Systematic & Dispensational Theology Week 16 ENCOUNTERING CONTEMPORARY THEOLOGIES 050623

what's going on you have to do right now yes so there there are there are handouts over in that corner of that table right there you'll just have to watch PowerPoint I didn't get that printed off and since we're more or less on time I won't say for a change but since since we are more or less on time I'll go ahead and pray and get started and then you know it's kind of like praying for your food anybody who's not there is just going to have to have a stomach ache father we thank you Lord for the time we can share together in this final class of this particular course dealing with Theology and how it directly impacts our lives and discipleship and in understanding the Bible other areas pray that you'd walk with us now as we walk through your word together for we ask it in Jesus precious name amen okay so this is just my sidewalk definition this my um you know non-scholarly um personal opinion at this time which may change tomorrow but uh you know if I were going to give a definition to teaching it seems to me that really Bible teaching is an explanation you can learn from along with action you can apply so an explanation of the Bible you can learn from along with um a pliable activity so so how to apply that and very much then it's tied to our society it's tied to life I mean life as Humanity uh because we know that God has spoken to us so what we we have God's words and so he's spoken to us and that's why you know Bible teaching is so important now I will follow up on that with the illustration the movie The Great Debaters for Denzel Washington portrays the Marshall Texas debate coach Melvin Tolson and he reminds his new debate team how Virginia slave masters used a unique technique to keep a slave a male slave physically strong but psychologically weak and dependent and so the objective of the slave master was to keep the body but to take away their mind and steal their critical thinking capacity for themselves and that is my illustration if you will for how Satan enslaves the Evangelical Church into lukewarm mediocrity particularly through apathy about prophecy our blessed hope as Believers and Bible dispensations so my goal in this session is to do for you what Melvin Tolson did for the martial debate team and that is to help you find take back and Keep Your Righteous Mind when we lost our Righteous Mind what what had happened was described by a car Dr Carl Henry no fact of contemporary Western life he said is more evident than its growing distrust of final truth and its implacable questioning of any sure word and so Evangelical Christian Theologian Carl Henry Henry made this statement back in 1976 we might take that as the height of what Fuller Seminary founder and editor of Christianity Today magazine Harold linzel called the battle for the Bible it was raging at that time it was not until the 80s and the 90s at Southern Baptist convention kept pointing and electing conservative presidents who appointed a conservative people who appointed conservative trustees who got out unconservative faculty members and you know kind of turned the whole denomination around by way of getting more conservative theology in their six seminaries that they had so this was a battle that predicated the present struggle that we have right now over biblical Authority so when it comes to counterfeits a sound Doctrine the devil has a limited Arsenal and he uses variations on those themes and so I want to talk today I want to end us up by talking about contemporary Theology and and some things related to that because it seems like all unsound doctrine that is called Christian is going to come I'm going to say under one of five Brands branding uh in in historical order I would start with the cultic uh you know that started in the 1830s or so after America had uh been a nation and survived the War of 1812 and it looked like this experiment in democracy was going to actually work but that separation of church and state meant that anyone could invent their own religion so we did because that is what good Americans do and so the Cults are the doctrines of demons perpetuated uh perpetrated by the ancient and modern gnostics in various areas so whatever cult you're talking about it has that element in it and uh in as far as American theology is concerned started about that time then you've got Catholic that's the Imperial appeasing of pagan gods applied to Christianity so in Pagan godology um the the gods were you had to appease them and you just never knew when you've done enough and you'd never knew even almost exactly what exactly you had to do and so if a Calamity came well it you must have offended that God and here's the way we're going to find out how we did it and what we got to do for IT number three calvinist a rejection of superstition and a substitution of fatalism charismatic is a rejection of fatalism and a substitution of emotion and communion with a familiar spirit and then you would have what I will call the unconvinced and that means the skeptical the anti-supernatural the doubtful the naturalistic The evolutionary bias in Liberal and Mainline denominations today and their Scholars and their scholarship because they are both cynical and contemptuous of all the other groups and especially us so let's talk about developing a Living Faith Fellowship what is our response and why do we have a living faith Bible Institute after after all we are part of contemporary theology as well and you know I thank Baptist Churches strive to be New Testament churches and what that means is we don't feel pressured by the way other people do things and many times the way they do things are simply the ships Barnacles attached to the bottom of the boat over time and I don't know about you but Barnacles on my bottom diverts my course and slows me down so instead what the Living Faith Fellowship is about is striving to do like Earth's earliest Christians and Earth's earliest Christians believed that all those who are born again are believer priests and that means you function according to your own conscience now admittedly many Baptist pastors have been the worst offenders at in proclaiming Soul Liberty and then not allowing you to live in Liberty within their churches therefore many of us know legalistic Baptist Churches um not the legalism that says You must do Works to gain salvation but the legalism which states that you must perform in order to be spiritual legalism that defines spirituality by adherence to a set list of social and cultural taboos in other words Barnacles legalism that's uh that says look you've uh you know the key thing is you've got to be obedient instead of saying it the key thing is you've got to trust because after all it is trust and Obey but but you are not living by your faith you're living by the faith of the Son of God who loved you and gave him so for you and no no translation says that because none of the translators understand what is being said and many of the Baptists preachers independent fundamental don't understand either and so that is why so much is based on uh you know God bless blessing faithfulness but you better be faithful then instead of you know God blessing because your your faith is activating his grace to enable you to do what you know walk in the spirit and and live by the law of Liberty so uh So what had happened in American politics was we are the new Romans and we are the same now as uh the ruling Empire was at the end of the Roman Republic there is a a polarization of two partisan extremes which is why part of why I guess mainly why that Republic ended and turned into an Empire and what what has happened in American Christianity is what happened in Judaism at that exact same time in the first century So what had happened is we got the Pharisees we got Sadducees and the Pharisees reject the word of Jesus because of their legalism in other words what Jesus is doing saying and acting does not match their idea of what they think God says that he must do say an act and Sadducees well they reject the work of the spirit because of their skepticism they don't believe in Resurrection they don't believe in you know they're that's you know so back to the kind of liberal Mainline uh and skeptical part that goes through a lot of the Contemporary theologies