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The Rock Family Worship Center
Taking The Church Outside The Walls
The Rock Family Worship Center
Revelation
What if the Book of Revelation isn’t the apocalyptic nightmare we’ve been led to believe? Step into a realm of thought-provoking examination as we challenge you to rethink this enigmatic text, shifting from fear-laden interpretations to a more insightful revelation of Jesus Christ. Engage your intellect as we dissect the first five verses and foster a community that thrives on questioning and exploring Scripture with both critical and contextual insight.
Our conversation takes a fascinating turn as we unravel the intriguing contrasts between "finished work" and "futuristic" interpretations of biblical prophecies. We delve into the complexities of end-time theories, scrutinizing traditional beliefs around the rapture while highlighting Jesus’ teachings about heaven on earth. Through this exploration, we emphasize the importance of understanding the historical and cultural context to truly grasp God’s intended meaning, urging spiritual leaders and believers to pursue ongoing personal growth and understanding.
Finally, we propose a perspective-shifting view of the New Covenant era, exploring how a new heaven and earth symbolize a pivotal covenantal shift, not an end-of-the-world scenario. By examining first-century Jewish symbolism and recognizing the temple's destruction as marking the old covenant's end, we invite you to critically reevaluate your interpretations. Let this transformative journey be guided by the Holy Spirit, as you shed outdated beliefs for a more profound and meaningful connection with God.
So we've covered a lot of stuff in the last few weeks and I really did sit here and say I'm going to try to be short today because I knew we was doing this baby dedication. So I wanted to kind of shorten everything up and I tried my best to. I went through and I told you all last week that we're going to start looking at the book of Revelation, because I got a purpose in doing that and we're going to start looking at the first five verses. That's it, first five verses. For a reason we're going to break it up.
Speaker 1:I remember somebody told me one time he said how do you eat an elephant One bite at a time? So how do you look at some of these books in the Bible, especially the book of Revelation that's been taught to be so scary? It gives us a mindset that a lot of people don't like to have, you know, because it talks about the end of time and it talks about all this other stuff. Well, I'm going to show you today that what the book of Revelation really talks about is the revealing of Jesus Christ. The book of Revelation has been given a bad, bad concept. You know the way people teach it and I want to break it down a little bit this morning, but I need to ask you a question first, how many people in here are thinkers, thinkers, how many people think? Because there's a difference between a thinker and a non-thinker. You see, thinkers like to be challenged. Thinkers like to obtain new information so that they can take it, think on it, research it, study it, pull it apart. But non-thinkers are just content on just give me what you've always gave me, just the same old, same old. That's non-thinkers. They don't want to be challenged, non-thinkers just want to be comfortable. Okay, I've always said in this church we are going to challenge you, we're going to challenge your thinking. Why? Because the Word says do not be conformed to the world. Be transformed by renewing of your mind, not your spirit. Your spirit's already renewed. If you're born again, your spirit's renewed. There's nothing else we can do for your spirit. But it says to be transformed by renewing of your mind, which means we want to change the way you think about things.
Speaker 1:I've said it many times. I'm never going to say anything from this pulpit and say I need you to agree with me. I don't work like that. I'm going to present things that I know when I say it that you are not going to agree with me on. I'm honest enough to say that. I know that some of you, some of you might, but the majority of you will not agree with me maybe the first time you hear it. And I'm okay with that. You know why Because I don't need your agreement to believe in what God has showed me. I don't need agreement to love you. You're still part of this family, whether you agree or not.
Speaker 1:But we want to present different sides of the coin. We want to present things in context. You know some people, when they quote Scripture and you ask them what it means, they give you the definition of something that somebody taught them, which is common. We all do that. But if I never research it for myself, if I never look at it and say, what does this really mean? What is God really trying to say? I'm just going to go along with what somebody else said. What if that person was wrong? What if that person really was reading that verse out of context? And they taught it to you and you've always believed that. And now you're teaching it to other people. Can I tell you I've been guilty of that. I think every pastor's been guilty of that. So that's not a bad thing.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying we teach the way we learned and the way we were taught, until something, hopefully one day, hits you and you say no, I'm going to shake this thing up a little bit, I'm going to do it a little bit different. I'm going to challenge people. I don't want you to just come in and be comfortable. I don't want you to come in and just agree with me because Pastor Brian said it. No, I want to challenge you. I want to challenge you to question what I say from up here, to get in the Word, to dig and to say let me prove to myself what he said. Let me get in the Word and dig and see if that's really what I get out of it. And if you don't get that, guess what I say hey, we come on Wednesday night and we have what we call real talk.
Speaker 1:And all we do on Wednesday nights for some of you who hadn't come is we sit down and we talk about anything that come up on Sunday that we may have questions about. If we don't understand it, if it didn't make sense, if you don't agree with me, whatever we me, whatever, we sit down and we talk about it through the Word of God, through the Bible. We break it down, we look at the context, we look at what we may be missing it at. Because I'm telling you, if we read the Word out of context, one verse, then that verse is going to take the next verse out, and that verse is going to take the next verse out, and then all of a sudden, we're believing stories and we're passing them down and saying that's what the Bible says and they ain't nowhere in the Bible. Come on, I can give you example after example after example of things that people say what the Bible says and it ain't nowhere in the Bible. It's morally maybe a good point, but it's not in the Bible. So that's all I'm saying is can we think for ourselves? I want you to think for yourself. I want you to be challenged. Be okay with being challenged. That's all I'm asking. Okay, I'm not asking for your agreement.
