Introduction to Biblical Prophecy and its Interpretation

Now good evening, it's a great pleasure to be here and I must first say that the Saints of my home assembly back in Forest in the north of Scotland, they have asked me to convey their greetings to you all. They don't know you, you don't know them, but we're one in Christ and they're praying for a good conference for us this weekend. The town I live in is actually on the same latitude as Fort McMurray in Canada, but thankfully we don't get Fort McMurray weather.

We get the Gulf Stream, changes our weather completely, so it's a very pleasant place to live and the Saints send their greetings to you. So we're going to read two verses please to introduce our subject this evening and I would salute the wisdom of our brethren who put the schedule together for this weekend that we have this meeting tonight to seek to bring clarity where there might perhaps be confusion as to some of the expressions, some of the names given to prophetic things. We want to start really from a good launch pad when we get into the scriptures tomorrow.

So let's read first please in the book of the Revelation and in chapter 19, Revelation chapter 19 an angel is addressing John who recorded this wonderful book and John says in verse 10 of Revelation 19, I fell at his feet to worship him and he said unto me see thou do it not I am thy fellow servant and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Just concentrate please your mind and seek to remember that last expression in the verse.

The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Now back in your Bible to 2nd Peter chapter 3. 2nd letter of Peter and chapter 3 and in the main part of the chapter Peter describes how at the end of time this world in which we live and all to do with the created universe is going to be dissolved, it's going to be purged by fire in preparation for the day of God which is an expression for the eternal state when time is finished and then he says in verse 11 of 2 Peter 3, seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved. What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation, all holy behavior and godliness looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God wherein or because of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved.

The element shall melt with fervent heat nevertheless we according to his promise look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore beloved seeing that ye look for such things be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace without spot and blameless. Now we trust God will bless this and any other readings we have of his good word as we think this evening then about really how we've got to approach this whole subject of prophecy and the prophetic scriptures and the reason I've read these two verses is to see that we first of all understand that the purpose of a studying prophecy is not so that we can have a good argument and it's not so that we can just know more.

The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. In other words the prophetic scriptures are given to us by the spirit of God who inspired this great book. They're given to us so that we might more rightly understand God's purpose and God's thoughts concerning his beloved son.

If we miss Christ in these studies this weekend we've missed the point. It's so important that we see that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Remember this book from which we've read the book of the revelation.

It's not the revelation of a divine program. It's a revelation of a divine person. It's the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The unveiling, the apocalypsis of Jesus Christ. So we keep the Lord before us. Now dear brothers and sisters I don't know what your spiritual horizon is.

For many Christians it's enough for them to know that by the grace of God their sins are forgiven they're going home to heaven and when you mention the prophetic scriptures there's almost a fear of them. Oh well it's all too difficult. I'm just an ordinary person.

I can't understand all that stuff. There's so much disagreement and we just won't go there. But you know if that is your spiritual horizon it's a very selfish one.

I'm saved I'm going to heaven. Surely, surely you want to know how God intends to vindicate his beloved son here in here in the world. We've been hearing in thanksgiving tonight that the last this world saw of him was he was hanging scarcely recognizable as a man in the utmost agony, public shame.

And here in this world that has crucified Christ God is going to exalt him. Now that should lift your heart immediately shouldn't it? That that that we would want to know well what the circumstances how is God going to arrange this? How is it all going to come together? You say well yes that would be nice brother but it's all this it's just such a difficult subject isn't it? Well listen it needn't be. But before we get into it let's just think we've said that the spirit of prophecy the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

So we mustn't miss Christ in it all. But then when we read in 2 Peter 3 it's very clear that Peter the man of action as he is speaking about these things he's speaking about tremendous things the end of time the end of the world and uh then when he's spoken about all that he says now seeing them that all these things are going to be dissolved what manner of persons ought you to be? So it's very clear that that God intends that a knowledge of the prophetic program a knowledge of future events is designed to have a profound moral effect upon the people of God for today. That what the future holds should adjust my life now.

So whether it's individually or in the family or in the assembly our thoughts our thinking our manner of life is founded on what is past that is the scriptures inspired the word of God recorded for us by men in the past and then based on that doctrine we should be living also in the light of what's to come. So I think if we can keep these two things in mind it will preserve us from just having a fleshly knowledge of facts about things to come that tends well as the scripture says knowledge without love knowledge is by itself only puffs up. So let's try and keep those things in mind shall we that uh the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus we mustn't miss that and also that the prophetic scriptures are intended to have a something of the program of divine judgment that this world is rapidly heading for.

