02 1st affimative William Bell

I'm just excited to have this conversation with these gentlemen on tonight. I am excited. So without further ado, we are going to start. Let me just, again, restate what we will be discussing tonight. It's kind of informal. We don't have a moderator. We'll kind of moderate one another. We'll self-moderate. These gentlemen are respectful, and we're just looking to have a wonderful time in the Lord as we discuss. We will be discussing the wonderful topic of whether or not all biblical prophecy have taken place. All biblical prophecy has it already taken place. Brother Preston and Brother William will be defending the position that all biblical prophecy has taken place, while Brother Jomo and myself, we will be defending the position that all biblical prophecy has not taken place. And so with the help of the Lord, we encourage you to grab your Bibles and go along with us with passages that we'll share and be prayerful along with us as we strive together for truth. So with that said, we will have introductions, and we'll go from there. So introduction, we'll start with the, and we'll just, for the sake of the conversation, the preterist position. So the preterist position, you guys can go ahead and go first, be about a 15 minute or so introductions. Go right ahead. All right, thank you. What we're here to affirm tonight is the fulfillment of all Bible prophecy. And in calcium, that would be the fulfillment of all things related to eschatology, such as the end of the, what the Bible calls the end of the world, particularly the end of the age, the resurrection of the dead, the appearing of Christ, the coming of the eternal kingdom and judgment. And of course the text would be 2 Timothy chapter four and verse one, I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is about to judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom. First of all, we're going to talk about the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. Let me say that when we speak about eschatology, we're talking about the doctrine of last things, eschatos meaning end or last and logos meaning the study or word. So the word of last things, and our focus on eschatology is that it is the fulfillment of the things found in the old covenant. It is not about material, physical world, destruction, et cetera. It is about the transition and the transformation from the old covenant, which had an end to the new covenant, which has no end. One of the first texts that I would submit in terms of the premise that the eschatology in the Bible is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy would be Matthew chapter five, verses 17 and 18, where the Lord said, think not that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For sure do I say to you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle will in no wise pass from the law till all is fulfilled. So the Lord affirmed that we could not have one prophecy fulfilled that is in terms of any eschatological prophecy, any prophecies that relate to the end time. None of them would be fulfilled until all is fulfilled. And he marked the time as the fulfillment of heaven and earth and the fulfillment of all things. In connection with that, we have a prophecy in Luke chapter 21, which is verses 20 through 22, a part of the Olivet discourse, where he says, when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those who are in the midst of it depart and do not let those who are in the countries enter into her for these are the days of vengeance that all things which are written may be fulfilled. He's quoting from Deuteronomy chapter 32 in terms of the fulfillment of all things and the days of vengeance. And he's saying that would be fulfilled when the temple was destroyed in Jerusalem in 70 AD. And he undergirds that in verse 32, when he says, sure do I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. Then we look in Luke 24, 44 through 47, where Jesus comes and he teaches them and opens their heart regarding all things that he had said to them while he was still with them. And he tells them, of course, that it was necessary for the son of man to suffer, to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And of course, that was the gospel that was to go into all the world, according to Matthew 24 and verse 14. And then he says, then the end would come. We also see in Matt, excuse me, in Acts chapter 24, and the verse is 15, where as Paul being accused of teaching things contrary to the law, said that they could not prove those things which they said of him. But he says, but according to the way which they call a sect, so worship I, the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets. And he says, I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept that there is about to be, the word mellow used in the Greek, with the president Benedict is there. And so he says, there is about to be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust. He continues language in the same vein of thought in Acts 26, six through eight, when he talks about the hope of the promise made to the fathers, that the resurrection was about to occur. And then another passage in first Peter, where he alludes to both the timing and the nature that the Old Testament prophets were looking forward to, when he says in first Peter chapter one, verse 10, of this salvation, the prophets