Speaker 1:I'm in a place right now I used to, when I was younger and I first came to pastor. I needed that pat on the back from everybody. I wanted to step off the stage and I wanted everybody to say man, that was awesome, that was good. I needed that. Now I don't need that because I'm secure in where I am, who I am. I'm not saying I'm always right, I don't take that the wrong way, but I'm secure in what I believe. The path that god has me on, what he's showing me okay, and that is getting back down to the truth of the word, getting away from what I've always believed, coming to terms with myself and realizing what I thought was always right maybe wasn't so. All those times I thought I had it together, maybe I didn't and just really getting in the Word and saying what's it really saying? Because that's what I want to know. I want to understand what God really truly says about me and who I am.
Speaker 1:So I told you we was going to look at Revelation, and I do want to start off and read Revelation 21. I want to read verses 1 through 5. That's the five verses that I told you we were going to go into. So I do want to read them to you, and then I'm going to surprise you and say we're not going into all five, we're going to go into one verse, because when I got to studying this out and digging down, I couldn't get past verse 1. Could not, so I want to read all 5 to kind of set the stage and lay a foundation, but then we're going to bog down in verse 1.
Speaker 1:So Revelation 21, verse 1 through 5, says this Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also, there was no more sea. Then I, john, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be His people. And he will dwell with them and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, no sorrow, no crying, there shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. Last one Then he who sat on the throne said Behold, I make all things new. And he said to me Write, for these words are true and faithful. I'm not even going to the next verse, but I will tell you the next verse. I love what it says. It said it's done, it's done. This is done. So that's five verses right there.
Speaker 1:I picked these five verses out in Revelation 21 out because it's very specific to most people in what it's saying. Most people in church and I say most people, I'm talking about Christian people who are believers could break these set of verses right here down and tell you exactly what they mean. But here's the problem the interpretation of these five verses differs significantly, with a capital S, significantly between somebody who has a finished work viewpoint versus a future viewpoint, finished work versus futurist. What's the difference? Somebody who believes in finished work, as I do, what does that mean? Put it real simple I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross. I believe that he was buried. I believe that he rose again. I believe that he Christ died on the cross. I believe that he was buried. I believe that he rose again. I believe that he's seated at the right hand of the Father. I believe that what he did on the cross was absolutely 100% sufficient and there's nothing else that he's got to do, that everything that he done was exactly what he was supposed to do. Okay, it's finished. He said it on to do. It's finished. He said it on the cross. It is finished. I believe that that's finished work.
Speaker 1:Futuristic means there's a lot of things in the Bible that, if you read, that we're waiting on to happen one day in the future. We don't know when that's going to be. It could be tomorrow, it could be as soon as you walk out of to be. It could be tomorrow, it could be as soon as you walk out of church today. It could be another thousand years from now, but we're waiting on a rapture, we're waiting on a tribulation, we're waiting on a resurrection, we're waiting on a return of Christ. So I'm just telling you the difference in what one person is looking at and what another person is looking at. Which one's right, which one's wrong. I can't give you that answer. I don't think there is a right or wrong in it, but there is context, there is truth. Okay, so you can read these five verses right here to different people and they're going to give you different understandings of what these verses are talking about and what they truly mean.
Speaker 1:Okay, context matters. We say that all the time. Context matters. A few weeks ago, months ago, I don't remember how long ago it was I did a message on context. That was the title of the message and I talked about how do we read the Bible. If I'm going to sit here and tell you, context matters, how do I read the Bible in context? It's easy to read the Bible, we all know how to read. But am I reading the Bible in the context of what God was really intending? Listen, it don't matter what I say, it really don't. If you've got respect for me and you like what I say, thank you, I appreciate it. But it really don't matter what I say, it matters what God intended in the Word of God. So context takes us back to what did God really mean when he said this? That's what matters.
Speaker 1:And I talked about how to look at that in context, how to take a verse and read a verse and say and I gave you a little example and said use this term, I'm His biblical light. You know, we always say we're to be the light of the world and the Bible says that we are to be the light of the world. You're supposed to be His biblical light. I'm Immediate context. Immediate context is what it talks about when it says the verses before and after.
Speaker 1:I can't take one verse of the Bible and pull it out and make it say what I want it to say because of the situation I'm in. You can do that, because we do it all the time. We do it. I'm guilty. I've taken verses and I made them say exactly what I wanted them to say. I've done it. Exactly what I wanted them to say. I've done it, but context means that I can't change the meaning of that verse. I've got to look at what was said before. I've got to look at what was said after. I've got to look at everything to get the true meaning of that verse. Because, again, the Bible was written for you, but it wasn't written to you. They was not talking to you in 2024. They were talking to the people during that time.
