SPEAKER_00 0:24

It was like one of the first things that the apostles asked him. In Acts 1 3, we read when Jesus came, presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, bearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, You have heard from me. For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel? I mean, that was like one of the first things I asked them. They were all excited. When are you going to restore the kingdom of Israel? And you know, what did we just read about the new Jerusalem? It's the new covenant. In Mark 10 29, we read, Jesus said, Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sister, or mother or father, or children or lands for my sake, and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now, in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecution, and the age to come, eternal life. So in the age to come, eternal life. In Ephesians 1 13, in him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. The question is, are we waiting for it, right? They were waiting for it. We're like, why does one passage make it sound like everything's there, redemption's here, and another passage just saying redemption's near? Well, it was here and near because it was promised, right? When God makes a promise, it's not hinging on anything. So these guys were hoping, and but they were hoping it was going to happen very soon. In Matthew 16, we read, For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Truly I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. So he's reassuring them, don't worry, some of you aren't even going to be dead. So if we put ourselves in their mindset, do you think that they would have said that God is reigning in his kingdom at that time? Do you think the apostles would have seen God as currently reigning in the kingdom at this time that they were speaking, like after the cross and resurrection? I think they're still waiting for them. They're still waiting for God to establish his kingdom. So that would be when he says, I'm king now. Jesus was already reigning in a sense because it had converted from law base to belief, but the law was still there. It was still present, right? And we were, as we were told, that the law would be wiped out, and then the new age would come. So fully established, no. Satan was considered to be the prince of the earth. They didn't say king. He's still the created. But he was considered the prince, because I mean look at that passage where he's up on the on the mountain and tempting Jesus. He said, I'll give you all this. Right? He would have been overlooking like all the Roman area. That was everything at that time. Satan was the leader of Rome, the spiritual leader of Rome. And in Ephesians we read, And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. And then in John 5 19 it says, We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. So at that time the whole world was under the power of the evil one. And so Satan was the prince of the power of the air. You ever thought what that means? You look up air in a Bible dictionary and it says it's making it like a vapor. It's atmosphere, they said, like whatever that means. The air. Satan's not the power of H2O or O2, rather. You know? What would that mean? Going around like the wind? It seems like it must be a spiritual realm, doesn't it? He's the prince of the spiritual realm of the earth. If we believe that eschatology is fulfilled and that God's reigning here, it would be spiritually, because physically we don't see a massive change in people's rhetoric, do we? They don't know. They don't see it. They can only see the kingdom of their spiritual, right? So the power of the air seems to be a spiritual realm. But now let's look at 1 Thessalonians. This is a passage that most people think refers to the rapture, or it refers to something happening at the second coming that we're going to be looking forward to. But it's not what people think. So we read 1 Thessalonians in the light of the air, being a spiritual realm. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. So caught up in the clouds, that's something spiritual. That would have been the cloud rider thing. There's something going on here at this judgment. God's coming in the clouds. And Paul's saying those who are not dead are going to meet them in the air. So he's saying, caught up in the clouds, meeting them in the air, and everybody pictures this thing where we're getting sucked up into this rapture tube that's pulling us up into the sky like helium balloons, right? That's how I would have interpreted this passage is when I'm reading it with my you know Gentile eyes. I'm an American. Caught up in the clouds in the air, I'm definitely flying. I'm hovering, I'm doing something cool, floating around, hey grandma! You know, and so that's what we picture. We picture the you've probably all seen the picture of the rapture with people floating away. That's what Kurt Cameron stopped believing. But the I used to think that meeting the Lord in the air would have been when we die. I thought he was saying, like, when we die, we'll meet them. But uh David Curtis changed my thinking. I had done a message on preterism a while back, and my friend Dave's like, Did you see this message from David Curtis? I'm like, no. And it was about the rapture. He did a very theological examination of it with the original language and everything and comparing the words, but simply speaking, at the end of it all, you come to realize meeting the Lord in the air was