great. That's wonderful. We welcome you in. Oh, but we welcome you into Israel. And guess what? You got to keep the law of Moses and be circumcised in order to be saved. What were they saying? They were saying the Abrahamic promise, because after all, circumcision is very much an issue here, and that belongs to Abraham. So, they were saying the Abrahamic inheritance was to be found through keeping of the law. Well, right here in Romans chapter 4, Paul said, no, no. God didn't give that promise to Abraham under the law or through the law. Okay, if it's not under or through the law, then that means it transcends the law, and it implies that it would only be received after the law passed away. Is that a fair assessment? Oh, yes. You know, that's, I don't know if that's a part of what you're going to discuss on next week, but Galatians 5.5, for example, is that kind of where you're going next week? Yes, indeed. Part of it. Okay, well, I won't say very much. Just go ahead and develop a little bit and plant the seed. Well, you know, in that text, Paul says, we, by faith, wait for the hope of righteousness, which is through faith, or the hope of the Spirit, which is through faith. But at any rate, that identifies the realm through which it was coming, the realm of the Spirit, and that's the last days eschatological spirit that Joel talks about. But it's also through faith, or by faith, that they were expecting it, and therefore not by the law. But then he tells us what the hope was, he says, it's the hope of righteousness. And that really becomes, it's interesting to watch the tap dancing, when you start talking about the hope of righteousness for the inheritance, and particularly for the resurrection, such as in 1 Corinthians 15, awake to righteousness. And that's what resurrection is, and awakening to righteousness. But that's what the text in Galatians 5 is dealing with, that's what 1 Corinthians 15 is dealing with. And yet, out of that, you know, they want to get physical bodies and biological concepts of resurrection, when the text is telling you that that is the hope of righteousness, that righteousness was that fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise. Well, and that's stated right here again in Romans chapter 4 and verse 13, for the promise that he would be heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. This key motif of righteousness and inheritance, I mean, these are hand-in-glove realities. These are hand-in-glove doctrines. And sometimes, you know, sometimes we get into discussions about, well, what does righteousness mean? What is the righteousness of faith? And we don't see how it's related to eschatology. And yet, interestingly enough, in Daniel chapter 9, verse 24, 70 weeks are determined to bring in everlasting righteousness. Folks, that's the new heaven and new earth. That's resurrection. I wrote a book on that. 70 weeks are determined for the resurrection. Because once a person understands how key this concept, and I love what you said there a moment ago, when we understand that righteousness is a resurrection motif, that it's not rotting corpses, that is the issue. It is relational concepts. Righteousness is being right with God. And it goes back to a passage that I've quoted so many, many times in Galatians chapter 3, 20, and 21. If the law could have been given that could have given life, then verily righteousness would have been given through the law. So righteousness could not be attained through law keeping. Paul's very clear about that. Galatians chapter 2, verse 10, Galatians 3, 10 and following. We know that those who are of the law or under the law are under a curse because it is written, cursed is everyone that does not continue in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them. Now that's in spite of the fact that Paul loved the law. The Jews loved the law and the law was holy. It was true. It was even spiritual, but the law could not deliver from sin. All the law could do was magnify sin. The law was added that sin might abound, Romans chapter 5, 20 and 21. And so we're dealing here with concepts that Paul is writing to an audience raised in a world in love with Torah, but they've come to understand that Jesus is the goal of Torah. As Paul says in Romans chapter 3, as he says, that the idea of righteousness by faith without the law was attested to by the law and the prophets. The law itself knew, understood, predicted that a world of righteousness and that righteousness itself was going to be achieved separate and apart, independent of the law. That was such a staggering revolutionary concept in the first century. And I've said this so many times that there are statements that Paul makes, all the New Testament writers, and Jesus said it in his personal ministry, that unless we were living in that world, saturated with their thoughts, saturated with their ideas, we don't understand how shocking, how revolutionary some of those statements genuinely are. Righteousness apart from the law? Wow. How's that possible? Because you couldn't be perfect. What the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh, Paul would say in Romans chapter 8. Christ did and does through the gospel. Go ahead. I know you want to say something here. Well, I was just thinking as you were talking about righteousness and the Romans 4 text, the Daniel 9 text, the 2 Peter 3 text, Galatians 5 text. When you go back to Psalm 17 and 15, here's David saying, as for me, I will behold your face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake in your likeness. So that's the likeness that he's talking about. That's the righteousness that constitutes resurrection. And that's what he wanted to awaken, the righteousness of Christ. That takes us to Philippians 3.9. It's exactly what I was about to say. Philippians exactly right. And we'll have to develop this next week. Right now, we're out of time. Folks, thank you so much. I hope you can see what we've done tonight. We have focused, number one, as we've been trying to do, on the Abrahamic inheritance. Number two, the nature of that Abrahamic inheritance. And number three, the timing of the reception of that Abrahamic inheritance at the end of the old covenant law, that is covenant eschatology. All right, William, thanks for joining me. As always, great to have you. And I'm going to say on that, good night and God bless. All right, good night.