Speaker 1:So, immediate context, historical context what time frame, what era, what year was this written in? What was going on? What culture were they living in? Can I tell you that the way we worship today and the way we think and speak today is not the same way they spoke in the first century. It's different. The words we use today is not, does not have the same meaning that they had in the first century. So when we understand something because of our culture, don't mean that's what it meant to the first century church. So that is what we're talking about, cultural I mean. When we're talking about the historical context, you have to look at the historical side of it. So I'm His biblical Biblical context. You have to look at the historical side of it. So I'm his biblical biblical context.
Speaker 1:I have to make sure that what I'm saying lines up with the whole. The Bible does not lie. I believe that the Bible does not contradict itself. Nowhere in the Bible will you see it contradicting itself. Nowhere in the Bible will you see it contradicting itself. And because I believe that, then I can't read something over here that contradicts something I read over here.
Speaker 1:If I do and I see a contradiction, I have to ask myself where am I missing this at? Because I believe the Word does not contradict. So therefore I must be reading it or misinterpreting what it's really saying. And I've told you that so many times. The verse I'm going to read you and we just read talks about the passing away of the heaven and the earth. Heaven and earth will pass away, we read. But then there's other verses that say the earth will never pass away, it will pass away. It will never pass away, it will pass away. It will never pass away Sounds like a contradiction to me. It's not, so I've got to think and say, okay, it's not contradicting itself. So therefore I must be reading something out of context. So you've got the historical context, the biblical context and what's the last one Anybody remember? Literal? Literal context Is the book that I'm reading, is the chapter in the Bible that I'm reading? Was it written as a poem? Was it written as a letter to the churches like the Corinthian church? Was it written as a letter to the churches like the Corinthian church? Was it written as a statement of encouragement? How was it written? Because that matters If it was written as a poem.
Speaker 1:A lot of times there's a lot of allegory in it. There's a lot of symbolism in it, and if we try to read a symbolic story as a literal story, it's just not going to make any sense. It's not. Revelation is known as apocalyptic. Apocalyptic is just a big word. That basically means that it's a lot of symbolism and a lot of allegory and a lot of different things. That's all it means. It means that there's not a lot of literal stuff in it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so if I try to take a book like Revelation and read it from a literal mindset through a literal lens. It's going to drive me crazy. I'll never understand it. And there's people today that are out there trying to study and research what Revelation is really talking about and people will tell you it's such a difficult book to read. It's really not if you read it in context. It's difficult because people's reading it out of context. That's going to make anything difficult to read. Okay, so I said that. To say again, context matters. So I want you to hear those two words, those phrases I use a minute and I want you to get that kind of put that in your mind.
Speaker 1:Finished work, futurist. Finished work, futurist. Because I told you a few weeks ago I battled when I started getting some different understanding of stuff. I really battled within myself Because I was like, how do I word this when somebody says what do you believe and what do you call you? I'm not talking about Baptist Methodist, that's denomination. I'm talking about the core belief of what I stand for. I didn't know. I was really confused. I knew what God was showing me, I knew that it was making sense to me and I knew that I could go back and I could prove it with Scripture, but I didn't know what it was called.
Speaker 1:And when we talk about the end the end of time, there are so many different theories out there and you can debate people. I don't like to. I don't debate people, I don't debate. If you don't agree with me, then guess what? We just don't agree. Okay, I'm not going to try to convince you that I'm right or try to convince you that you're wrong. We're just not going to agree. I'm not going to debate you. I will provide information to you if you want it. I will talk with you, but I'm not going to debate you on something, because belief systems are hard to change. What somebody has put in them that's a belief is very, very difficult to change. What somebody has put in them that's a belief is very, very difficult to change. We live in South Georgia. This is the Bible Belt. People grew up in church and most people go to the same church that their grandma and granddaddy went to, and you ain't going to break them away from that church and you ain't going to break the belief of what's being taught. It has been taught for 150, 200 years. You're just not going to break it.
Speaker 1:Listen to me, because I don't want it to sound like wrong, but a lot of things that's taught is not biblical. Why does people always go to the rapture? Because that's the easiest thing to prove that it's not even biblical. I can take you straight to the verse that people use for the rapture Caught up. It's not even what that caught up means. In there Don't mean anything about going into the sky. The word rapture was created. This is what I do ask people when they say that and they argue that point. Do you realize when the word rapture was actually even put in to the talking points of Christianity? It's only been like 200 years. 300 years Hadn't been around that long. Paul and Peter and John and Jesus they wasn't talking about rapture. That's why you never see it in there.
Speaker 1:And I'm just dumb enough to believe that what Jesus taught is right, what His disciples taught is right. So if they didn't teach it, I have to question if I'm going to teach it Now. Am I standing up here saying everything that's been taught is wrong? Absolutely not. I'm just saying I want to be in line with what Jesus taught. I want to be in line with what his disciples taught, and there's things that, if it just come around the last three to four hundred years. I can promise you Jesus wasn't talking about it. I can take you through every message Jesus ever taught in the Bible. You can go through and look at it. We got Google today. You ain't got to take the time to go through the flip the pages of your Bible. You can Google every word Jesus ever spoke and it'll break it down for you, tell you your time frame, tell you everything.