meeting him in the spiritual realm. So if we see it as a spiritual realm, at that time Satan ruled the spiritual realm of the world, and something was going to change at the second coming, right? So let's look at it in the light of that. What's going to happen when we meet the Lord in the air? Well, Paul says in 1 Corinthians, I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, which will be Sheol, right? We shall not all sleep, but we will all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we who are alive shall be changed. For this imperishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. So you see what I'm talking about with Revelation now? The sting of death was a spiritual defeat that we've been given at the resurrection of the dead. And it was gonna change us. He said we'd be changed in the moment, in the twinkling of an eye. So something had happened when that temple got destroyed. Something in that cloud judgment, something changed about us. And it was a spiritual change that happened in us. We became immortal. We put on immortality. So we put it on as soon as we believed. But the believers at that time who were alive, who did flee to the mountains, that Christ warned, just get out of here, flee to the mountains. Those people would have been spiritually changed. And they now walk face to face with God. And so the relationship with God deepened at that time because now God dwells among us, is what was written in Revelation, right? So something changed spiritually, and it was all that part of getting caught up in the air. We entered into a new realm, the established kingdom. If this is all true, where's Satan? What? Where is Satan in all this? Yeah. He was destroyed at the temple. Exactly. Yes. And that is a change of paradigm. It takes some took me some time to accept, but when I saw it, I was like, I guess I just have to accept it. Because in Revelation, if this is all true that I'm saying, if Satan was the ruler, the prince of the air, somebody else had to take reign, right? That would mean Satan is poof. So, and it's written in Revelation when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released. The post-millennial view begins after the thousand years in Revelation, and then the full preterist view takes it for. So there's different ways. You know, futurist theology says Christ is still coming. Post-millennial views, some of them still believe Christ is still coming, but they do believe that the destruction of the temple was real and that we're past this thousand years where all these things happen. So there's different places where people are at. But we read in Revelation, and when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are of the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea, and they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surround the camp of the saints, again the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them. And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Then I saw a great white throne, and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead great and small standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done, and the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire, and if anyone's name was not found in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. So we see this final judgment. It would have taken place for everybody who had died up to that point was judged, and then our judgment would just obviously fast forward, apparently, because the final major judgment takes place, and then this day forward there's life and death. If you had do not have the life of Christ, you burn, you're done. He just takes life. God's not looking to torture people. Any questions so far? In heaven as it is on earth needs to be addressed, right? So how is it in heaven as it is on earth? In Colossians 1 15 we read, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. This is Jesus. And he is the head of the body of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent, for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you who were once alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds, he is now reconciled in his body of flesh, by his death in order to present you holy and blameless, and above reproach before him. In heaven as it is on earth, from my vantage point, is his kingdom is right here with us. You have to be spiritual to see it. But I don't believe that the saints are only in this heavenly realm above us, outside of the world. I believe that the saints are probably at work all around us. If we were able to see the spiritual realms, I think it would be similar to what um Elisha revealed to his apprentice that time in scripture, where he's like, Oh no, there's actually things going on all around us here. God, show him, please. And then God opens the guy's eyes, he's like, Whoa, we got a team on our side. Angels of fiery chariots and all this stuff. There's work going on all around us because this is the kingdom. Further in Revelation, we read, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. So the first heaven and the first earth, that was the first covenant. It passed away. And I saw, behold, the holy city. We read this earlier, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. It was a consummation. The bride was prepared for the groom. The church was prepared for Christ, the bridegroom. I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, he will dwell with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them