today and we've really just come full circle in 20 centuries so much so that we are deflected by extremists on both Wings therefore it seems sometimes like you cannot find a King James or a bible-believing church that is not legalistic and you cannot find an evangelical church with a gospel preaching Church which understands biblical Authority and a faith-based view of scripture everybody's a Pharisee sad to see or nationalist Zealot today and nobody's standing with Jesus but not so if you're a true Baptist Church and not so I'm going to say if you're part of you know Living Faith Fellowship because a true Baptist Church is a truly biblical church and this is this is just contemporary theology uh Pastor Jeff bartelles said to find a church that believes what we believe and experiences it the way we experience it boy they're really hard to find and so when we find people like us we just want to do stuff together and by stuff he means New Testament Christianity and by New Testament Christianity Church churchianity churching uh what we mean is we organize to fulfill the Great Commission the mission of the Great Commission to evangelize disciple educate and train leaders and send out cross-cultural ministers from Those whom we have trained so uh Pastor Jeff Bartel has said we're intentionally fellowshipping together in an organized way with churches we agree with doctrinally philosophically and we call it the Living Faith Fellowship a church is these are the friends we have in the ministry we choose to serve together and I'll state that we do that because all Bible Believers have historically done so so what we're doing with our fellowship um you know just like Pastor Bartel says is not a denomination is not a hierarchy we are all independent churches every church he says decides willingly and freely if they want to participate at whatever level they want to participate because and I'll say that stands historian historical continuity with the thing Baptists have already always done because as early as the 1700s there was the recognition among Baptists among in other words among New Testament churches like ours that it was necessary to participate together especially in two of those areas of fulfilling the Great Commission and those two areas are missions and education and while America today has more varieties of Baptists than Heinz has varieties of ketchup even those churches who are part of a larger convention are still independent churches because that is one of the characteristics of being a new testament church so we're all independent churches but we are all fellowshipping together in Ministry but the reason we want to serve together in education and missions advancement is for doctrinal and philosophical reasons I think you know Jeff would say this Fellowship is mutually beneficial to each church and it is since it is a fellowship of non-legalistic churches bound to the idea of biblical Authority and a faith-based view of their Bible Bible believing so that is the reason we exist as a Bible Institute for every Church who wants to participate but what comes against us from the Evangelical Wing is the The Good the reformed and the Ugly so can I just tell you where we're at in contemporary theology we have shifted from relativism to post-modernism because we have drifted away from Biblical Authority and so I have charted on your handout um the that movement from relativism which covered kind of the Enlightenment age until the 1970s to post-modernism which covers the 1970s until now and then biblical a Biblical view of of Theology and of things uh which you know started in the New Testament goes to today so let me let me lay dispensationalism's Foundation right where it belongs on the idea of biblical Authority and a faith-based view of the Bible so my thesis for our final session uh today you know having our final class and no coronation as necessary is that we have common ideas about the meaning of biblical Authority and a view of the Bible that gives us a faith response to God's truth versus approaching it skeptically and but because we do that it results in dispensational theology another thing Pastor Jeff Bartel said was it's important to understand dispensationalism because if you don't have a dispensational view of the Scriptures it is impossible to believe every word of the Bible as it is written without changing it adding to it subtracting from it or misinterpreting it you cannot receive the Bible literally if you don't have a dispensational view of the scriptures but there are three things that are diluting even broader evangelicalism in our day so it's just contemporary theology I'm giving you there has been a shift which has led to a drift and contemporary theology has shifted away from dispensational hermeneutics that word hermeneutics means the way that you interpret what the Bible says so they have shifted away from a dispensational way of interpreting the Bible and philosophically it is a shift toward post-modernism in Carl Henry's day it was a shift toward relativism and situational ethics in our with that job has already been done by the devil he got over on us on that already so we're so yeah that's already done a done deal in our day it is a shift toward post-modernism and that drifting shift in Evangelical theology centers on three contemporary factors the Resurgence of reformed theology in other words the influence of the young Calvinists whoever they are and the acceptance of a reformed theology today means two things it means the death of evangelism because of their unbiblical way of defining election predestination and reprobation so because of that you know you don't have to win anybody Christ it's just all you know already either they're part of the elected or not and so forth so secondly by an apathy over prophecy because they give up propositional truth and literal interpretation for an allegorical metaphor substituting the church for Israel so the Bible is story n.t Wright would say a story in five Acts and the end of that story is that oh Jesus wasn't talking about Jews all along he was talking about us and we're the Fulfillment of that all the way back to the Exodus now now to be fair there is a reason for this Resurgence and there are causes for the popularity of the emergent church and the new Calvinists um you know and just like the Jews who returned after the Captivity reformers see themselves as re-establishing a nation rebuilding a temple and restoring worship but it's all only reformation and Reformation only changes the outside what you need is work on the inside so for a lot of former fundamentalists like Rob Bell Brian Mclaren Andy Stanley I mean he grew up in a fundamentalist church that's what his his dad Charles Stanley was their faith went flat and when their faith went flat they replaced it with fizz but not with sound theology the Resurgence reformers piggyback off of sound Puritan and devotional theology just like the Resurgence new evangelicals piggyback off of sound hermeneutics and dispensational theology so they're reaping the benefits of insights given the two men and Ministries and missions decades ago and they don't have anything new which is why anything new and they present as insightful ends up being something which is really only a fad um brain science so-called left right brain stuff like like that was ever true uh you know all sorts of stuff like well they give Insight you know somehow they'll read all of that into because they have nothing from the Bible except what was learned decades ago and So what had happened is reform theology makes sense as long as you don't think about it uh if all you do is listen to a hipster in an untucked shirt and sandals expound reform theology well then it sounds pretty cool I mean after all you can drink beer and smoke cigars it's really cool as long as you know do not find take back and Keep Your Righteous Mind by thinking critically and comparing its doctrine of salvation and the second coming against scripture a second drifting shift in evangelicalism is the exaltation of story over biblical exposition because this is where every story Whispers his name and probably probably it's him Whispering your name as a matter of fact and story is a method of interpreting the Bible that makes you The Sinner so the important thing is not principles it's not