steadfastagars.com use promo code covenant 10 for 10% off your order. Hi there I'm Matt Plett back with Escatology Matters part of the fight left-feast network and sponsored by steadfast cigars. We are picking up our walk through the all of it discourse in Matthew chapter 24 on our way to a chapter by chapter exposition of the book of Revelation. And again the reason we're going through the all of it discourse is because I am going to make the case in this series that Revelation contrary to many of the assumptions in Arde that this is a book about our future. I will be making the case that I do believe that the majority of the book of Revelation is actually about things in our ancient past just like the all of it discourse is. The all of it discourse shows up in all three synoptic gospels. It does not show up in the gospel of John and again the reason I think that is the case is because the book of Revelation is John's part two to his gospel. It is the all of it discourse that follows the same structure as the all of it discourse and the events described in the book of Revelation. I believe we're the same events described in the all of it discourse. So we started on our exposition the last two episodes and I want to pick up today in Matthew chapter 24 starting in verse five today. So if you are following along in your Bible open up to Matthew 24 and we're going to look at verses picking it up at verse five. And again the all of it discourse is not a particularly easy text and so we need to guess a level of humility here even among preterists and again through church history some level of preterism has basically been assumed until very very recently. Again the demand to put Matthew 24 in our future came about because of the demands of the dispensational system which was invented by John Nelson Darby and then systematized by Cyrus Skofield in the Skofield reference Bible but all through church history it has been assumed that at least poor a portion of the all of it discourse has been regarding events that happened in our ancient ancient past things that happened in the first century. Christians of course have disagreed about whether or not whether but where the events in the all of it discourse switch to the future. I will be taking the the approach that everything a hundred percent of what is in Matthew chapter 24 happened in the first century. Then Jesus tells a few parables that explained how judgment works in chapter 25 and then in a latter part of chapter 25 he applies what we saw in the in the first part of the discourse he applies that to the final judgment and I do believe that is exactly how the book of Revelation works where we have the first 19 chapters dealing with first century events and then chapters 20 and onward dealing with the final judgment so that same idea of looking at things in the very near future from the time of writing and then through symbolic kind of literature or through parables then expanding that out to what the final judgment is like but certainly we have to say everything before verse 34, Matthew 24, 34, certainly everything before that must be a first century fulfillment because of the time stamp that Jesus himself says in that verse and again to lay out the the guardrails of orthodoxy here there is a school of thought called hyper-preterism which puts everything including the second coming of Christ in the first century and of course that is contra-confessional that is contra-biblical that is not orthodox Christianity in any way shape or but I also want to lay out that hyper-futurism is just as deadly and just as unorthodox the the dispensational system while maybe not well it's debatable whether it's fully heretical or whether it's merely unorthodox certainly some of the things in the classic dispensational system were heretical because it denies the gospel itself but the lesser versions of dispensationalism that pertain mostly to eschatology are within the bounds of orthodoxy but I would say are are a real stretch in terms of making proper interpretation and taking face value the prophecies in Matthew 24 and one last point I want to make before we get into it here again is 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 it discourse or when we're dealing with many prophecies in the Bible and certainly with the book of Revelation nobody applies a literal as in a wouldn't-lead literal hermeneutic across the board even those who pride themselves greatly for reading the the book of Revelation literally absolutely do not read the book of Revelation literally because they end up with things like you know insects becoming a patchy helicopters well that's symbolism that is engaging in symbolism and there's a real point of difference here or a real decision an interpretive decision that needs to get made what 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 in the sea and so forth that can be taken literally or it can be taken symbolically and 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 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 mean 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 and 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 even the most staunch advocate of 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 to symbolize timestamps and so Matthew 2434 I think stands at face value and 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 and 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 knock out and so we can say well next week means something other than next week maybe it means you know a figurative weaker 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 this isn't 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-headed sea beasts are symbolic of something