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by
Ron Rhodes
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April 2 - April 7, 2022
he seemed completely certain that he was correct about his position that we cannot be certain about anything.
He also asserted that there are no good reasons for what we believe—and then provided what he considered to be good reasons for holding that there are no good reasons for what we believe. This kind of sloppy thinking is a reflection of our current culture. A
We are to receive the Bible as God’s words to us and revere and obey them as such.
In other words, the original documents of the Bible were written by men who were permitted to exercise their own personalities and literary talents but who wrote under the control and guidance of the Holy Spirit, the result being a perfect and errorless recording of the exact message God desired to give to humankind.
We’ll also be better able to recognize the folly of such erroneous prophetic ideas as replacement theology* and preterism.†
“When the literal sense makes good sense, seek no other sense lest the result be nonsense.” I follow this dictum throughout the rest of the book.
The fact that Christ did not interpret His subsequent parables indicates that He fully expected believers to be able to follow His methodology and understand the literal truths they pointed to.
A prophet chronology that has any hope of being accurate must follow a literal method of interpreting individual Bible prophecies.
use sound interpretive principles for “rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).
When the plain sense makes good sense, seek no other sense lest you end up with nonsense.
“unless the text indicates clearly that it should be taken symbolically, the passage should be understood literally.”
If God created language primarily so He could communicate with human beings and so human beings could communicate with each other, He would naturally use language and expect man to use it in its normal and plain sense. This view of language is a prerequisite to understanding not only God’s spoken word but also His written Word (Scripture).
Consider the specific promises God has made to Israel, including the land promises in the Abrahamic covenant.5 The plain meaning of these promises makes perfect sense. There is no good reason to say that such verses will not be fulfilled with Israel but are rather spiritually fulfilled in the modern church—a position held by proponents of replacement theology.
Submit all doctrinal assumptions to Scripture.
our doctrinal opinions must be in harmony with Scripture and subject to correction by it.
We must allow the biblical text itself to modify or even completely reshape our presuppositions and beliefs.
Pay close attention to the biblical context.
The interpretation of a specific passage must not contradict the total teaching of Scripture on a point. Individual verses do not exist as isolated fragments, but as parts of a whole. To interpret them properly, we must understand their relationship to the whole and to each other. Scripture interprets Scripture.
Jesus is saying the generation alive at the beginning of the tribulation will still be alive at the end of it. Context clears everything up.
Make a correct genre judgment.
The Bible contains a variety of literary genres, each of which has certain peculiar characteristics that we must recognize in order to interpret the text properly.
Consult history and culture.
step out of his contemporary Western mind-set and into an ancient Jewish mind-set, paying special attention to such things as Jewish marriage rites, burial rites, family practices, farm practices, business practices, the monetary system, methods of warfare, slavery, treatment of captives, use of covenants, and religious practices.
So the antichrist—as a “little horn”—apparently starts out in a relatively minor way with a localized dominion but eventually attains global dominion (Revelation 13).
Remember that one passage may apply to more than one event.
Prophetic Scriptures may refer to two events that are separated by a significant time period.
Replacement theology basically argues that the church has replaced Israel in God’s plan and that the promises made to Israel are fulfilled in the church.
The word preterism derives from the Latin preter, meaning past. In this view, the biblical prophecies in the book of Revelation (especially chapters 6–18) and Christ’s Olivet discourse (Matthew 24–25) have already been fulfilled.
“I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in [that is, until the full number of Gentiles who will be saved have, in fact, become saved]” (Romans 11:25).
The backdrop is that the Jews in Israel had sought a relationship with God not by faith but by works
so they rejected Him. As a result of this rejection of the Messiah, a partial judicial blindness and hardness has come upon Israel.
Israel thus lost its favored position before God, so the gospel was preached to the Gentiles to make the Jews jealous that they may be saved (Romans 11:11).
The good news is that Israel’s hardening and casting off is only temporary. In dire threat at Armageddon, toward the end of the tribulation period, Israel will finally recognize its Messiah and turn to Him for rescue from the invading forces of the antichrist (Zechariah 12:10; see also Romans 10:13-14). A remnant of Israel will be saved (Romans 11:25). (More on all this later in the book.)
The universal church is the ever-enlarging body of born-again believers who comprise the body of Christ and over whom He reigns as Lord.
In New Testament times, the church is clearly portrayed as distinct from Israel (see Romans 9:6; 1 Corinthians 10:32; Hebrews 12:22-24). Thus, the church is not a mere continuation of Old Testament Israel. It is true that there are some similarities between Israel and the church. Both are part of the people of God, both are part of God’s spiritual kingdom, and both participate in the spiritual blessings of the Abrahamic covenant and the new covenant.
Israel is an earthly political entity (Exodus 19:5-6), but the universal church is the invisible spiritual body of Christ (Ephesians 1:3).
Israel was composed of Jews, but the church is composed of both Jews and Gentiles (see Ephesians 2:15). And one becomes a Jew by physical birth, whereas one becomes a member of ...
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the church age began on the day of Pentecost.
We are told in Ephesians 1:19-20 that the church is built on the foundation of Christ’s resurrection, meaning that the church could not have existed in Old Testament times.
We conclude, then, that the genesis of the church was on the day of Pentecost, and that ever since then, we’ve been living in the church age. This church age will last until the church is raptured off the earth
I will provide evidence in this book that the rapture takes place prior to the seven-year tribulation period.
the kingdom had been offered to the Jews by the divine Messiah, Jesus Christ (Matthew 11–12). However, the Jewish leaders not only rejected Jesus but even claimed that His miracles were performed in the power of Satan. This constituted a definitive turning away from Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah. This is why a judicial blindness and hardening has come upon Israel as a judgment from God (Romans 11:25). God’s kingdom program was thereby altered—its coming was delayed. (It will be delayed until the future 1000-year millennial kingdom, which follows the second coming
The birth of the modern, self-governing nation of Israel in 1948 began the fulfillment of specific Bible prophecies about an international regathering of the Jews in unbelief before the judgments to come during the future tribulation period. This regathering was predicted to take place after centuries of exile in various nations around the world.
The divine program of restoring Israel has apparently been in progress, even prior to 1948, setting the stage for the future tribulation period.
In the vision of dry bones in Ezekiel 37, the Lord miraculously brings scattered bones back together into a skeleton, wraps the skeleton in muscles and tendons and flesh, and breathes life into the body. There is no doubt that this chapter is speaking about Israel, for we read that “these bones are the whole house of Israel” (verse 11). The chapter portrays Israel as becoming a living, breathing nation, seemingly brought back from the dead.
In 1940, no one could have guessed that within a decade Israel would be a nation again.
The return of the Jews to the land prior to the tribulation period is clearly implied in the peace covenant between the antichrist and the leaders of Israel (Daniel 9:27). The signing of this peace pact will signal the actual beginning of the tribulation
rebuilding of the Jewish temple that will exist during the tribulation period (see Matthew 24:15-16; 2 Thessalonians 2:4).
Armageddon—the series of battles that occur at the end of the tribulation period—appears to be the historical context in which Israel will finally become converted (Zechariah 12:2–13:1).
The word apostasy comes from the Greek word apostasia, which means “falling away.” The word refers to a falling away from the truth. It depicts a determined, willful defection from the faith or an abandonment of the faith.