propositions found in the Bible that was the old Enlightenment way of thinking we don't do teaching like that anymore the important thing now is the conversation and to be tolerant and to learn from your encounter so Brian Mclaren believes that quote Christians should present Christianity through loving attitudes rather than logical arguments unquote okay but what then results is a faith which is talked about a lot lived a little and nothing is said about what one should actually believe either about the gospel or the second coming unless it is to say like Rob Bell does now that everybody's going to be saved in the end everybody gets saved so according to Bell and Stanley to say that you're able to quote just read the Bible for what it says is quote a warped and toxic View unquote now I say that that is Lance Armstrong calling Tom Brady a cheater that's what I say they're going to say my view of the scripture is Warped and toxic no I think I think you're trying I think I think you're Lance Armstrong calling Tom Brady a cheater so a third drifting shift in Evangelical theology is the influence of New Perspectives personalities Rob Bell says we can no longer believe quote that scripture alone is our guide because the Bible is open-ended unquote now certainly that's an accurate statement if you accept any form of charismatic theology uh 24 7 prayer Moon Rising Nava any of those then certainly that is a true statement it is it is absolutely open-ended you didn't close it with the Book of Revelation because you're supposed to repent believe be baptized in somebody's bathtub and then receive the Holy Ghost and his filling and his baptizing and it will lead you to speak in tongues and now it is open absolutely open-ended for them and quotes when people say all we need is the Bible it is simply not true unquote now this is this is just contemporary theology uh their real Champion is the Anglican Evangelical Theologian NT Wright who by the way who by the way who by the way speaks in tongues and has had people pray prophecies over him just so you know uh one Christian blogger says this right is a brilliant scholar and theologian dispensationalists Founders were nowhere close to right in their theological philosophical and hermeneutic depth breadth and sophistication Troy say that 10 times in a row right is brilliant and intellect of the first order not only does dispensationalism not have any Founders in a league with rights caliber it has produced no theologians who have done work of the same caliber breadth and depth as right right has an impressive grasp of philosophy intellectual history hermeneutics Theology and his own discipline he has more academic Authority than any dispensationalist has ever had and he deserves to because of the scholarship he's done Wright reads all the relevant biblical cognate and research languages okay biblical is Greek and Hebrew cognate is uh Aramaic and eucharitic and things like that research languages means he reads what the Germans say in German and the French say in French and his mastered a significant amount of cultural historical and textual information ranging from Jewish history to Greco-Roman culture it's a modern theology philosophy and culture on the other hand dispensational Theologian Louis Barry Schaefer studied music and did not finish his degree well maybe but but you know Tom Wright is so messed up he speaks in tongues despite his Inlet and despite what he knows of cognate languages he has people prophesy over him uh in a manner as if it is the authoritative word of God and he believes it so Wright's books have been the theology behind the writings of Rob Bell Brian Mclaren and a host of young Calvinists and new reformers who fancy themselves as bringing fresh perspectives to biblical Theology and missiology right particularly emphasizes story as a way of understanding Jesus and Paul and often often uses the analogy of the Bible being a five-act play so he wants to believe the Bible is a play in five acts but he rejects the idea of seven dispensations so I indict this Resurgence of reformed theology this exaltation of story over scripture Exposition and these personalities pushing New Perspectives for two things that land Us in and leave us with last days un sound Doctrine first they will do what I call subtweeting they subtweet the biblical text now ever since Trump everybody knows a tweet is a message posted through Twitter but if you have a follower and you want to deliver a status update that calls that person out without mentioning their name that's called a subtweet that is short for a subliminal tweet because you're talking about them and you're talking about what they're doing but you're and you're doing it in a very negative insulting way typically using mockery and sarcasm but you're not adding them in that comment and so you're doing it covertly and since you did not use their Twitter handle when you spoke about them they do not know about it until they see what you say in their timeline and then they know it was from you but they can't be sure if it was really meant for them it's kind of behind their back and yet in their face and left-handed slap essentially it is gaslighting so NT Wright believes in the in the return of Jesus just like the Muslims believe that Jesus is the messiah In This Very nebulous and unbiblical way right claims that all the biblical descriptions of the coming Kingdom as a restored Jewish kingdom are simply metaphors and he uses that term metaphor as a subtweet against those of us who take our Bible literally now to justify this he takes to his books and he calls us small-minded without using our name he did not call out Alan Shelby or he didn't say Baptist in particular or you know occasionally he's spoken dispensationalists down but usually again not by name but he calls us small-minded you know and then and then he will give a footnote referring to something else he's written in some other book they love doing that uh they you know make themselves the center of all their footnotes so so so Mr Big Brain tongue speaker prophecy believer right thinks we are small-minded if we believe what is written he says quote nobody supposes that Paul imagined Jesus would make his appearance flying downward on a cloud well now wait I suppose that in other words he is saying if you believe that he's saying me and you we are a nobody because that is exactly what the Angels tell the apostles in Acts chapter 1 verse 9 to 11. but hey you just gaslighted me trying to make me doubt my Righteous Mind you're trying to make me doubt my biblical sanity in the same way that Mr Lynch wanted his male slaves to doubt their personhood and their manhood or in the same way that Bill Nye the Science Guy wants you to doubt your Humanity in its image of God likeness so Wright says quote no interpreter ought to imagine that the son of man can be interpreted that phrase son of man can be interpreted literally as a human figure floating on a cloud the image speaks clearly to anyone with ears attuned to the first century of the Vindication of the true Israel over her enemies and then he'll footnote to his other books where he writes that we are the true Israel so if anyone does Imagine uh Son of God Son of Man literally he calls that embracing quote a monstrosity and a myth now none of us would want to be a myth monster would we I mean I wouldn't want to be Mothman and I wouldn't want to be a myth monster and yes there are times when there is subtext to scripture but the Return of the King of the Kings is not one of them and the day of the Lord is not one of them and the Covenant Promises of God are not metaphors and they were not intended to be and the promised land is not a metaphor and the specific boundaries of that land is defined by God are not metaphors it's actually a covenant so the Throne of David is not a metaphor and the title which Jesus personally applied to himself King of the Jews is not a metaphor Ezekiel 48-48 do not compose one enormous metaphor and which those chapters describe the millennial Temple that's not a metaphor and to subtweet the text like like that and to Gaslight to True Bible Believers is to pervert the very word of God but there is a specific reason that this doctrine of demons is popular in our day and it has to do with the displacement of God's covenant People Israel so it