else I don't think anyone's literally expecting a seven-headed sea beast nor should we expect some 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 Zephaniah 1 5 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 sons 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 but again that's enough for background so in verse 5 through 8 of Matthew 24 it says this many will come in my name saying I am the Christ and they will leave many a straight and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars see that you are not alarmed for this must take place but the end is not yet for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places all these are but the beginning of birth pangs so again at first glance these prophecies seem about as vague as a horoscope in the newspaper when when is there ever not wars and rumors of wars that seems to be human history it's always happening right so when you read in the horoscope that an interesting conversation will happen this week well that's so vague it really means nothing but for these prophecies to mean something I think if we put them in their historic place it is actually highly significant that at this particular time there would be wars and rumors of wars remember this all of it discourse happens on Tuesday of Holy Week and Jesus has just used a number of parables earlier in the day on Tuesday to give a theological interpretation of the cosmic shaking the cosmic shift that is about to happen within this generation he spoke of the tenants in the vineyard who have ignored messenger after messenger until the the owner sends his son and these wicked tenants think that they will become the permanent heirs the permanent owners if they kill the master son in Matthew 21 40 and 41 Jesus says when therefore the owner of the vineyard comes what will he do to these tenants they said to him he will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him their fruits in their seasons he also gives a parable of these wedding guests who are so consumed with their own affairs that they do not honor the king's son on his wedding feast and these people kill the messengers who have come to remind them of their invitation in Matthew 227 the king was angry and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city and after that after the city is burned after these evil men are crushed the invitation goes out to the highways and byways remember Jesus is telling us to the religious authorities in Jerusalem that they have rejected the son they are about to get butchered their city is about to get burned and then the invitation is going to go out to the wider nations and of course Jesus is explaining he is giving a theological interpretation of the history that is going to fall on this generation this is all part of the lead up to the all of it discourse Jesus is describing not just the events that will happen but he is also describing what these events mean and these two parables are picturing the same thing God has given Jerusalem their very last chance to listen to his messengers before he brings them to utter ruin and once they kill Jesus once they kill the son of God God is going to put out their lampstand he knocks their lights out he knocks the sun moon and stars of Israel out of the sky these people have violated the old covenant repeatedly with their horing and their idolatry and their stiff neck refusal to listen to the prophets and now even to listen to God's own son God is filling out his divorce decree God is filling out the paperwork for the divorce of Israel like Gomer Jerusalem is going to face the humiliation of being paraded around like a used up whore at a prostitute auction God is going to bring Jerusalem to open shame for her rejection of her husband of course there's good news in that parable like Jose a God is willing to take these people back at some future point but on renewed terms it will now be through the gospel and not through ethnicity the old covenant of bloodlines and of being special for being Jewish or being Hebrew those days are over these Hebrew people may come back but they must come back through the sun they must come back through the gospel their Hebrew ethnicity is of no advantage to them at this point in terms of salvation in terms of redemption and so the New Testament again the gospel of Matthew is written between the time that Jesus preached this at Holy Week in roughly the year 30 or 33 somewhere in there and before the events of AD 70 and so it's flesh out in a very real very tangible kind of down to earth way that these were fulfilled these prophecies were fulfilled in that first century first of all Jesus talks about false Christs in this prophecy and of course the internal evidence within the Bible itself gives an account of several false Christ figures in Acts 8 verses 9 and 10 it speaks of Simon the magician and the father Jerome quotes Simon as having said I am the word of God I am the Comforter I am Almighty I am all there is of God another father origin speaks of a man called Doseytheus who claimed to be Christ who was foretold by Moses the historian Heinz Schreckenberg recounts a total of 16 Messiah figures in this period of time and Lutheran historian Philip Schaff calls this an age of radicals there were many false Christs in the years after the genuine Christ Jesus also speaks of famine and of course in Acts 11 verse 28 we have Agibus who prophesies of a great famine and historically we know that this happened under Claudius Caesar Josephus records it Jesus also speaks of earthquakes and later in Matthew 27 51 we know that an earthquake happened at Christ's death which tore the temple veil of course a very significant redemptive historical event and this