as their God, and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away. And he who is seated on throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. Also he said, Write this down, for the words are trustworthy and true. And he said to me, It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, murderers, so on and so forth, they burn in the lake of fire. And that's the second death. So you see these things going on in this new Jerusalem. Now think about this a minute. If the new Jerusalem was going to be perfect, then why would people need living water? And why would there still be cowards and murderers? These things are still going on today. The living water that is being given for thirst in the kingdom is Christ. When we preach the gospel to an unbeliever, we're offering them living water from the kingdom of God that we are of. We're offering them life on behalf of our Lord who is the giver. We can offer life to people. It's a spiritual life. The cowardly, faithless, they're all around us still, aren't they? We often picture this perfect thing. And I know Jehovah's Witnesses are very strong on that view. The new earth is going to be perfect. When we inherit that, it's going to be perfect. And when they came and were talking to me, I was teaching them some of this stuff and they didn't even know what to say. But I was trying to help them because I was like, what if what you believe has already happened? What if what you're waiting for is already yours? And you don't need to strive for it anymore. Because they work really hard, and I feel bad for them because they are trying so hard to be spiritual, but they don't, it's not coming from a true knowledge. Another thing in Revelation, too, that always gets me is that in chapter 20, you have this in the new earth again, you have this tree of life for the healing of the nations. So people think that all the nations are going to bow to the king, it's going to be perfect, but then why do you need a tree of life there for healing? The tree of life is Christ. He's existent in this new covenant realm. It was always spiritual. It was never meant to be this idea that we've painted it in to be where we have this future perfect new earth, the old one gets blown up and evaporated, and there's a new one. That was prophetic language. So you see how it changes our perception? And we start looking at those passages, and we're like, I have that. That is so cool. That's mine. You know, we actually get something that they had to die for. The apostles were like our frontline military. They died so that we could enter. Christ was working in them, and they gave their lives. Yes, committed their lives to this establishment. Yeah. And it's kind of like saying, like, well, you know, freedom's still not ours to the American soldiers who died for our country. It'd be like telling them, well, you know, someday I'll have freedom. It's coming soon. And they're like, dude, I died for you to have this. Believe it. You're walking in it. What are you talking about? And that's that's the way it kind of feels. From my view, it just kind of is kind of hurtful. It's like, man, the apostles died for this. We shouldn't make light of it. This is a big deal. And for I that's the way I believe. Listen to this Hebrews chapter 1. He says, And you, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain. They will all wear out like a garment, like a robe you will roll them up, and like a garment they will be changed, but you are the same, and your years have no end. So this author of Hebrews, it sounds like he's writing about the end of the world, right? Sounds like he's talking about the heavens and earth are gonna end. But then in chapter 8, he says the same thing in a different way. He says, in speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete, and what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. And if we look at the Greek word of obsolete, it's the same language of the robe being rolled up and worn out. This was all covenant theology. They did not see this as the end of the literal physical earth. They saw it as the end of the age. If you were Jewish at that time, though, imagine how life would look after having your Jewish traditions and your laws. The apostles loved their Jewish traditions still. They still partook in Pentecost and all the feasts and stuff, they were still going. They went up on wine and would be around at the Feast of Trumpets that year in AD seven. I don't know if you knew it or not, but the Feast of Trumpets, the trumpet call would sound at a time that nobody knew yet. You'd have these Jewish people in towers looking for the sign in the skies of when to blow the horn. They knew it was coming soon, but they didn't know the exact day or time that it was coming. And the Feast of Trumpets was when Christ returned for the saints in eighty seven. They didn't know the exact time or date, but they knew the signs to look for, just like with the Feast of Trumpets. Be watching, be waiting. It's amazing the parallels. And Christ again says, For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth passes away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. He makes a connection again with heaven and earth passing away and the law being done. It's obsolete. It's covenant theology that we see wrapped up into this apocalyptic thing. Make sense? That's my argument. That's what I got. Well, thank you. Well, the scripture makes it pretty easy. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