has to do with anti-Semitism because if you can eliminate the Fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham David Jeremiah well then you've broken the word of God and you've in effect broken God uh set the Jews aside set the ni Semitic uh the fact that and I Semitic attack aside you broken God that's you know Lucifer's desire along so second thing I indict them for which leaves us and lands Us in last days on sound Doctrine is that everything but dispensationalism commits identity identity theft they call it fulfillment theology we call it replacement theology because it is the Demonic doctrine that Israel has been completely replaced by the church and the church alone is the new Israel the true Israel and Paul attacks that idea at its root in Romans 9 10 and 11 but remember Covenant and reformed theology is not a product of scripture it is a product of logic and human reasoning now why why do they use their logic and human reasoning to overthrow scripture the answer is because they want the kingdom that they rule to be the one Jesus is bringing in so they've got their Kingdom setting aside any other princes of Kingdoms like the pope and his Catholic one the anglicans have their uh Archbishop of Mayberry who you know crowned a king today did he not yes he did he took the spoon the oldest item they used there was the spoon from William the Conqueror uh well it's probably his baby spoon but but it's in 66 he came over with his baby spoon and he beat who whoever he had to beat to uh take over the British Isles and so he was he they take his spoon and they put the anointing oil in it and don't worry it it is it is green green oil this time it doesn't contain anything from the glands of certain animals that you shouldn't kill and they've changed the uh mixture of it and he took that anointing oil and he anointed before he ever put on the crown of the king he anointed him first behind the screen so you couldn't see what was going on and uh and and then and then they have their Arch Bishop of Mayberry and he uh you know so I you know Canterbury and he he uh who I think happens to be a Evangelical perhaps at this time they alternate between Evangelical and high Church Catholic archbishops alternately because that is the Elizabethan settlement and so uh so they commit identity theft against Israel they just now as if as if the British didn't loot I think most colonies would say that they looted every Colony that they ever ruled uh uh a case in point the Conor Diamond that's button however um you know they they also not only steeled not only stole the diamonds from India and whatever else from other places um they also stole uh steal everything from identity theft against Israel and um you know they say it belongs to the church and all those promises made to Israel really for us and only dispensationalism rightly devised the word of Truth in order to maintain God's integrity and his consistency and his distinction between the church and Israel and to fulfill those promises in his word to the Jews so I don't know if you ever realize that if you are not a dispensationalist then the continued existence of the Jewish people in spite of all the pogroms um throughout all history including the time that Columbus was coming to America including the time of the first world war in in Russia in in including uh obviously second world war under Hitler uh their continued existence in fight in spite of all those final Solutions means nothing which is why the reformed theologians are setting Israel up for another Holocaust in the tribulation because to them what are those people anyway it means nothing The Rebirth of the nation of Israel after 20 centuries means nothing the fact they became a nation 1948 and then regained control of their Capital 19 years later means nothing even though they lost control of capital in 605 BC and removed from their Nation 19 years later still it means nothing and that pair the parallel operations of God's hand in history mean nothing because they are identity thieves so let me take it another further before we leave that topic entirely because in the Islamic perspective about the return of Jesus so it's even a little further than just contemporary theology Jesus has said to return to break the cross and thereby abolish the subjection tax that Christians are made to pay in order to be allowed to live and not be beheaded in a Muslim land so bring break the cross means they become Muslims otherwise Muslims will allow Christians to live if they pay this tax that no mus Muslim has to pay if they don't pay it they get beheaded and well we know how that you know we've seen that uh so okay elsewhere in apocalyptic Prophecy in the Quran the Muslim Jesus will return to kill the dejal the false Jewish King so in essence according to the Islamic narrative Jesus returns to eliminate both Christianity and Judaism now it's hard to describe how biblically perverted that is but if you consider rights perspective and the the reformed theologians perspective and charismatics many and and handergraft's perspective Bible answer man's perspective on the return of Jesus very similar in its perversion because according to him the various passages speaking of the son of man coming in the clouds actually refer to the destruction of Jerusalem in Israel in 1870. so the son of man did come and he destroyed Israel and Jerusalem so both Wright's perspective and the Muslim perspective on the return of Jesus are simply perverted reformed and replaced mythology fantasies having no connection to our blessed hope described in the scriptures these three areas of shift and drift have deluded the promises of God the people of God and the kingdom of God because they have broken the scriptures so the issue is one of ultimate Authority nearly any Doctrine whether it's true or crank can be supported by the church and by history by tradition Church tradition and history probably the most unreliable authorities are the church fathers who came up with replacement theology along with the rabbinic sages who attempted to erase anything that would link Jesus as being Messiah uh you know to anything in the Book of Daniel anyplace else so they wrecked their entire chronology and dating system just so their people would not be able to line up the fact Jesus was the Messiah so what are we going to let our Authority be the testimony of God in scripture or the Scholastic quest of would-be autonomous man um it's you know is is is your Authority Divine or human is it God or self is it man's word or female prophet's word as the case may be or is it divine revelation now I'm sure you know the movie The Wizard of Oz there's this amazing scene where Dorothy the Tin Man the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion all walk down this long Corridor to the Wizard's private chamber and they were previously terrified by the Wizard's awesome face and billowing smoke and explosions inventing steam but now that awesome foursome as timid as they were had liquidated the Wicked Witch of the West and so per command of the whiz they are bringing her broomstick to the Great and Powerful Oz because he gave them a promise that if they brought her broomstick proving they had actually killed her they would get a brain a heart some courage and a trip back to Kansas all expenses paid and laying the broomstick down is proof Dorothy says sir we would like you to keep your promise to us and while us is being evasive and trying to comb him out of his wizardly hair Dorothy's little dog Toto grabs a mouthful of curtains starts to pull it back and that is when the wizard haltingly stammers those classic words pay no attention to that man behind the curtain but it was too late as Dorothy and her friends discovered the Great and Powerful Oz is neither great nor powerful he is just a man he's pushing buttons he's pulling levers he's trying to create an air of authority hyper Calvinism salvation only by election while presented as biblical is a scriptural illusion based on human logic not divine revelation so in our last class today I want to be your Toto no coronation necessary because the best way to tear down errors simply to present truth so the most important topic in the latest CNAs is really biblical Authority period full stop because if you can put any shred of human logic or theological opinion above