Speaker 1:And Jesus never talked about escaping earth and going to another place. He talked about heaven coming here. When we say the phrase and some people look at us like y'all are crazy when we say heaven here, heaven now, kingdom here, kingdom now, where does it come from? It comes from Jesus. Jesus says thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. He said I want you to operate that the way my daddy operates that. I want you to be a mirror image of the kingdom. I want it to be here. Why? Because you were created in the image and the likeness of Him. You are a representative of the kingdom of heaven. You are to bear witness to that place. But it's not when you die and go there. It's while you're there That'll mess people up.
Speaker 1:Everything I just said is straight Bible. You can look it up. But that, what I just said, will make people call me all kinds of names and I'm okay with that. Like I said, it don't bother me anymore and it's amazing to me. So I've just simply narrowed it down now to say let's just read the Bible in context, let's read the Bible for what it really is and quit trying to make it say something that it really don't say.
Speaker 1:So when you look at the different viewpoints futuristic and finished work I sat there last night while I was reading and studying, doing some of this yesterday, and said what's the easiest way to present this? Because I could stand up and present a finished work perspective, because that's what I believe and I could just put that out there and that's it. Y'all can go now. But I said that's not fair because then that looks like I'm just trying to push what I think onto you. I don't want to do that. I want to present two options. I want to present the finished work and the futurist and you make up your own mind. You decide, okay, but you've got to look at both of them from a biblical standpoint. You can't just decide because that's what granddaddy believed. You can, but that don't mean it's right.
Speaker 1:I can tell you now I mean there's people that I've come up under that were spiritual leaders that we don't teach the same thing. I'm not teaching what they were teaching. Does that mean I'm smarter than they were? Absolutely not. It means that we all go to different places, we get to different levels and my understanding changes. I'm not going to preach today what I preached a year ago, because hopefully we all grow in understanding and in revelation. If a preacher's still preaching the same thing he's been preaching for 20 years, something's wrong. There's got to be some understanding, some growth, some revelation. I don't want to still be preaching the same thing next year. I hope that I've grown a little bit. I pray I have so.
Speaker 1:Future is Revelation 21. I said we have so futurist Revelation 21. I said we're just going to look at one verse. If you go back to verse 1, ronnie, revelation 21, verse 1. This one right here is what really can stump people. Now I saw this is John talking Context? Who was speaking? It's the way I always work. Who was speaking? Who was he speaking to? What time period was he speaking? That's context. John was speaking right here.
Speaker 1:I saw a new heaven and a new earth. And just because Revelation is the last book in our written book, it was not the last book written. Do we understand that? Because, again, that's context, that's historical context. The book of Revelation was not the very last book ever written. It was not. You've got to understand the timelines of these. So now I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth gone. It's not here anymore, it passed away. Also, there was no more sea. We can stop right there. That's as far as I got. That's as far as I got. And I even started making an outline and I said you know, the next six weeks we're going to go Revelation 1, revelation 2, verse 1, verse 2, verse 3, verse 4, verse 5. And I'm going to break it down and I'm going to present. Now we may not do that, I may present more than one at a time, but I'm just saying there's so much information to gather in here to look at.
Speaker 1:Futurists interpret Revelation 21 and 1 as describing a literal future event. Literal future event, the physical renewal of the universe after the final judgment at the end of the world, at the end of time, in the last days. They see this as a moment when God creates a new physical reality for His redeemed people. Now, if you look at the literal new heaven and new earth that futurists believe in, that's the perspective that they see it, as the new heaven and the new earth are interpreted as literal recreation. God is going to recreate this whole thing again, this rock you're standing on. It ain't going to be the same rock anymore, it's going to be a new one, okay, okay. And this is going to follow the destruction of the current heavens and the current earth, earth, heaven. And I'm not trying to be funny when I'm saying it, I'm trying to make it make sense to myself as well, because it's challenging. It's challenging to me, okay. I know it's challenging to other people, but if you follow the timeline of what futurist perspective and futurist theology believes that it's going to come after the destruction, a current new heaven and a new earth.
Speaker 1:And they take that from 2 Peter 3, verse 10 through 13. That's where they pull that from. They take that verse. If you want to read that. I'm not going to go into every verse, but 2 Peter 3, verse 10 through 13,. That's the verse that's used. This marks the eternal state where God dwells with His people in a renewed creation. Everything's going to happen at the end of the world and then God's going to create everything new and we're going to live with Him in that new place. So if you take it at the end of the world to a futuristic perspective, what does it mean? First heaven and the first earth are seen as a current physical universe which will be destroyed and replaced by something entirely new.