If that doesn't give us a greater thirst for souls if that doesn't give us a deeper urgency in our personal and collective witness then there's something wrong. So let's not let this not be an academic exercise but let's make it also a matter of prayer that God through these prophetic scriptures will touch our hearts and move us to a deeper desire to have a greater love for Christ and a greater desire to live as those who know what it is to be saved not just not just that we are saved for eternity from the penalty and the power of sin but but also that we might have deeper appreciation of what it is to be saved away from the wrath that is to come. So how do we approach these scriptures because they are to many a minefield and the way in which we approach them is so so important.

Now where many have perished I speak metaphorically but where many have perished on this rock is that they they look at the thing in isolation. It's as though they want to be an expert in prophetic things so all the good words come out they speak about well I don't even know half of them all these posh kind of words that describe the theology of it all. They want to be an expert in future events.

You can get books on it but the thing is if you divorce these prophetic scriptures from the other scriptures you will always have a twisted view of them. I'll give you an example. We'll talk in a moment about the four principal events that are going to come up over this weekend but if you take for example those who say well the Lord is going to come and call the church home but he's going to do it in stages.

They would be called partial rapturists so in other words depending on whether you've been watching and waiting for the Lord well you'll be taken and then a little while later some others will be taken and dribs and drabs like this going home to heaven. Now the problem isn't a prophetic one. Their problem is they don't understand what the church is.

The church is the body of Christ. How can it do anything other than go to be with Christ in one? So their problem is not so much the interpretation of prophetic prophetic things. You trace the problem back to a misunderstanding of what the church actually is and what we're going to show you tonight God willing is that the only way in which these scriptures can be rightly approached and understood is if we take what we call the dispensational approach and I'll explain that.

Where particularly and this is most important particularly we see that God has a particular program running for the gentile nations. He has another program running for the nation of Israel and he has another program running for the church. You'll read of those three entities in the next but last verse of first Corinthians 10 giving none offense neither to the Jew nor to the gentile nor to the church of God.

Keep that in mind as far as the world is concerned in relation to salvation we fall into one of two groups. We're either saved or we're lost. But when it comes to the unfolding of divine purpose and particularly as far as the kingdom of God is concerned and the unfolding of future events the world is in three categories the Jew the gentile and the church of God.

We must keep those things in mind. So let's just think about the four main events. There's lots of things associated with them but the four main events we'll be concentrating on I suspect will be first of all the rapture what we call the rapture.

Now we use these terms and often don't explain them. It's good to see youngsters here and we tend to forget the youngsters are growing all the time. There's always new generations coming on and the expressions that we use as more mature believers we sometimes forget to explain them to those who are coming up.

I've used dispensation that's one of them and now we're thinking of the rapture. Now it comes from a Latin word. The thought really is of being snatched away of being caught away.

There's a suddenness about it a catching away some people can be enraptured when they hear a particular piece of music and it's a thought of just being transported into a different kind of mental environment or soul environment. So the thought of the rapture is the snatching away it is the it is the teaching that the church the body of Christ the spiritual body of Christ every Christian say from Pentecost until the Lord comes to the air that complete company whether dead or alive is going to be taken home to heaven. I think this audience is very much aware of that teaching but not all agree with it not all understand it not all accept it.

But there's the first thing the rapture then as far as we're concerned in terms of time the next thing will be the tribulation period a seven year period divided equally into two the whole period the tribulation period but the second half according to Jeremiah chapter 30 is is the time of Jacob's trouble it is the great tribulation a huge amount of different opinions and thoughts. We're not going to go into all of them we're going to follow the advice I was given as a younger man you will have heard it I'm sure was that the the bank teller isn't taught how to recognize every forgery but the bank teller is schooled in just exactly what the true thing is like. If we know the true thing well enough we will always spot the forgery.

So we won't take too much time going into all the erroneous doctrines we'd rather spend the time teaching the truth. But if we know the true thing we'll understand where the other thing has gone wrong. But anyway we'll have to think about that the tribulation period.