the Bible then Satan can lock you into a laodicean refrigerator and in that laodiceine refrigerator pastors and churches will forever be lukewarm instead of stirring the fire second Timothy 1 6. so are you colluding with the devil's conspiracy to keep Christianity cold if you are in collusion you need to turn around so that you can have a collision now let me open a window on that word because that means it's not really a course it's even really a class this is a collision and lfbi is the certainty collider hello somebody you've heard of the Large Hadron Collider and it's the most powerful powerful particle accelerator on the planet and that's kind of what this class is as we introduce contemporary theology to our survey of theology because this is what lfbi does uh only we're not a particle accelerator we are a person accelerator and we are the meteor that collides in collision with your planet to give you superpowers and because of our Biblical Authority and our faith-based view of the Bible The Living Faith Fellowship is accelerating Christians to the speed of the Holy Spirit I'm just saying it that that is a meteor that gives you superpowers because the spirit always answers to the words so it's all about biblical Authority God is light but the speed of the spirit is faster than the speed of light because we prepare you to do uh what you know what we prepare you to do is to be accelerated to the speed of thought we want to get you moving at the momentum of the mind of Christ so that sound Doctrine can unrefrigerate you accelerate you and bring you up to the speed of the spirit so we want every particle of Faith active in propelling you out of meat locker Christianity turn to Psalm 138 I've killed the Wicked Witch of the West and you don't have to be scared of the man behind the curtain or the diploma or the degree or the Shady scholarship anymore why because he does not have biblical Authority he may speak in tongues and may believe somebody who prophesies over him that's only proof that he has no biblical Authority he can only create an aura of authority really just an aura of spirituality because he mixes in human logic reason Church tradition I mean he mixes in biblical languages cognate languages research languages and the church father the early church fathers because he doesn't have biblical Authority and uh that adulterates Living Faith and it abandons a faith-based view of the Bible so uh concerning covenant theology if you look at Psalm Psalm 138 Psalm 138 verse 1 I will praise thee with my whole heart before the Gods and the pastors and the professors and the peers will I sing praise unto thee I will worship toward thy Holy Temple and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and for thy truth for thou Hast magnify thy magnify Thy word above all thy name so let me meet you with the definition biblical Authority means the Authority for your living faith and your spiritual practice is derived from God's written word turn to Second Timothy chapter two Authority is not mediated through human institutions and not through any human systems of interpretation or understanding the Bible takes precedence over both tradition and reason in our lives it's not that it's unreasonable it's that you have to use your reason in a faith place so Corey ten Boom concluded one time we can trust God not only above our emotions but also above our thoughts I like Corey ten Boom better than NT Wright's conclusion and I would say that Psalm 138 verse 2 teaches the Bible takes precedence over both tradition and reason in regulating Our Lives and that is the point at which Covenant and reformed theology fails they accept reason based on tradition to govern their view of the Bible and their approach to Bible interpretation so what you better recognize is that any error this is our first point for study any error the devil wants to foist on hapless Believers always comes in some form of dismissal or Distortion of scripture second Timothy Chapter 2 dismiss it by adding or taking it away distorted by resting it twisting it or corrupting it it all started in the garden but it all continued in Alexandria in Egypt and in the lxx the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament and in the western Greek text of the New Testament and that is exactly what their scholarship did to God's words yeah they changed it so many times they think they're helping God out because they can't understand it so they change it it's just like every modern translation of Galatians 2 20 they can't understand what Paul says so it's not that the it's not that the King James mistranslated the Greek it's that they don't understand what it's saying so they change it and and then and then and Scholars like them do that to both the text and the translations which is why second Timothy 2 all the Saints verse 15 must study to show thyself approved unto God a Workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of Truth first what is the history that gets us to theology that is contemporary well uh Johannes caucus was a Dutch theologian uh and a Hebrew scholar in the mid-1600s and he spiritualized the Old Testament and if you're not going to approach the Bible in a way that allows you to interpret itself then being a Dutch Theologian and Scholar you're going to use your human logic and your Ingenuity to build a theology based on inferences and uh and metaphors and in his case his calvinist concept of election and predestination led him to interpret the Bible within the framework of a covenant and his anti-semitic views led him to infer that the church replaced Israel so the idea of covenants became the overarching organizing principle for understanding the flow of the Bible from Old Testament to New Testament for reformed and Covenant theologians and that compendium of curated knowledge known as Wikipedia makes this clarifying statement about covenant theology theology which is also called federalism it says this because covenant theology is based on three covenants now we listed for you the seven Covenants biblically the one's the actual actually the Bible talks about this is not that they because they're not it's not a Biblical theology these three covenants are called here's what here's what they say these three covenants are called theological because though not explicitly presented as such in the Bible they're thought of as theologically implicit describing and summarizing the wealth of scriptural data which means I'm Mr Lynch you're the slave don't you even think about checking out the spiritual data it's overwhelming just trust me historical reform systems of thought treat covenant theology not merely as a point of Doctrine or as a central dogma but as the structure by which the biblical text organizes itself not even by which the biblical text must be understood but but by which it organizes itself and again do not even think about finding and reclaiming Your Righteous Mind you just trust me in this the biblical text organizes itself around three covenants that are not mentioned never mentioned in Scripture now to say that they are not explicitly presented is just an admission that they're not spoken of in the Bible uh Covenant a covenant Theologian would say they're not directly spoken of but to say they are theologically implicit is an admission that they're not explicit and are not like the seven biblical covenants that we showed you so in the final analysis it means they have a theology based on inferences because of their anti-semitism and distrust of God in his truth and the implicit things that they infer and other words they are not stated directly in any verses scripture they are inferred because of those calvinist presuppositions and anti-Semitism in the same way that the Greek Scholars who put together the New Testament text for all the modern translations insert into that text their own conjectures in other words they make it up as they go along now they'll say they have great reasons and just you know don't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain just listen to the big Oz as he says that you know it doesn't matter that we cannot find a Greek text on the planet that says it like that we think we know it should say it like that because of their big brain presuppositions rationalizations and inferences so what are their big three covenants well