Speaker 1:Now, if I'm saying something that don't align with what you have been taught or you don't agree, just jot it down. Don't yell out at me, but just jot it down and ask me a question about it. I really don't agree. Just jot it down. Don't yell out at me, but just jot it down and ask me a question about it. I mean, I really don't mind that. I love when people do that. I really do. Just jot it down and say, hey, this didn't sound right. Let me ask you about this. It talks about the last verse in it. Also, there was no more seed. If you take that literal, then it can only mean one thing you ain't going to be going to the beach. Why? Because there's no more sea. I'm saying that jokingly, but the sea is often taken literally, meaning that the new creation there will be no oceans, there will be no seas, there is no more sea.
Speaker 1:Do you understand the difference in taking something literal and taking something symbolically? There is a difference in it. Reading that from a literal standpoint, that don't make any sense to me. So that's the questioning side of me. The investigative side of me says that don't make any sense at all. Why did God create this? And he says I'm giving this to man and this is his creation, and then all of a sudden he's going to destroy it. That's me. That don't make sense to me.
Speaker 1:So it pushes me and it drives me to get in here and dig and study and look at context and look at the Greek and the Hebrew. Why? Because that's what it was written in and we've got to understand their language. You ain't got to be a Greek scholar. You ain't got to go back to college and take a class in Hebrew. We got internet today. I can look up any Greek word. I can look up any word in the Bible and get the Greek definition within 10 seconds or the Hebrew definition and understand what it means. It's easy to study the Bible.
Speaker 1:There is no excuse for reading the Bible out of context today, 30 years ago. That's why I said a while ago that I'm not saying those people that trained me coming up was wrong. They had one book that they could study out of. They had the Bible and then they had a concordance that was about that thick. That's all they had to study out of and it was frustrating. If you ever looked at a concordance, it's frustrating. So the understanding that they had was not the same as what we had. Because we got the internet, we can study and research something like that. There's no excuse. Can I say it like this? And it sounds bad when I say it like this, and I hope you understand Today, there's no excuse for ignorance. There's no excuse for ignorance. There's no excuse. Ignorance means not knowing. There's no excuse not to know today, none at all.
Speaker 1:So Revelation 21 and 1 if you look at the eternal fulfillment again futurist view it describes the ultimate fulfillment of God's promises to his people a perfect, a sinless and eternal dwelling place. That's awesome. However, this is viewed as occurring and eternal dwelling place. That's awesome. However, this is viewed as occurring after the millennial reign of Christ and after the final judgment. That's tribulation time. You got your millennial reign, you got all that stuff happening and then we'll have the ultimate fulfillment. That's why we call it futurist, because it's going to happen in the future. It's not already happening, it's going to happen in the future. Here's the finished work view 21 and 1. Right here now I saw the new heaven and the new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth, I passed away. This is seen as symbolic of the transition from the new heaven and the new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth, I passed away. This is seen as symbolic of the transition from the old covenant to the new covenant.
Speaker 1:We've talked about this often. If you've listened to me any at all, you know where I'm going with this. You know what I'm talking about. It says all through the Bible talks about the old covenant passing away and a new covenant being put into place. If you look at what happened with the temple and Jerusalem being destroyed in 70 AD, that was the old covenant being destroyed and the new covenant. Jesus stepped into place. He died on the cross. He went through everything he went through. He said it is finished. He sat down at the right hand of the Father and he said you have entered into a new covenant, but before that he said before you can enter into a new covenant, the old covenant must be made obsolete, it must be done away with. You can't have two covenants. That's why we say law and grace don't mix. Law was old covenant. It's not saying everything in the law was bad. There was a lot of really morally really good stuff in the law, but it was the law. That's why it says in the new covenant it's no longer written laws, it's written longer written laws. It's written on our hearts and in our minds. Old Covenant was an outside thing that tried to tell you to get better behavior, do this better. New Covenant says it's an inward thing. You're transformed from the inside and the outward changes because of the inward transformation. So we went from Old Covenant to New Covenant and it was fully realized after the destruction of the temple in AD 70.
Speaker 1:This perspective argues that the verse does not describe the literal end of the physical world, but rather a covenantal renewal. Old to new covenant, a new creation inaugurated by Christ. Jesus spoke and said told people. He said this will happen in this generation. You've got to remember he wasn't speaking to me when he said that, he was speaking to the people in the first century. He said this will happen in this generation. There was a 40-year gap that it happened in From the time that Jesus died on the cross in 30 AD to the time the temple was destroyed in 70 AD is 40 years. You know what a generation is 40 years? It didn't all happen immediately on the cross. It started on the cross. That's why it says that the new covenant was inaugurated when he went to the cross. It started. It finished when the temple fell down in 70 AD. He says it's done. New covenant is in place. Why? Because everything that was representative of the old covenant the temple, the sacrificial lambs and all that had to be taken, the animals that had to be sacrificed all of that all happened at the temple. You can't no longer make sacrifices when there's no longer a place to make sacrifices at. He done away, boom with the whole process and said now I'm entering into a new covenant.