There are those who say well it's already passed. There's those who say we're in it. There's those who say it's still future.

Then the tribulation period as far as the Bible is concerned that that tribulation period is terminated by the coming out from heaven of the Lord Jesus in power and great glory to return to the earth not to the air where he comes for the rapture but to the earth and he's going to come to establish and inaugurate a thousand year literal kingdom upon earth. Now that's what we believe the Bible teaches. But let's just think about some of the problems of those who see things otherwise.

Probably the most common thing you'll come across and it's rife. Be very careful when you're watching otherwise attractive YouTube clips and people who profess to be kind of future event gurus. Make sure you're well established in your Bibles first.

In fact if you're watching stuff like that make sure you run it by your overseers so that they can check and see for you whether or not what you're watching is a good thing. And a lot of the books that are out at the moment are incorrect and a lot of them now are what we would call a millennial. Now millennial millennium thousand years.

In a Greek language if you put the little letter A the alpha letter if you put that in front of a word you make it negative. So millennial a millennial means no millennium. And there are many who feel particularly if they're in the what we would call the established church.

Like back home we have the Church of England Church of Scotland all this kind of thing. And reformed theology as it's known is a millennial. It doesn't accept that there's going to be a literal 1000 year period of rule on earth of the Lord Jesus.

We will need to examine our Bibles and see if there is. And I'm delighted to see my dear brother Mr. Higgins here. It's nice to see you again.

And I think it's in our brother's Bible reading that we're going to be looking at Revelation 20. And six times over in that chapter we are told specifically about 1000 years. 1000 years.

So that then begs the question well when we read a term like that do we take it literally? What is our approach? This is where most division comes in. Do we take literally what the Bible says? Or as a lot of people do do they the word really is allegorize. They say that it just means something else.

It's a biblical narrative but it doesn't really mean what it says. It actually means something else. And this is what it means.

And so you take six people who've got that view and you'll get eight different opinions. Because as soon as you start to allegorize the Bible you can make it mean what you want. You can say no it doesn't mean that at all.

No it means something else. And these allegories get more and more fanciful more and more twisted. So how do we as Christians look at our Bibles? We should look at them as being literally what God intended us to understand.

We accept we've got a translation and we accept also that there are many parts of scripture which are symbolic. But for example when we come to this book of the revelation we will find that there isn't one symbol that is used that is not explained. It's either explained in the context in which we read of it or it has already been used as a symbol somewhere else in our Bibles.

It's a fascinating thing that so many Christians perhaps newly saved or newly interested in their Bibles they want to get to grips with revelation. But it's the last book in our Bible for a reason. And if you read the other books you will find that there isn't a symbol in the book of revelation that isn't used somewhere else in your Bible already.

So along with the principle of literal interpretation, understanding that there are certain things which are symbols we also learn that the book of revelation doesn't stand by itself. It is in harmony with the rest of the Bible. And everything to do with the prophetic scriptures must be in harmony with everything else that the Bible teaches.

So if for example the person who says well okay I believe in a rapture but it's mid-tribulation and it's about the fact that those who are taken they're watching they're waiting it's about our own effort then what they're doing is they're confounding what is really a work of grace with something to do with works. They don't understand the rest of their Bible. They're just looking at the thing in isolation.

Okay so it's literal interpretation. It's recognizing that all these things have to be and will be if rightly understood they will be in absolute harmony with everything else that the Bible teaches. So we've thought there's going to be a rapture there's going to be a tribulation period there's the second advent into the world of the Lord Jesus coming in power and great glory followed by a literal 1,000 year reign followed by the closing up of the events of time and then the day of God the eternal state.

We have terms like pre-trib, rapture, mid-trib, post-trib, I don't know there's a plethora of these kind of terms. I don't particularly like them I think it devalues the Word of God when we use expressions like that but we understand where people are coming from. So how do we decide when it seems qualified students of the Word of God come out with all these different opinions? Well chiefly we come back to this view that unless we distinguish carefully between God's purpose for the church, God's purpose for the Jew, and God's purpose for the nations of men the Gentiles we're going to come unstuck.

That leads us on then to what is generally known as dispensational teaching. Again a lot of the modern and well-funded evangelical websites will rubbish this view today. Oh dispensationalism how quaint.