have inquired and searched diligently whose prophesied of the grace that was to come to you, searching what or what matter of time the spirit of Christ who was in them was signifying when he testified beforehand, the sufferings of Christ and the glories that were to follow, that were about to follow. And he says to them, that is to the Old Testament prophets, it was revealed that not to themselves. So these things were not going to take place in the time of the Old Testament prophets, but Peter says to us, meaning to his generation, to what we call audience relevance, referring to those who were the initial recipients of the epistles and the messages of the New Testament. But to us, they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things which angels desire to look into. And therefore he tells them to gird up the loins of their mind, to hope for the end, for the grace that was to be brought to them at the revelation or the apocalypsis of Jesus Christ. And then in Revelation 10 in verse seven, he says, when the seventh angel was about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished as he has declared to his servants, the prophets. And of course, the mystery of God being the bringing in of Jew and Gentile into one body, consummating that, fulfilling the message of the prophets. So that would be at least some of the evidence to demonstrate that eschatology is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets that was revealed and was being fulfilled in the time of the first century generation before that, or at the time the temple failed and in connection with the passing of the first century generation. The second thing I'd like to point out is that it is focused on the time of the end, as opposed to the end of time. When we read in Daniel chapter 12 in verse four, as Daniel talks about the great tribulation and the time when many who slept in the dust of the earth would awake, et cetera, he says he was told to seal those things up for the time of the end. He didn't say the end of time because the Bible says nothing about the end of time. There is no such thing as the end of time taught in scripture, but it is the time of the end. Now in connection with that, in Daniel chapter nine, he spoke about the six blessings that was to take place when the 70 weeks were to be fulfilled. And so he tells us that within the 70 weeks of Daniel, which ended by the way, with the war and with the abomination of desolation including in the war, but of those six blessings that were to take place, he says in verse 24 of Daniel nine, that 70 weeks were determined for the destruction of the, for the city and the sanctuary to, for your people and for your holy city to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, which meant both to seal up the office of prophecy as well as to fulfill all prophecy and to anoint the most holy, which of course occurred at the time of the coming of the Lord, Hebrews nine in verse 28. And then after talking about the Messiah being cut off and the fulfillment after the 69 weeks within the 70th week, he talks about the destruction of the city and temple, the abomination of desolation and which would consummate those things. And so this is the fulfillment that we find in the New Testament already alluded to by the passages we've mentioned before. But in connection with the time of the end, we have Matthew 24 three, where the Bible speaks of the fall of the temple and the coming of the Lord, which is the presence or the parousia of the Lord. When they asked him about the stones of the temple, when he says that see you not here, there's not one stone upon another, which will not be thrown down. And so they came and asked him privately, when would these things be? What would be the sign of your presence or parousia and of the consummation of the age? Now the King James version of course says world, but the word in the Greek is the age. So they were asking not about the end of the physical world, but about the consummation of the age. And Jesus's answer to them is found throughout the chapter when he talks about the famines, the pestilences and the earthquakes as signs that were leading up to the end but were not the actual end, they were the birth pangs that were to come as a precursor. In addition, he told them the gospel would be preached in all the world. When they saw the abomination of the temple, they had to flee. And also he tells them that they would see the signs of the sun and moon and the stars falling from heaven and the powers of the heaven shaken. They would also see the son of man coming on the cloud of heaven and all the tribes of the land would mourn. And then he says, assuredly, I say to you, this generation would by no means pass away till all these things take place. And of course, also in talks with that was the gathering of the elect at the sound of the trumpet. And we suggest that that sounding of the trumpet is the same trumpet that we find in 1 Thessalonians four, as well as 1 Corinthians chapter 15, both of which have time statements that indicate that these things were to be done in the lifetime of the first century disciples. Now, when we talk about the end of the age, Paul affirmed in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 11, he said, now all these things happened unto them as examples and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come. So we