Speaker 1:It's different Symbolism of the new heaven and the new earth. Looking at this verse, the new heaven and the new earth represents the new covenant order replacing the first heaven and the first earth. Looking at this verse, the new heaven and the new earth represents the new covenant order Replacing the first heaven and the first earth. He said it would pass away. This is what gets people, because a lot of people don't see this as passing away. So therefore, if the heaven and the earth has not passed away, then there can't be a new heaven and a new earth. Common sense. So for there to be a new one, the old one had to be gone.
Speaker 1:John saw it, but when we try to read it literal, then my mind says it's still here. Why? Because I'm standing on it. Well, that's not what it's talking about, and if we read it like that, then we're going to get Well, that's not what it's talking about, and if we read it like that, then we're going to get a misinterpretation of what he's saying. Again, I want to go back to the temple. If you talk about heaven and earth to us, what we think of is earth as this rock, heaven as the place God lives. That's our understanding in the 21st century as heaven and earth.
Speaker 1:If you talk to a 1st century Jew about heaven and earth, they're not going to talk about the rock and the place in the sky, they're going to talk about the temple, because to them that was what represented heaven and earth. You had the outer courts and if you study this out, remember I threw the map up here on the screen and I showed you the map and this is coming from. This is context. Now you might say, well, I don't want to agree with you, okay, fine, but I'm just reading it in context. If you ask a first century Jew what the outer court, the inner court and the holy of holies? That was the temple. There was a lot more. There was porches, but that was the basis of it. Outer court, inner court, holy of holies. Outer court was the sea. Inner court, inner court was earth. The holy of holies was heaven. The temple was destroyed. So therefore, heaven and earth, as they knew it, was passed away. That's context. Now, you may not agree with that literally, but we're not asking you to agree with it literally. We're saying context.
Speaker 1:Why do we have so many misinterpreted verses? Because we read them out of context. I joke about this, but I'm serious too. If we presented our theology, our futuristic escape, fly up into the sky theology to the disciples, they would have no idea what you're talking about and I can prove that to you Because they never talked about it. They never. I challenge you If you disagree with me, fine, disagree with me, go find it, go find it. They never talked about that.
Speaker 1:They talked about kingdom here, kingdom now, on earth, him coming, starting a new covenant living on the inside of us. He says that he will live in us. He leaves, holy Spirit comes back and he lives on the inside of us. That's why he says I'll never leave you, I'll never forsake you. If he's living on the inside of me, he can't forsake me. If he's living on the inside of me, he can't forsake me. If he's one with me and he's joined together with me, he can't forsake me Again.
Speaker 1:You can't take your sugar out of your tea. You better pour it out and make some more without sugar, because once you put that sugar in and it becomes one, it's sweet tea and you ain't taking it back out. When he comes into my life, when I ask him to be my Lord and Savior and I say I accept what you've done on the cross, I accept it, I know it's sufficient, I believe what you've done, I believe it's a finished work and I'm asking you to come and live in my life, he says he comes and he makes a habitation in me, not around me, not in this building, not in the building of the Baptist church or the building of the Methodist church. He makes it in me. I'm the house, every one of you. He resides on the inside of you and becomes one of you. He resides on the inside of you and becomes one with you. That's why people don't like it when they talk to me or talk to somebody else who has a finished work mentality.
Speaker 1:And this joker that's been doing good in the church, all of a sudden we find out he got strung out again. He fell, he backslid, as we like to say. And then they look and say oh, he was never a Christian to begin with I'm saying he's a man of God, that's a man of God. Pick yourself up, man of God. And they're like what are you doing? Why? Because Jesus ain't left him. He has not left him. His condition may be bad, but his condition will never change his position as a child of God. Why? Because either God is in me and he's residing in me or he lied to me. And if he lied to me, throw the whole Bible out. I'm not a man that I can lie. So we have to take this and take this and say what am I going to believe? That's why I believe that, no matter what situation somebody finds themselves in, if they know Christ and they have received Christ and what he's done, that's why we can pick ourselves back up when we fall. That's why I don't have to get saved every Sunday morning. There's no reason for that. Now I might come because it makes me feel better, but biblically it's not because God's sitting over here and I need to say a certain prayer to get Him to come back in. No, that's crazy, but we believe that kind of stuff. I'm getting off track.
Speaker 1:The new heaven and the new earth represents a new covenant In Isaiah 65,. We ain't going to go here, but just listen to these verses, just write them down. The new covenant In Isaiah 65,. We ain't going to go here, but just listen to these verses, just write them down if you want to Isaiah 65, 17 and Isaiah 66, 22. It mentions the new heaven and the new earth. Those two verses Old Testament mentions the new heaven and the new earth. Okay, they are seen as references to the covenant renewal. All it is is the old covenant promises and prophecies being played out in the New Testament the first heaven and the first earth symbolize the old covenant.
Speaker 1:The temple the destruction of the temple happened, the sacrificial system went away. I didn't got so far ahead of myself. I read my notes now I'm repeating myself. This has happened, it's already done. Okay, the sea remember that? Last verse, last part also there was no more sea, literally. I don't like that because I love the ocean. The last part Also there was no more sea, literally. I don't like that because I love the ocean. So I have to ask myself what does this really mean?