first they say the Covenant with Adam was a covenant of works excuse me sorry I meant to put that up that's the quote that I was quoting about Calvinism so uh uh first they say the Covenant with Adam was a covenant of works but that only makes sense if Adam was created in a lost State and he was not if Adam was created lost then he needed to be obedient in order to be granted eternal life when an actual fact Adam was created innocent so he could exercise his Free Will and choose to eat of the tree of life so he didn't have to be obedient per se he just had to believe enough to apply God's words to himself and not Edith what he wasn't supposed to eat but I digress sprool and others today without scripture on which to base this infer the existence of a covenant in eternity past between the persons of the Trinity with regard to Redemption so they add secondly a covenant of redemption which precedes both the Covenant works and the cut in the next one the third one after the fall the Covenant of Works being substituted for a Covenant of Grace now you can do that only if you are a calvinist and you do that if you are a calvinist because you allow no option no opportunity for free will it has to be irresistible Grace and uh you know what the Bible actually presents and part of dispensational theology is a trinitarian system based on three things creation ruin and Redemption so there's a Biblical basis for the dispensational structure of the Bible as we charted for you on your handout the structure of Genesis 1 is the key to God's dispensational design of the whole Bible so creation and ruin Redemption and rest and your key word for the quiz is rest resp if you're taking this for credit then you need to know the keyword for the quiz so it's creation redemption in six days and then consummation or rest on the seventh day or Millennium as the case will be so what the Bible is all about is a structure which restores the Divine Kingdom throughout the universe so in the Bible it is history poetry and prophecy Old Testament or history epistle and prophecy New Testament it is an answer to the three great problems of humanity a history of where we come came from an account of spiritual warfare and a prophecy of future Destiny for eternity where did I come from why am I here where am I going those are the three Universal questions of humans and only a dispensational approach to the scriptures gives us those answers so that we can now find meaning to life so I show this to you in this chart of the parallel structure in the Bible Old and New Testaments the calvinist has to eliminate ruin because God could never allow for the free choice of anyone to perpet precipitate ruin there cannot be ruin and our Redemption all there can be is a fatalistic Fiat decree of redemption then creation and works and then Grace which was already contemplated in the Covenant of redemption because there was no free will in Adam about which Rune could be a choice that's not reasonable yeah you know unless you accept a fatalistic presuppositions of Calvinism if you surmise that God started with Redemption to govern everything else like a tractor beam and there never could be a question of Crisis and fall because there's no Free Will and to call for Redemption after the fact as a response to the Free Will of man that's dispensational you can't do that so second point for study Covenant reform theology assumes a covenant of redemption infers a covenant of works with Adam before the fall promising eternal life in exchange for his obedience and accepts a Covenant of Grace providing salvation for only elect Fallen Humanity that way they can say the promises made do not really apply to Israel except spiritually and yet they apply to spiritual Israel the church literally and so you can see how a smart man can twist the Bible upside down and then stand on his head and look at it and say see this is right side up so one of the most popular contemporary Evangelical theologies is reformed theology also called covenant theology or sometimes known as Calvinism what makes us different from them well here's what makes us different what makes a Living Faith Fellowship Church and what we teach you in lfbi different from other churches other schools Bible colleges seminaries universities well first we have biblical Authority the words were inspired not the languages they're men so we need every word given to us Deuteronomy 8 Matthew 4 Luke 4. every word of God is pure you know Psalm 12 proverbs 30 verses 5 and 6 all scripture is given by inspiration of God second Timothy 3 holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost second Peter 1. scripture is made of written words so we know where to find the certainty of the words of truth because our starting point is a faith-based view of the evidence Proverbs 22 verses 19 to 21 and one thing that means is creation not evolution another thing that means is Preservation in other words God promised to preserve his words Matthew 24 35 Mark 13 31 Luke 21 33 where we mess up is we think that the language God originally gave in the words gave the words in was a static representation of his words even though he's already said that his word is only settled in heaven so it's settled in heaven but he gives something on Earth but don't stop there because then he gives us something in our language and since the words were inspired not the languages or men then the Greek or Hebrew manuscripts are not they're not preserved so it can't be there they're not preserved and yet the words meaning the scripture is and scripture may be found in any language therefore our faith-based view of the Bible says that there's the complete in this book we have the complete Mind Of God for man Humanity today because we have his words and while it came through men and two men the words were inspired by one author the holy spirit so we've got a different hermeneutic or way of interpreting the Bible and that means we study the Bible differently than they do if the Bible's the mind of God for Humanity then two corollary truths that flow out of that is that it is self-defining and it's self-interpreting it is self-defining because usage determines meaning so with a concordance and utilizing simple English Bible exegesis you can see how God defines a word from how he uses it in the Bible even without reference to biblical languages cognate languages eucharitic and you know Chaldean research languages German and French and the tradition of the church fathers it is also self-interpreting because all I have to do to understand God's mind is to cross-reference scripture I mean since it's the mind of Christ through the Holy Spirit I can compare scripture with scripture and understand exactly what the author means and yet contemporary evangelicals interpret the Bible from the standpoint of original author intent authorial intent original hearers understanding and it all has to be traced back to original manuscripts which do not exist in any language that's our third point for study because we know we have the words of God in the word of God as we study scripture correctly it makes us have a Biblical dispensational theology not a contemporary Covenant or charismatic theology I took contemporary theology as a senior level course when I was in Bible College and I all the only thing I was taught was the theological modernists and liberals versus the theological conservatives and fundamentalists sort of like us and so this last week of this class I wanted to be more robust and give you something to Encompass every Christian theology out there or at least I think it does all I'm doing is teaching and I'm not even footnoting anything I've written in the past and and but to do this let me describe the two Wings what I see as the two wings of modern contemporary theology on the left wing there are the theological liberals who are not even saved they have a cynical skeptical contemporary theology and so with them you know I have to say you know there are so many other theologies out there um there is there is African and African-American theology there is feminist theology there is lgbtq plus theology there is open theism there is okay so there's if you're going to approach it as a lost person I you know it's a free country and you can make up any theology that you want really I'm going to say it's no better