Well what does it actually mean? Well let me just turn you to a verse please. Ephesians chapter 1 and in verse 9 of Ephesians chapter 1 Paul says that God has made known unto us the mystery of his will. Mystery meaning something previously hidden now revealed.

So something which God deliberately kept hidden in former days says Paul he's now made clear the mystery of his will. Something about his will which wasn't known in previous days. And he's made known unto us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself this is all of God that verse 10 in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are on earth even in him in the dispensation of the fullness of times.

Now really what Paul is saying here is that God has these different strands of his purpose working broadly one to do with the gentile one to do with the jew one to do with the church and there is a future age it's called a dispensation for reasons we'll explain in a moment there is a future age in which he's going to bring all these three things together and when all these three strands are brought together it is with the purpose well a twofold purpose really one is to magnify Christ and set him in his rightful place and the other according to Ephesians chapter one is all going to be for the praise of God's glory. So God is working toward a goal he's working toward the fullness of the times the various successions of times and ages that God has set in train and when they are full that is not just that they've elapsed but where the purpose of them has been met as well that when all these things have are brought together we've got this glorious millennial age a dispensation the word in the Greek language is made up of two words and it might not help us immediately when we understand what they mean but one of them really means comes from a root meaning the law the rule and the other is house the rule of the house the running of the house that's the idea behind the word dispensation now let's think of it practically if the Lord spares my wife Rachel and myself until this time next year we will have been scary thought 50 years married so I hope they strike a medal for her so we look back over 50 years nearly of marriage and when we were first married we lived out in a little house out in the country we could just say more or less any time of the day or night whatever just let's go for a walk let's do this let's do that it was just so easy there was just the two of us we haven't got two pennies to rub together but that didn't seem to matter yeah at least you haven't got to decide what to spend it on and so you could do this you could do that very free form of life then one day in I don't know when it was 1975 I suppose something like this my wife said to me as I came home from work she said oh I was at the doctor's today oh yeah what's the problem she's not a problem she's going to have a baby oh great stuff so we were like those naive young couples who said when this little baby comes along little six or seven pound scrap it's not going to change the way we live you know it'll just fit in with us if there's anyone here like that dream on because suddenly we were presented with this little six pound scrap and boy did it change things well that was our daughter Sarah was born and suddenly there was no room in the car for anything it was full of pram and cases and bags and you couldn't just go out it was like a mammoth logistics thing you know just to get everything ready and then you just be ready to go and oh hang on a minute just got to change the baby and all this kind of stuff I see the mums understand it all what's happened what's happened well we were the same people but now to use the word properly there's been a crisis that is there's been a dramatic event has intruded and suddenly the law of the house has changed same home same people but now because of the arrival of the little one the the arrangements the working of the house has to change we've moved from one dispensation into another and then it wasn't well we did move house in that time and then maybe three years later or so her brother came along similar kind of idea then as the kids start school and as they then go from junior school to high school and all this kind there's this constant evolution within the home and dispensations blend one into the other you might be fortunate enough to get a brief spell where your children are grown up they leave home then you might just get a brief spell to yourself before the grandkids arrive I don't think we had that but anyway maybe so now when I'm home it's great the grandkids come they do everything our oldest granddaughter is just coming up 21 and we've got five other grandkids from I don't know 15 or 16 down to seven or something like that and his lordship can sit back and whichever grandchild comes through coffee will be lovely thank you and I'm not quite you know I've passed the stage now where granddad knows everything and can do everything that's gone now we're at the stage where granddad knows nothing and can do nothing they're great these these these are the part of the whole cycle of life my point is is not to be flippant though my point is just to show you that the same people are involved but the running of the house now very different from the running of the house nearly 50 years ago the law of the house the oikonomos the dispensations so you see as God unfolds his purpose over time it's not so much that you measure these things by dates on a calendar this is the start of that dispensation this is the end of that one but it's rather the the moving the blending of one into another as God unfolds his purpose through the course of time he doesn't do it all at once it's a progressive revelation we've seen that from Ephesians chapter 1 the mystery of his will wasn't made known in the old testament days but it has been in the new testament days so when we're thinking of dispensationalism