Speaker 1:The sea often symbolizes, if you look back into Greek and look up this word, it symbolizes chaos and separation. Chaos, separation. Its removal signifies the establishment of peace and unity. It means the new covenant has come in and done away with the chaos and the separation. You know, christians were separated from God in the old covenant. You could not go to God, you had to go to man and man went to God on your behalf, so you were separated from God. New covenant that was chaos, that was separation. And he said there will be no more sea, there will be no more separation, because now a new covenant is here that's done away with. I'm living on the inside of you, I'm one with you and I'm never again going to be separated from you. So it's done away. There's no more sea, there's no more chaos, there's no more separation. Reading that with the understanding of what that word actually means in the Greek makes a lot of sense to me, makes a whole lot of sense to me. Makes a whole lot of sense to me. So Revelation 21 and 1 is seen as the culmination of the church's redemptive work.
Speaker 1:Let me get to the end here. I want to finish this thing up. I'm going to try. So here's the question Futurist, finished work, work. Which one is correct? You ain't got to answer it. I'm just asking that rhetorical. Which one is correct? That's a question I think you should ask yourself. That will hopefully provoke you to get in there and find an answer. I can't give you. I can give you of what I think, but that don't mean nothing. What do you think? What is God showing you? What is the Bible telling you? What is the verses portraying to you? The interpretation is often going to depend on how we understand biblical prophecy, how we understand the nature of the kingdom of God, how we understand symbolic language. That all makes a difference. Finished work emphasizes covenant transition, old to new, and fulfillment and completion, while futurist emphasizes a literal and a physical fulfillment sometime in the future. But there are things that we can look at and I'm going to finish right here with these things. There's things that we can look at to help us decide. There's time indicators. What does that mean?
Speaker 1:The book of Revelation is framed by time statements. That emphasizes the immediacy of the event that it describes. What does it mean to have time indicators in these verses? Listen to this verse the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to Him. This is in Revelation 22 and 6,. It says which God gave to Him to show His servants. He gave it to Jesus Christ to show his servants. He gave it to Jesus Christ to show his servant. Time indicator that was not supposed to happen in 2024. Or 2025. He gave it to Jesus then to show his servants. It indicates a time of then. Right. Then is when it was supposed to happen. In Revelation 1 and 3, it says the time is near. There's no other way to put that.
Speaker 1:If Revelation 21 follows the rest of the way Revelation is written before it, it aligns with the events of the first century church, not the distant future. That's what you look at when you talk about time indicators, you've got to take all those books that was before it. Look at the time frame. You can't look at that time frame and say, oh, that's done, and then get to 21 and say, oh, that's future. No, it has to align. All of it has to line up. You can't pick and choose future path, future path. You can't do that. It has to be in context. So in Revelation 21, it has to follow the same context as the rest.
Speaker 1:A couple of things I want to show you right here, just to leave you here thinking today. Revelation A couple of things I want to show you right here, just to leave you here thinking today. Revelation 21 describes a new Jerusalem as a bride. We see it in this verse. Well, it's on down in verse 2, I think In the New Testament. Let's go to verse 2 real quick. I want you to see it. Then John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband.
Speaker 1:In the New Testament, if you study this out, the New Testament, the bride of Christ is consistently identified as the church, Consistently all the way through. I can't take that word. That is identified as the church all the way through the New Testament and then get to Revelation and say, oop, my bad. It means the same thing all the way through the New Testament it's the church. Ephesians 5.25 talks about it, 2 Corinthians talks about it. And the last verse I want to show you right here Hebrews 12, verse 22. I can't leave this out because this is what ties it together Verse 22 through 24. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly. Listen to this heavenly Jerusalem. Remember that city that's going to come down out of the sky at the end of time, after the thousand year. Reign that city To an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly in the church of the firstborn who were registered in heaven, and to God who judges all, to the spirits of just being made perfect. Last verse 24. To Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.
Speaker 1:Although the writer of Hebrews is unknown, we really don't. They debated that for years. They don't really know who the writer, who is unknown. They debated that for years. They don't really know who the writer, who the author of Hebrews is, it don't matter. We don't really have to know who the author is. We know who the audience was. Okay, the audience was Jewish Christians that were facing persecution under Nero during that time. So we have a historical context. Now I just read the verse.
Speaker 1:Go back to 22, just a minute. I want you to see one thing in there, in that verse 22, but you have come. He's talking to the people in the first century and he's not saying one day, sometime in the future. He's saying you have come, you're already there. He's saying this to the first century. You have come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. This verse speaks of believers already having come to the heavenly Jerusalem. I'm just showing you this to mess with you a little bit. Get you thinking as you leave here.
Speaker 1:This is indicating that the new Jerusalem was a present reality for Christians in the first century, not the 21st. The first century. It was a present reality. Mount Zion, if you study it out, is symbolic of God's dwelling place with His covenant people. That's what it means. Study that out. In the New Covenant, mount Zion represents again, church and the believers, a physical gathering place for God's people. So when you think about this.
