Just a general point on how interpretive principles work in terms of literalism, what people talk about literalism, and how language works. When we're dealing with the all of the discourse, or when we're dealing with many prophecies in the Bible, and certainly with the book of Revelation, nobody applies a literal, as a wouldn't-lead literal hermeneutic across the board. Even those who pride themselves greatly for reading the book of Revelation literally absolutely do not read the book of Revelation literally because they end up with things like insects becoming Apache helicopters. Well, that's symbolism. That is engaging in symbolism. And there's a real point of difference here, or a real, an interpretive decision that needs to get made. That is literal, and what is symbolic. All the timestamps in the all of it discourse and in the book of Revelation would make it very, very, very soon to the original audience, if taken literally. And of course, the things that are describing, like sun, moon, and stars falling out of the sky, beasts, and the sea, and so forth, that can be taken literally, or it can be taken symbolically. But if you take the one symbolically, you have to take the other one literally, or vice versa. You can't take both literally. Here's what I mean. If the Bible says that the sun, moon, and stars are soon going to fall out of the sky, and that will happen in this generation, as we have here in the all of it discourse, there's two things we can say. We can say one of those things cannot be literal. If the sun, moon, and stars falling out of the sky means you literally go out and you look at a telescope, and all the heavenly bodies have very literally fallen out of the sky. As in, if this is the kind of thing you can see with the telescope, then we know that the timestamp must be symbolic because these things did not happen in the generation of Jesus' listeners, like he said it would. So in that case, the timestamp must be somewhat symbolic or figurative. It's not a literal timestamp. On the flip side, if the timestamp is to be taken literally, that these things will literally happen in the lifetime of Jesus' audience, then sun, moon, and stars falling out of the sky means something other than something that you would see with the telescope. You see what I mean? If you take the one literally, the other one must become symbolic. So the question is then what is more natural to take as literal and what is more natural to take as symbolic? And of course, some of the language here about once there are revelation beasts and seven headed monsters and these kinds of things, clearly I think we all would agree. Even the most staunch advocate of a literal hermeneutic does not take that literally, despite what they would say. Clearly we're dealing with symbolism there, whereas the timestamps are pretty straightforward. There's no need to symbolize timestamps. And so Matthew 2434, I think, stands at face value and some of these symbolic things are just that. They are symbolic. They are meant to describe and graphic form something else that is happening. A common example in our day might be, if somebody says, you know, this time next week, Matt, I'm going to knock your lights out. You come back a week later and you go through my house and all the light fixtures are still there. You've got a choice to make the lights, the lights are still all there. They were not literally locked out, knocked out. And so we can say, well, next week means something other than next week. Maybe it means, you know, a figurative week or so forth. Maybe this is out in the future because Matt's light fixtures are all still there. On the flip side, if the next week just means next week and we see that my light fixtures are fine, but this guy beat me up pretty good. We could say that this is a straightforward interpretation. He did knock my lights out in the following week. You see how this works. Knocking your lights out is a symbolic language in our culture for beating somebody up or for knocking them out and so forth. And so I think this is a magical or this isn't a mystical approach to scripture. We just talking ordinary language and we have figures of speech and we have symbolic ways of talking about things that are common across all generations. And so I think the most natural reading here of the all of it discourse and of the book of Revelation is that the timestamps are to be taken at face value soon means soon. This generation means this generation and seven hidden C beasts are symbolic of something else. Anyone's literally expecting a seven headed C beast nor should we expect sun moon and stars to literally fall out of the sky as in something we can see with a telescope. Further the Protestant and reformed hermeneutic of solar scriptura and of scripture interpreting scripture. The analogy of faith would say that we let the Bible define its own terms. And so when we have this cosmic language about sun moon and stars falling out of the sky that is actually referring to many things that have historically happened through the Old Testament when a great city or when a great empire has fallen. This is God knocking their lights out. This is God turning off the lights of a great empire. That is what sun moon and stars falling out of the sky mean. For example when Babylon is judged then in Isaiah 1310 this kind of sun moon and stars language is spoken of as a historic judgment. And of course the sun kept shining as the Babylonian empire fell but symbolically, cosmically in terms of Babylon's appeal to cosmic authority to heavenly authority did fall out of the sky. God judged Babylon. We see it again in Ezekiel 32, 7 and 8 for the judgment of Egypt the sun moon and stars language or of Judah in Zefania 15. We see that same language in Isaiah 24, 2 and Amos 5, 20 and Amos 8 verse 9. The same language interestingly happens the sun moon and stars did fall out of the sky. Peter says in Acts 216 when he is referencing Joel's prophecy the old order came to an end. The old cosmic authorities came to an end. At Pentecost the sun moon and stars fell out of the sky and of course this was not something you could see with the telescope. This is an appeal to heaven this is an appeal to heavenly authority there is a change in world order this is what sun moon and stars mean and whether knowingly or not the authorities that exist in our day still know that we have to appeal to the heavenly bodies for authority. After all what's on our flags? Suns, moons, stars right the American flag of course has stars on it the Japanese flag has a sun the Turkish flag has a crescent moon on it and so these again these remain appeals to heavenly authority to say that this is a autonomous self governing nation we have authority from heaven to rule our own affairs sun moon and stars mean just that. Our sponsors steadfastsigars.com promo code escatology10 rockwallbibles.com Bonafos Media Grayson Truth Press Grayson Truth Records