what we're saying is it's an approach to our bibles where we recognize that God has one purpose but he has many strands to it and the broadest of those strands is that he has a purpose for the jew a purpose for the gentile and a purpose for the church in fact that's the way your bible's constructed your bible divides it almost into three like that the bible as we sit here tonight is for round figures 6 000 years old it covers a 6 000 year period so far the old testament is covers 4 000 years the new testament so far for round figures 2 000 years and in your old testament 4 000 years the first half of it is all in genesis 1 to 11 so when you come to the call of Abraham at the end of chapter 11 and from Abraham of course God is going to bring forth a nation he's going to bring forth the Hebrew nation when you come to the call of Abraham at the end of genesis chapter 11 on the timeline of human history you're nearer to calvary than you are to the garden of eden God has taken 2 000 years of old testament history he's compacted them into 11 chapters of our bible that's his dealings with mankind in general which under judgment became the nations of the earth in genesis chapter 10 in other words God's dealing with a gentile from chapter 12 at the close of chapter 11 of genesis right the way through to I would suggest acts chapter 7 another 2 000 years and this time God's dealing with the nation of Israel how it came about how it began how he fulfilled his promise to the nation he sent them their messiah having sent the messiah who demonstrated particularly in Matthew's account the Matthew's gospel he demonstrated through his teaching he demonstrated through his miracles that he was indeed the messiah of the old testament and instead of the response of the nation being the response of Nathanael in John chapter 1 rabbi thou art the the son of God thou art the the the king of Israel you're the messiah instead of that being their response they took him and they crucified him and even though they had crucified the lord of life and glory we have these intriguing chapters at the beginning of the book of the acts where Peter is preaching to the nation ye men of Israel and he's preaching to them that if they would genuinely repent of the crucifixion of Christ that the times of refreshing an expression about the millennium the times of refreshing would come in up until that point the church was still in mystery the church is not the subject of prophecy there was nothing in old testament scripture that would have prevented it's hypothetical but there is nothing in old testament scripture that would have prevented the millennium commencing in acts chapter two or three if the nation had genuinely repented of crucifying Christ but they rejected Peter's preaching finally when Stephen in acts chapter seven stood before the nation and recounted their history from the very beginning the god of the glory appeared unto our father Abraham in Mesopotamia he took them right the way through their history which of the prophets have you not stoned he said well they stoned him to death God said that's enough and from that point onwards and here's again a very important thing to understand God did not then shut down his program for Israel so much in the so-called evangelical world teaches so many strands of it teach that God has rejected Israel now and he's transferred all the promises he made to them to the church now that's wrong it's 100 wrong all the promises God made in his covenant to Abraham repeated oftentimes all those promises that he made unconditionally in the old testament he will fulfill we have a God who cannot lie that means that though Israel has been set aside for the time being there must be a future for the nation because promises God made to them haven't yet been fulfilled therefore they must be going to be fulfilled in a future day and so much of the divergence in understanding prophetic truth comes from the failure to recognize that God does have a literal and definite future for Israel in mind that means that from setting them aside to taking up his dealings with them again between the two lies the church age in which we are living so through the dispensations of time through the ordering of the house God has moved from his dealings with the Gentile specifically now to dealing with the Jew those 2,000 years it was all kinds of great dynasties you think of the Chinese dynasties you think of the great civilizations that they've been in other parts of the world into over that 2,000 year period the bible doesn't mention them it only mentions the Gentile powers like Assyria and Babylon and it only mentions them because they had a bearing on Israel's well-being so the bible is not just a history book about how the nations of the earth developed all the time God's eye is on that nation through that 2,000 year period and as other nations are brought to bear upon it so they're mentioned but Israel's in view now the prophetic scriptures have Israel and the Gentile nations in view the church was not prophesied about there's no direct prophecy concerning the church in the old testament scriptures the church was in mystery especially the truth of Jew and Gentile being blessed together formed into one body on equal ground Ephesians chapter 3 these things weren't known but there's other things that were known so it was known for example in the old testament that that the lord would establish a kingdom here upon earth but wonderfully wonderfully the period of time between his first advent when he came to Bethlehem and his second advent still future when he comes to establish his kingdom the gap between them wasn't known about think about a godly man like Isaiah and Isaiah's a scratching away with a quill or whatever he used to write and so he's writing about the coming of the lord Jesus and he records the fact that well let's turn to it and just see I'll show you one or two things like