than the Cults um because they deny the same truths that every cult does the Incarnation they deny that Jesus is divine or that you know really he was virgin born they don't believe that he was virgin born or he was resurrected physically and bodily so they they they they deny Incarnation Redemption and Resurrection now on the right wing extremists or what I will say the Catholic charismatics and Calvinists who deny free will and they affirm Grace either through sacraments or through experiences or by unconditional election so this last lesson is where you really get your money's worth I think because we already tied all of the major divisions of systematic theology to discipleship and our discipleship lessons but now we're tying it to how we study the Bible to come up with an understanding of the word of God and especially prophecy which is sure certain and true we said some things about famous Evangelical theologue in t right and how he thinks based on his intimate knowledge of the original languages the cognate language the research languages and the church fathers Israel was an elect Nation so that means if you were born in Israelite God elected you you were part of the elect circumcision was the boundary marker of those who were God's elect therefore baptism is the boundary marker of those who are God's people today so you see how he works Anglican theology right into that thing now you know that clearly justifies infant baptism for them I don't know what that says about you know if if circumcision was the boundary marker in the Old Testament I don't know what the ladies did I'm sorry but um but uh you know infant baptism can certainly be justified because there's no free will in the matter of Salvation anyway just boundary markers of those who are elect so it is convoluted but it's logical given their false assumptions So what had happened was they're really guilty of projection projection is a psychological device for us humans a tribute to someone else what is really negatively true of us so it is blame shifting so reformed theologians accused dispensationalists of believing that the Old Testament was a Works system of salvation when in actual fact they believe in a system of Works sealed by infant baptism and anchored by the ceremony and the sacraments of their particular liturgical system whether Presbyterian Lutheran Evangelical Anglican Methodist reformed now let me open a window on that word man went to duck hunting one time with his boss and boss was unbeliever and both said look you're all the time you're talking about spiritual warfare devil doesn't never do anything to me I don't so I don't even believe you a guy says okay next you know the next flock that comes by let's let's both shoot at it and let's say we each hit a bird and one is alive and one is dead which one are you going after so I'm gonna go after the live one to kill it man said well there you go it's why the devil leaves you alone you're a dead duck reformed theology is dead doc Theology and that is why the attack is on dispensationalism the devil attacks dispensational theology because he does not want the common man or woman with a common Bible to be put in touch with common scripture in such a way that they can figure out Bible principles on their own by rightly dividing so that the word of God starts doing the work for them so the spirit will answer the word they want to keep you from getting back your Righteous Mind um so turn to Proverbs chapter 22 what do I mean by those two phrases biblical Authority and faith-based because a lot of people say they are they are faith-based and so what what are we even talking about well we need a common idea about the meaning of biblical Authority and you need to have a view of the Bible that gives a faith response to God's words instead of approaching them skeptically Proverbs 22 verses 20 and 21 King James says have I not written to the excellent things in counsels and knowledge that I might make thee know the certainty the words of truth now if you don't use the King James Bible you do not know your head from a hole in the ground why because the ESV says have I not written for you 30 sayings to make you know what is right and true NIV have I not written 30 sayings for you teaching you to be honest New Living Translation I've written 30 sayings for you filled with advice and the hbv or Humphrey Humphrey Bogart translation the the message says I'm giving you 30 Sterling principles believe me kid these are truths that work now the only word that I understood is the word kid it doesn't really say the word kid but Bogart would have and I think that sounds like him and so if you don't put your pull your hell head out of the ostrich Hole uh you don't know if you got 30 sayings or you got excellent things and you don't know whether God's teaching to be honest giving you advice making you know what is right or telling you truths that work so you know in The Parting Salvo since we have a few minutes left I want to actually try and give you an example of dispensational theology at work a dispensational study turn to haggai chapter 2 and Zechariah Chapter one I'll mention that up front because that's in the pages of your Bible you've never visited yet and hanging I2 and Zechariah 1 uh maybe maybe this might be a preview of a new course next year because I'd like to maybe do a course on the Minor Prophets but let's do an exercise together because if you follow dispensational teaching then the Bible is going to open up for you none of the commentators from the major Publishers have a clue what the Minor Prophets are saying they don't have a clue for one thing that is because all of these books talk about the second Advent of Jesus and they concerned the king and his coming Kingdom and the wise and wherefores of Jew Gentile in church so commentators give you strictly a grammatical critical historical approach and only a historical you know original author original hearer application and they try and lift something out of the historical as uh you know some application for you today now that's that's only inspirational application out of the historical applications not even a true inspirational application the text itself so their preachers focus on on that historical application to try and you know invent Insight that may or may not even be there in reality your inspirational application has to come from the correct sound doctrinal teaching haggai chapter 2 verse 7 says I will shake All Nations and the desire of all Nations shall come and I will fill this house with Glory saith the Lord of hosts at the time of these last three books haggai Zechariah Malachi and particularly Hagia and Zechariah who prophesied together for 12 years the temple went unfinished the city was done the temple was unfinished they had returned from Exile but but the walls were rebuilt but the temple was not done so God says through haggai the king look the king is coming to fill this house his temple with Glory and this will be the answer to the everything the nations are Desiring and I'm you know among the I don't know it um just uh uh recreational reading I do I'm reading a book about uh rose right now about Roosevelt the soldier I just read one about him Churchill and Stalin the warmongers the war the war Warlords I should say um but you know this is kind of going into what what did we want why were we willing to do what we did even before the Japanese bombed us what what did we want out of World War II the desire of all Nations was exactly what Jesus is going to bring with him so the Jews returned Exiles they're not just building their own Temple they're building a place of universal worship to their God so that Temple is not just a building it's Israel's future it's built around second Advent of Jesus Christ it will be everything that the Nations desire and everything FDR wanted to set up with the new United Nations now this speaks to us because we are to build Christ's body the church and your physical body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost to God's glory and discipleship is for your Eternal future and it comes up against every area of your life and it covers everything you got to deal with and if we do if we do that if we build Christ's body this church and possess our vessel his temple with sanctification and honor we will reign with