When you finish up with that, going to the end, why do people still think of the second coming? Like, why are we thinking this way?

SPEAKER_00 20:14

It's here. Right. It's already been finished. AD 70 was the final day.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

That was the last day. I think it was such an embarrassment for that to happen in Jerusalem that it's like the news today, they just don't talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

On that note, honestly, if you go on forums, I like I went on Reddit to see what people said about some of these things, and people got attacked for saying that God destroyed the temple. And there's actually people that believe that the New Testament is anti-Semite. Everything in the New Testament is anti-Semite and should have never been written. It's a horrible work of evil. So can you imagine that perception? And you can see a similar evil that they were dealing with in the first century. When the Pharisees said about Stephen, he's talking bad about our temple. Like, no, we're talking about what the Lord said. We're just delivering the message. There's always a possibility that somebody would call this anti-Semite, and I've seen it happen. It's creepy. Because there's nothing anti-Semite. Jesus was a Jew, the apostles were Jews, and we love them. I'm so thankful for the Apostles. I have nothing against the first century Jews, I have nothing against people that call themselves Jews today. But from my spiritual standpoint, based on what Scripture teaches, there are no Jews today. There are no religious or ethnic Jews. Because the law is gone. And the judgment has happened. It's belief in Christ or unbelief. Judaism is over. You can't practice it, and there's no way of atoning for your sin. It's just another one of many false religions. Doesn't mean we have to hate the people. There's a lot of people in false religions. But if we don't tell It's like it is, we're not helping anybody because if we want to be non-anti-Semite in that way, we have to deny our Christ and say that well, you know, they're saved too. But on what grounds? On their rejection of Christ? We can't help them if we don't believe that. I felt really bad for some people. I think it was on Reddit, I was looking, and this guy was saying, This is so depressing and stressful for me. The thought that I'm not going right to heaven because Christ hasn't come. The thought that I'm going to Sheol to take a dirt nap is so depressing and scary, this guy was saying, as a Christian. That's sad. Because that's not true. But it is true if you don't believe in the return. If you don't believe Christ already returned, you're still taking dirt naps. The theology is laid out. We can try to argue it, but how do you argue those passages?

SPEAKER_02 22:54

And I wouldn't want to end up being like C.S. Lewis, who was a Christian, and he ended up having to say, I have to admit, this is the most embarrassing part in Scripture. Yeah. Where Jesus tells his disciples, I'm going to come while some of you are still alive, and he didn't.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Yeah. There was an objector coming at him saying, Your Lord said he was coming, and he didn't come. Like you said, antagonizing. And C.S. Lewis is just like, yeah, that's the most embarrassing thing in scripture is that our Lord didn't even know when he was coming. And that he basically falsely prophesied about himself, saying that I'll come in this generation. Can you imagine believing that?

SPEAKER_02 23:37

I would want to look into it. I wouldn't want to be left thinking that way of my Lord.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

But it takes faith like a child. I try to remember who um what that guy is, the blue-collar scholar. I heard him talking. I think he was said he was nine years old when him and a friend were reading the scriptures, and his friend's like, Jesus was wrong. And the guy's like, What do you mean? What are you thinking here? Why are you saying Jesus is wrong? He said he was coming and he didn't come. He's like, I don't know where my friend's at today with theology, but from that day forward I started digging around. He's right. Jesus said he was coming in the first generation. But I don't think he didn't fulfill that. I think it happened. It's all like this nine-year-old kid studying this kind of theology. And uh he would call into wherever Gary DeMar was working at that time. He would call in and ask him all these questions, and Gary DeMar's like, you know, I'm really thankful for you because I never had to think about topics. Every time you came with a question, I answered it, and that was my show. He was this nine-year-old kid guiding you in your ministry. You know, I mean, that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

That's probably where they come up with saying, I guess, that it didn't happen during that generation. I don't quite understand that.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

I think it's because it's not in the Bible. It doesn't say word for word, the temple was destroyed.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Yeah, because we don't have it in Revelation saying that in AD 70 the temple was destroyed and we all live happily ever after. We have to deduce that for ourselves. But that doesn't mean make the prophecy not in scripture. You don't need scripture to tell you that a prophecy was fulfilled. History tells you that.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

Somebody got it in their head that it was going to be physical, and Christ did not come back in his physical body.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Yeah. And because of that, yeah, it's the physical versus the spiritual.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

The sun, moon, and stars, and the earth not destroyed. Somebody got their own idea of what it was and ran with it.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

And they say, well, Christ didn't come. The Roman army destroyed the temple, but Christ didn't come, is the argument. And salvation. There is nothing. We don't have that evidence. There's nothing that says he was coming as a bodily return. But people believe that based on something like in Acts where it says he'll come the same way he left. Well, he's zoomed up into the clouds. He's gonna come back from the clouds, that's all that means. Right.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Let's say that it was supposed to happen thousands of years later. Let's say it was supposed to happen today. That wouldn't be in scripture either. The books close.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Exactly, and that's a good point. So I'm no longer fooled when people say this guy prophesied that the end is coming. It's like, well, I prophesy that it's not. And I'm right every time. There are no prophets today. But if we were to think that there were, that means the Bible could still be added to. And if we believe that the end of the world has to be in the Bible, then we believe it's going to be. That means something that's coming is going to be prophetic and needs to be added to our Bible. You got all these leaders saying these coming soon, so ignorantly, these are going to be the next prophets.