it in the in the letter of eyes in the book of Isaiah turn to Isaiah in chapter nine please some of you have had long journeys and it's warm in the hall you get a little bit knotty don't you so that's when we turn to the particular references and look at this very familiar verse verse six of Isaiah nine and you just imagine that dear man of God writing this now he's writing writing by well what he's writing is inspired by the spirit of God here he is for unto us a child is born unto us a son is given for Isaiah writing 700 and something BC it's prophetic isn't it he's looking way down the line seven centuries unto us a child is born unto us a son is given that's the first advent of the lord Jesus isn't it that's Bethlehem and the government shall be upon his shoulder that's his second advent that's when he comes to the earth to establish his kingdom and Isaiah's quill hasn't paused he has moved effortlessly from the first coming of Christ to the second coming of Christ and he doesn't realize there's a gap there there's a very similar thing in chapter 11 verse one there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse prophecy concerning the first advent of Christ and a branch shall grow out of his roots is about the second advent of Christ and you know of course from Luke chapter 4 that there was a day when the Lord Jesus stood up in the synagogue in Nazareth and he read the scriptures and Isaiah 61 was the portion for the day and he goes down through Isaiah 61 the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor and so on and he goes down and you know that at least as far as our translation is concerned he stopped right in the middle of the to preach the acceptable year of the Lord and the Lord stopped there and he closed the book and gave it again to the minister sat down and so on because the Lord Jesus knew what his audience didn't know the Lord Jesus knew that he had come to preach the acceptable year of the Lord and that the day of the vengeance of our God is still future this may be 10 or a dozen such instances in in Isaiah's prophecy where he goes from the first advent of Christ to the second advent of Christ and the dear man knows nothing about it at all he doesn't know it now fast forward and come to those disciples who are sitting with the Lord Jesus that they're spending three years of their life walking with the Savior they don't know it either just because the gospels are in the New Testament part of your Bible don't read the church into it all when the Lord Jesus was here was still on Old Testament ground remember when it comes to the two uh to the difference we'll be dealing with it tomorrow morning God willing but the difference between the rapture when he comes to the air and the second advent of Christ when he comes to reign is that the second advent of Christ is foretold through many of the Old Testament scriptures but the rapture isn't the rapture was one of those mysteries still to be revealed so you see that will give us some food for thought when we come to John 14 tomorrow won't it in my father's house and many mansions I go to prepare a place for you if I go away I will come again what was the Lord talking about was it the rapture if so they knew nothing about it was it the second advent or was he preparing them for truth that was still to come well that's tomorrow morning separate part of it so you see we have to read our Bibles carefully we have to keep in mind the dispensational changes we have to keep in mind all the time who's being addressed is it the Jew is it the Gentile is it the church of God if you just dip into your Bible and say for example in Matthew 24 well there's two in the field the one is taken on the other left there's two grinding at the the one is taken and the other well that must be the rapture well it's not it's got to be read in its context so where does that leave us we'll be finishing in a few minutes where does that leave us the fear if that's the word the phobia about prophecy often comes because saints are aware that there is a huge variety of opinion about the whole thing how do we rightly approach it how can we be sure we're on the right track well we must take first of all that dispensational view of scripture the Jew the Gentile the church of God we must also take that literal approach the Bible means what it says unless as we read it it is evident that something is being symbolized in which case we look for the truth that lies behind the symbol and then we have to recognize that not only will all the events harmonize if we've got a right view of them but they will harmonize with other subjects of scripture so for example some who are have got a wrong idea about the thing they will take the word saint I've just used it don't take the word saint and they will equate the word saint with the church saint equals church saints church one of the same thing will there be saints in the tribulation period yes they can find a that says that therefore in their thinking if the saints can be found in the tribulation period the church can be found in the tribulation period we're going to go through the tribulation you see the thinking and the error lies in the fact that they think every reference to a saint is a reference to a Christian who's a member of the body of Christ well it's not saint means a sanctified person someone set apart a holy one so the royal testament saints who are not members of the church because the church wasn't in existence and when the church has been taken home to heaven and the gospel of the kingdom is preached again in the tribulation period there will be saints in that age but they're not members of the church you might be thinking brother you stood up there to say you're going to clarify stuff I feel more confused than I did at the beginning I hope you don't or at least if there's a kind of a world going on in your mind about all these kind of things cling cling to these