Speaker 1:The phrase you have come in, verse 22, indicates a present reality for first century believers. Through Christ, they have already entered into Mount Zion where God's presence dwells. The heavenly Jerusalem is not a literal city in the sky. In context, the heavenly Jerusalem is not some literal city in the sky. It represents the new covenant reality where God dwells with His people. It says it in Revelation 21 and 3. He says I dwell with His people.
Speaker 1:This also fulfills the Old Testament promises In Isaiah 65 and 17,. In Ezekiel 37 and 27,. When he says I will dwell with my people. All of those promises, right there they come to pass. Let me skip some of this. I got to get to the end here. Last thing, last thing. So which is more accurate if we look at that's the question I ask now. I don't ask who was right or wrong, I ask what is more biblically, contextually accurate?
Speaker 1:The finished work view maintains consistency with first century context. Accurate the finished work view maintains consistency with first century context. It aligns with biblical language. It emphasizes the completed work of Christ on the cross, the death, the burial, the resurrection, the being seated at the right hand of the Father. It presents a reality of the kingdom here, kingdom now.
Speaker 1:The futurist view places the fulfillment of Revelation 21 entirely in the future, which conflicts with New Testament teaching. That's where I find problems at when it conflicts with other biblical teachings, I have to look at it and say where's the issue. For instance, jesus declared the kingdom of God had already come in Luke 17 and in Mark 1. That is Jesus' words. He said the kingdom has come. Jesus spoke that Believers are described as already part of the heavenly Jerusalem in Hebrew 12. I just read it. Paul speaks of believers as new creations. You are a new creation.
Speaker 1:Would everybody agree that the Bible says that If these verses are already accessible to me right now as a Christian, right now as a believer, then postponing them to the future diminishes the finished work of Christ and the present reality of the new covenant? It's either happened or it happened. I don't care what view you have on that. You can be somebody that says I'm still waiting on all of this to happen one day Great. But can you show me biblically, can the evidence of your belief system be proven with the Bible, or is it just something you believe? That's my question. So that's why I say there's no right or wrong. I'm not going to look at somebody who believes different than me and say you're wrong. I'm not saying that. But I will say can you back up and support your stance with the Bible? And if you can't, then I would encourage you to study it out, because there's a lot of things that I thought I had right and I would have swore to you I would have debated you, we'd have fought over it, because I was right. And now I know I wasn't.
Speaker 1:I was reading the Bible out of context. I was making the Bible mean what I wanted it to mean and we do that every day in the church. Every day we do that. I'm just at a point now I'm saying let's quit that. Let's just read it and take it for what it says, and if it offends somebody, so be it. Don't get mad at me, get mad at God, because it's His Word. Jesus Christ is the Word. He's the Word. I hate to say this because people get so they take this the wrong way and they get so mad. The Bible is a book. It was inspired by God, but the Bible is a book. It was inspired by God, but the Bible is a book 66 books. Jesus is the Word.
Speaker 1:If I can't allow the Word to help me understand the written Word, then I'm going to keep misinterpreting. Be open-minded, be willing to be challenged, be okay with it. When I try to find people to listen to, now I try to find people that challenge what I think, because I want it to push me to say, oh, that don't make sense. Why? Because it's going to make me go in there and dig. You have to be willing to be a disciple, not just a believer. If your goal is only to get to heaven, then if you're born again you're going to get there. But if you truly want to be a disciple, a disciple means a learned one, discipline. You've got to study. You've got to study. You've got to read in context. You've got to really get in there.
Speaker 1:Listen, I'm not a full-time pastor. I work a 40-hour job too. It'd be easy if I was a full-time pastor and it'd be easy to say, oh well, you've got time all day to do that. No, I work the same job. You work, but with the internet today, there is no excuse for ignorance. There's no excuse to not know. If I want to know something, all I've got to do is type it in and man, it spits information out and then I take it and I study it, I go with it. So much information that's why I could not go past the first verse. There was so much and I didn't even finish it. I literally just preached half a sermon because I could not finish it. There's so much information in there One verse.
Speaker 1:So I challenge you, dig in, be willing to ask the questions to yourself and what you'll discover is it's not going to cause confusion. Some people say well, I don't want to ask questions, I don't question the Word of God. I don't question God, I question context. I know the Word's real. I know the Word's true. So if it's not lining up with what I'm believing, I don't question's real. I know the Word's true, so if it's not lining up with what I'm believing, I don't question the Word, I question my interpretation of it and in my reading and context, that's what I question. So don't take that the wrong way. As he's telling you to question God, I'm telling you to question yourself. We should all do that Because, as much as we like to believe it, sometimes we're not perfect.
Speaker 1:You don't have it all together. You ain't going to glow in the dark if we cut these lights out and have that little halo over your head. We all make mistakes. We get stuff wrong. I promise you I'm probably going to go back and read these notes next week and say, man, I wish I wouldn't have said that, because something else is going to come up and I'm going to learn something new. That's what the Bible is all about. You're never going to perfect it. You're never going to be perfect. We're perfect in Christ. But can you get your own ideas out, get that old religion out, get that old tradition out and allow the Holy Spirit to teach?