foreshadows the fate of the temple itself the temple is about to be split apart there is no longer a dividing wall between Junjantal or between God and his people the temple is obsolete the temple has been judged and that era of history is now over in Matthew 28 verse 2 an earthquake also accompanies Christ's resurrection in Acts 1626 an earthquake opens up the prison doors for Paul and Silas so earthquakes happening in the first century after Jesus gives this prophecy and in the lead up to the gospel going out by the apostles earthquakes do factor in quite heavily in terms of extra biblical records of earthquakes and this time we have very significant earthquakes in Crete in Smirna in my litus Kyle Samus Leodoccia Heropolis Colosse Pompay Campania Rome and Judea and then of course Jesus also talks about wars and for the prophecy of wars and rumors of wars to be meaningful that would mean that these wars would have to be somewhat surprising because again the history of the world is a history of wars and so if this is not just some vague newspaper horoscope kind of prophecy of Jesus then these wars and rumors of wars must mean something specific they must stand out for some particular reason otherwise this anyone could have said this and there's really nothing special about it at all and again if we're looking for the first century fulfillment of these things which is exactly the time stamp Jesus gave and I think we should take quite at face value what does stand out here is that this is happening this prophecy is being given in the longest period of enforced peace that the world had known the Pox Romana the peace of Rome an extended period where Rome superior firepower ensured world peace this was an unprecedented time of no wars and no rumors of wars because Rome had all the nukes so to speak so the Pox Romana is the context in which this first century prophecy is given it was a period without wars and rumors of wars and suddenly it erupts in wars and rumors of wars again if we put this where the Bible straight forwardly puts it in terms of time suddenly wars and rumors of wars mean something significant because this would have been unexpected during the Pox Romana and so what was actually happening in Israel at this time there were several significant wars that touch on the temple the touch on redemptive history as per Jesus' prophecy from the year 80 60 to 70 or 66 pardon me to 70 we have the Jewish wars of course there were divisions among the Jews in the New Testament era and these continued to get worse you had conservative versus liberal approaches to how to relate to Rome do we kind of withdraw and keep our Jewish identity or do we compromise with Rome it's it's much the same as the conservative liberal divide to this day and the Jews were we're dealing with that in their own time there was a mixed bag of procurators in that region of course pilots and Felix and Festus but there was one man in particular who pushed Jerusalem over the edge of civil war a man who ruled from 64 to 66 by the name of Gessius Flores this man was a particularly odious man to the Jews he stole money from the temple he killed 3600 innocent Jewish people in the year 66 and then he inflamed the Jewish zealots to take violent action with his actions against them these Jewish zealots revolted in the year 66 with the result that Rome answered back the zealots and Rome essentially wiped Israel off the map at that point at the same time that these Jewish civil wars are happening Rome herself is erupting in chaos the emperor Nero who ruled from 54 to 68 was an exceptionally wicked man he's one of the most odious men who has ever lived on the face of the earth and I will not go on at this point to talk about how wicked and how vile and how contemptible a man Nero was but he really was one of the most contemptible human beings who has ever lived in human history he was restrained initially and this is interesting if you read in second Thessalonians chapter 2 it talks about the man of lawlessness is now being restrained his mother Agrapena and his advisor Seneca were holding him back until he went completely mad but Nero did eventually go completely mad he sent the military in to suppress the Jewish rebellion and in the year 66 another man by the name of Cestius Galus laid siege on Jerusalem and this is one of the great mysteries of history because there's no recording of why he did this but Cestius Galus surrounded Jerusalem with his army for six days and then he inexplicably just left there's no record as to why he left what his motivation was this is a mystery of history but the armies surrounded Jerusalem and inexplicably he just left after six days and depending on your theological preset positions if you're in Jerusalem at this time you're doing different things with this the zealots who wanted war against Rome they saw this as clear divine intervention and this was a clear sign to them that they should attack the Romans they followed the Romans out and attack them at Beth Haran and you can read about this in the in the apocrypha in first Maccabees and the zealot victory meant that the radicals were now running Jerusalem the most extreme faction of the Jews was running Jerusalem the Christians however took a very different interpretation of what this meant that these troops just inexplicably left after having surrounded Jerusalem for six days the Christians remembered what Jesus had said in Luke 21 verses 20 through 22 where Jesus there says but when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies then know that its desolation has come near then let those who aren't today flee to the mountains and let those who are inside the city depart and let those who are out in the country