principles of interpretation the bible will almost always clarify itself anyway if you read it carefully and in context don't forget I'm not being flippant now but I want to make the point don't forget that you have direct access to the author of this book if you're confused about something this book says pray it's not being given to us as some coded work that we've got to diligently try and find the secret to unlock it is the word of god given to us for our spiritual food it's god's revelation to us of his mind and his will he's told us what he wants us to know if we're not understanding it pray over it don't don't immediately go and see what that writer says don't see what that youtube preacher says pray over your bible okay so now you approach the subject saying well I'm conscious a big fella kept on about it there's a purpose for the jew there's one for the gentile there's one for the church of god who's being spoken about here in what dispensation are these things being said so for example when you come to acts chapter one and peter falls into step alongside the lord as they go out to bethany and he says to him probably on behalf of the other disciples as well they said to him lord will thou at this time restore the kingdom to israel you see we were desperately worried lord i mean for two or three years we've given up everything to follow you and there's all this talk about a kingdom and we knew the old testament scriptures and on the one hand we were thinking about a kingdom and glory and thrones and why in in matthew 19 you said that in the regeneration we 12 disciples will be sitting 12 apostles sitting on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of israel and instead we finished up fleeing while men crucified you and we felt everything had gone lord when they buried you didn't believe them when they told us that you were risen from the dead but lord you are risen this is wonderful you were dead and now you're living well lord is this it is this the time when you're going to restore the kingdom to israel they still knew nothing about the church so when the lord said well not he said but as he blessed them and and as he rose up bodily into the glory and an angel said you men of israel why stand you gazing up into heaven this same jesus shall so come in like manner even if even as you've seen him go so the coming of the lord jesus in that reference is clearly not the rapture they didn't know about the rapture and the rapture belongs to the church and it belongs to the revelation of the church so they're still on that old testament ground they're still waiting for the kingdom to come and lord if the lord's gone away what did he tell us in john 14 if i go away i will come again they're expecting him to come again to establish his kingdom so as we read our bibles over this weekend god willing and we trust god will give help to the brethren responsible for leading these studies as you are reading and as the lord gives us help to explain we will want to see these great distinctions because most of the errors whether it is a mid-tribulation rapture a post-tribulation rapture a millennial this or a post-millennial that we don't need to go into all those particular errors what we need to do is understand why what we believe is biblically based and how it does harmonize all these great scriptures and and let's not forget let's not forget finally the scriptures that we read at the beginning that the testimony of jesus is the spirit of prophecy we want to learn how god intends to glorify and vindicate christ and what will our relationship be with christ how will we be with him remember for example paul's question to the corinthians in first corinthians chapter six first generation christians just a little while before they were either jews in a synagogue or gentiles in a pagan temple and now they're part of the church of god in corinth and he says to them do you not know that the saints are going to judge the world do you not know that we shall judge angels he expects first generation christians to know that kind of thing so we should know it as well one day how it is that we the church with christ are going to administer the earth how it is that one day we're going to administer the angelic realm what will israel be doing what will the gentile nations of the earth be doing all these things brothers and sisters lie before us don't be scared of it embrace it enjoy it none of us has got all the answers what we do have is what god wants us to know about it and we trust together we'll explore it and enjoy it may god bless his word let's close in prayer please our father we bow now in thy presence to thank thee for this opening evening of the conference weekend we again extend to thee our grateful thanks for thy goodness in gathering all who are here safely and with an anticipation of a sense of thy nearness and presence and help over the weekend we commit to thee the local believers who already have done much work in preparation and some will be a little anxious perhaps that all goes well in the practical preparations over the weekend we lovingly commit them to thee for needed strength and help as they work diligently behind the scenes we pray for the brethren whose responsibility it is to open the scriptures to thy people and we pray that each one of us will approach these meetings and these studies with a sense of anticipation that we will have a deeper appreciation of thyself of thy purpose of the lord jesus of the place that we occupy in thy great purpose in redemption we ask these things in our god confessing our dependence upon thee leaving ourselves in thy care for the remainder of the day praying for those still traveling those who will accommodate others whatever the need is hedge this conference weekend about we pray our god and graciously bless and honor thyself amongst us we ask it giving thanks for thy mercies in the precious name of the lord jesus amen