affirm that the end of the ages come in that first century generation and it was coming upon them. Jesus also died in the end of the age, but not at the very end of it, because his death, of course, was the precursor and the first fruits of the fulfillment of those things that were in the end. And they were following a pattern and we'll get this in sometime later tonight, but they were following the pattern of all of Israel's feast days, which are found in Leviticus chapter 23, all eight of them are appointed festivals for the time of the end. And they actually lay out in terms of the fulfillment of those things. And Christ's death was a part of it, of course, on the Passover and other things that are related to it, which are found in Matthew 24 and the rest of the scriptures. And so what we have here is the end of the age that is focused on and not the end of the world that most people have assumed that the Bible talks about. Then I'd like to point out some time statements that are interspersed throughout all of the eschatological passages. For example, in Matthew 10 in verse 23, Jesus tells his disciples that when they were being persecuted as they preached the gospel, he says, when they persecute you in this city, flee also into the next. He says, for you will not have gone through all the cities of Israel fleeing from this persecution until the son of man comes. In other words, they would always find a city of refuge. And again, that's speaking directly to his apostles, to those living in the first century generation. And he says, they would still be doing that until the son of man comes. And I don't think we want to affirm tonight, at least I hope not, that they are still walking through the cities of Israel teaching the gospel. In Matthew 16, 27 and 28, a quote from Old Testament scripture, he says, for the son of man is about to come in the glory of his father with his angels. And then he will reward each according to his works assuredly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death till they see the son of man coming in his kingdom. In Mark 8.38 and 9.1, which is a parallel text, he speaks about that adulterous and sinful generation, another quote from Deuteronomy 32, but he uses a term in Mark 9.1 that says they would actually have seen the kingdom of God come with power before they die, because he uses the word in the perfect tense and therefore demonstrating that. In Hebrews 10 in verse 37, the Lord said, soon he would come very, very soon in a very, very little while. Let me just throw out a few more passages because my time is quickly eroding. And so in passages like Romans 13, 11 and 12, he says, the night is far spent, the day is at hand. They were in the last hour for the salvation to take place. And hence he tells them to awake out of sleep for now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed. Another quote from Daniel chapter 12. In James 5, seven and eight, he says, the judge stands before the door and therefore they were to be patient for the coming of the Lord. These are imminent time statements that indicate the Lord was about to come very soon in the first century generation, that people today who overlook these statements just go on talking about a future coming, but they ignore all of these imminent statements that are found in the Bible. Same thing in the book of Revelation chapter one, verse one, also verse three, these things were shortly to come to pass. The time was at hand. And Revelation 22, six, 10, 12, and also verse 22, Jesus was coming quickly. Do not seal the book for the time is at hand for these things to shortly take place. Now, all that being said, it would demonstrate to us that the nature of the coming of the Lord is not a physical event, such as we have been taught traditionally. And I once believed that I used to be an amillennialist, but because of these time statements, I was driven to relook at them and to examine them and to determine that this could not possibly have been fulfilled in any physical way in terms of that. And that's why God gave the sign of the destruction of the temple as the proof that would demonstrate that Christ was sitting on the throne and that he was coming in glory as he promised the high priest in Matthew 26, verses 63 and 64. And the last point that I would make in the last minute that I have is that the destruction of Jerusalem, the fall of the temple marks the time for the coming of the Lord. It fulfills the prophecy of the man of sin who was in the temple and was a sign that the Lord gave to the Thessalonians to demonstrate that his coming was in association with that temple. Now, there is no temple that exists today. The man of sin, therefore, cannot be in a temple in Jerusalem because that temple was destroyed in 70 AD and that marked the time of the Lord's coming and the fulfillment. So in summary, just very quick, I know I went pretty fast concerning that, but what I affirmed was it was the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, that it was covenantal transformation, that it was the time of the end and not the end of time, that the nature of that coming was spiritual and not physical, that the destruction of the temple was the time that Jesus gave to mark it out, and that it was in harmony with the Jewish festivals that are found in Leviticus 23. With that, that would be the end of my time. Thank you very much.