enter it for these are the days of vengeance to fulfill all that is written so this is interesting yeah you're supposed to flee when when the army is surrounding Jerusalem but how do you flee a surrounded city the only way that can happen is for the surrounding army to leave in the providence of God this is exactly what happened the Christians remembered what Jesus saw remember this is within about 40 years of Jesus offering this prophecy so if you're 20 when you're hearing Jesus give his all of it discourse now you're a 60 year old man and you remember what Jesus had said about this event Jerusalem was now surrounded by armies and you remember what we're supposed to flee and when the army just leaves in expliquably it's very clear what you ought to do you ought to obey the Lord Jesus Jesus prophecy came about exactly as he said and so the Christians took this as their cue to leave and of course the zealots had chased the Romans down and the early zealot victory against Nero made Nero even more enraged so he sent a man by the name of the Spatian and 60,000 men to go stamp out the rebellion and so by 8068 the northern rebellion was completely crushed Nero had blood in the water he had he had the taste of blood against the Jews and this showdown between Rome and Jerusalem was becoming very very strong very pronounced there's accounts of how bloody this was Nero sent the 60,000 in that there's blood running all down the streets and so now you have Jerusalem being locked in the civil war remember the Jews are fighting among themselves who should control the city what what actions do we take do we want to take a moderate stance against Rome do we want to take a radical stance against Rome do we want to take a compromising stance against Rome and so the Jews themselves are not agreed on what their stance with Rome should be the Roman historian Tacitus says that the Jews exhausted by internal conflicts and seeing all things ruined by their own madness turned their hands against the Romans their first battles often ended in defeat but they would always take up arms again in peace they showed as much insubordination as in war the Spatians campaign was cut short by chaos back in Rome so at the same time Jerusalem is trapped in a civil war Rome starts to convulse at the same time Rome has a very significant event called the year of four emperors Nero with all his madness with all his contemptible and outrageous actions was finally forced to commit suicide in the year 68 and Galba a retired military officer stepped up and became the emperor after Nero but another man by the name of author was very angry that he was not named the emperor author had had his wife taken from him by Nero and yet somehow I guess author and Nero made up you know well enough after his author's wife being taken that him and Nero became Sodomite or became homosexual lovers with one another and so this is a really ugly and in vile love triangle and author comes in and he attacks Rome and kills Galba and takes the mantle so he thinks him you know him and Nero or their Sodomite lovers they they shared a wife so to speak and so he thinks it should be him so he goes and kills Galba and now author is in charge of the Roman Empire but another man named Vitalius was a consul and a respected political administrator up in what is today modern Germany he's up in northern Europe and he comes south to challenge author and after a series of skirmishes author commits suicide leaving Vitalius now as the emperor so there's a very rapid succession of emperors but another man a man by the name of the Spacian a very competent and very decorated general was slowly plotting and planning his takeover of the Roman Empire he came back to Rome from Jerusalem to challenge Vitalius and eventually defeated him and now finally this year of four emperors is over the Spacian has now taken the mantle and he ends up ruling for ten years. Tacitus the historian again writes that he thought Rome would not survive these convulsions so Jerusalem is locked in a civil war between the zealots and the Pharisees and the Essenes and the Sadducees and all these different sects of Jews that that are trying to figure out how to relate to Rome but in the meantime Rome herself is convulsing one suicide one murder after the other in a very rapid and unstable time of succession of emperors and so all this to say that the Pox Romana is in deep deep trouble everyone is unhappy at this time so in this context so you've had 250 years of stability of peace of enforced peace of time without war and suddenly now two major cities are erupting in eternal conflict in civil war in instability the Pox Romana is in deep trouble and in this context suddenly a prophecy about wars and rumors of wars now means something because this marked a significant change from what these people had been used to previously Rome had been so strong and so peaceful for so long that this kind of upheaval was unthinkable to the average Roman citizen before that and remember Jerusalem's convulsing at the exact same time both cities are being torn apart by civil war and when Vespation leaves Jerusalem to go conquer Rome to take his turn at ruling the Roman Empire he left his son Titus in charge of Jerusalem and I think in the interest of time we're gonna cut this off here and we will pick this up next episode as Vespation hands the mantle of Jerusalem over to his son Titus and see how he quells the rebellion in that city the steadfast legacy Sumatra is a bold cigar with a nice balance of spice leather and dried fruit you can find these in all our other premium cigars steadfast cigars dot com use promo code eschatology 10 for 10% off your order remain steadfast and hold the line