Jesus inheriting rulership and Eternity we get our crowns at the Judgment seat of Christ now go to Zechariah it's the best book in the Bible and the second coming even though on the surface it looks like one of the hardest books there are things here that don't seem to match up anyplace else and the only way you can understand them is by dispensational theology learn the Bible dispensationally and you can learn your Bible because it involves a division of Jew Gentile in church First Corinthians 10 32 and it involves a stewardship in this dispensation over the Mysteries committed to the church First Corinthians 4 verses 1 and 2. the first rule of dispensational study is that context is King we know that Zechariah is talking to Israel we know his topic is the same as the theme of The Bible which is the king and the kingdom of heaven but to get to that he's got to talk about the coming of the anointed king and like all the other prophets Zechariah does not distinguish between a first coming and a second so we have to because the coming of the king is the day of the Lord so chapter 1 verse 8 I saw By Night Behold a man riding upon a red horse and he stood among the Myrtle trees that were in the bottom and be behind him there were red horses speckled and white four colors total then said I O My Lord what are these and the angel that talked with me said unto me I will show thee what these be and the man that stood among the Myrtle trees answered and said these are they whom the Lord hath sent to walk to and fro through the Earth now stop there's not just one there's not just a one single place in the Bible where the English terms used here match exactly so this is a matter of English Bible exegesis being supplemented with principles of dispensational theology and we know the context the theme in the topic verse 8 says I saw by night and night from a doctrinal standpoint is a Great Tribulation and night from a dispensational and practical standpoint is the church age we now live in so what we are dealing with here is something in the tribulation verse 8 Behold a man riding upon a red horse and he stood among the Myrtle trees that were in the bottom and behind him that were there red horses speckled in white so this kind of matches Revelation 6 and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and Revelation 6 is what starts the beginning of the tribulation it shows us the entrance of the Antichrist and his associates in Revelation 6. but these horses do not match exactly so what you have from this so-called minor Prophet Zechariah is additional information that John did not reveal verse 11 the angel of the Lord stands among the Myrtle trees so that's the Lord Jesus uh it looks like all of these others gather to him Myrtle trees make up the booths for the Feast of Tabernacles Nehemiah 8 15. Myrtle trees will be planted to make the Wilderness bloom in the place of Briars Isaiah 41 19 and 55 13. so they're connected with the restoration of Israel in the Millennium now that part is actually just simple English Bible exegesis and so is this verse 10 and the man that stood among the Myrtle trees answered and said these are they whom the Lord hath sent to walk to and fro through the Earth in Genesis 8 a raven a Bible a picture in Bible type of demons goes to and fro uh in the earth Satan reported to the Lord twice that he was doing the exact same thing which you find here in Job 1 7 and job 2 2. walking to and fro in the earth seeking whom he may devour first Peter 5 8 is the activity of Satan it's a devil thing now turn to Zechariah 2. so these are not physical horses you are dealing with the devil you are dealing with multi-dimensional horses and writers who can walk through the Earth so the key words narrow the doctrinal context giving me additional information I will say somewhat on the Four Horsemen of Revelation 6 who represent death famine and War before the tribulation but I think also the reason why it's different I think it gives further Insight on the Battle of Gog and Magog at the end of the millennium leading into the Eternal State because verse 11 says they find Earth still and at rest exactly like Ezekiel 38 11. now here chapter 2 verse 10 sing and Rejoice O Daughter of Zion for lo I come and I dwell in the midst of thee saith the Lord many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day and shall be my people and I will dwell in the midst of thee and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts has sent me unto thee and the Lord shall inherit Judah his portion in the holy land and shall choose Jerusalem again be silent o All Flesh before the Lord for he is raised up out of his holy habitation that has nothing to do with salvation the Gentiles in the dispensation of Grace which is what all the other commentators will say because they don't know what they're talking about or they're reformed and and Covenant theologians this is actually a description of the millennial dispensation now go to chapter three Revelation 20 verses 11 to 15 describes the great white Throne judgment where the books are opened and anyone not written in the Book of Life is cast into the Lake of Fire well where do you go in the Bible to explain revelation 20. in the Old Testament what is the picture in Bible type of the truth doctrinally of what's happening in Revelation 20. well I'll suggest it's here Zechariah 3 verse 1 and he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him and the Lord said unto Satan the Lord rebuked thee o Satan even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuked thee is not this a brand plucked out of the fire now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and stood before the angel and he answered and spake unto those that stood before him saying take away the filthy garments from him and unto him he said behold I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee and I will clothe thee with change of raiment and I said let them set a fair miter upon his head so they set a fair miter upon his head and clothed him with garments and the angel of the Lord stood by the angel of the Lord protested unto Joshua was saying thus saith the Lord of hosts if thou Wilt walk in my ways and if thou Wilt keep my charge then Thou shalt Altos also judge my house and shall also keep my courts and I will give thee places to walk among these that stand by somebody is standing before God at a judgment someone else is prosecuting attorney to see them perish and the Lord is standing there defending them and he's not rebuking Satan directly but one member of the Trinity is turning the devil over to another member of the Trinity because at this point in the story it could be said that the Lord had not never experienced Temptation I mean what does God know about anything he's asked Adam to do or job or Noah or Abraham or Daniel or anybody else so until the Lord Jesus gave the devil his due by coming to Earth in the flesh and taking on human nature as a man he turns the rebuking over to the father after that he rebukes the Devil Himself even when the agent the devil is using is his most prominent Apostle Luke 4 8 and Matthew 16 23. so here's a high priest named Joshua standing before the Lord Satan is there to resist him because the devil is the accuser of the Brethren he's pointing to Joshua's filthy garments like the filthy rags Isaiah talks about Isaiah 64 6 which represent our iniquity job 15 16 Psalm 14 3. the reply is that Joshua a picture in Bible type of Israel has been saved yet so as by fire through the tribulation he was God's fire brand plucked out of that burning he may have the smell of smoke on him but he did not take the mark so he was not consumed which is actually the symbol for Israel in the Old Testament Israel's symbol is not what they put on their flag today the six-pointed star which may be the star of rimfan um you know the god from the Wilderness wanderings acts 7 43 the real symbol for Israel is the burning bush Exodus 3 verses 2 and 3 because they are the Lord's Firebrand they they burn and don't get burned up uh now Zechariah 4 Joshua gets a change arraignment he's admonished to walk with the Lord in his ways he does that he's rewarded with a position of judgment so out of the second coming of Christ comes the millennial reign of Christ leading to Eternity with Christ and this is not Church age Christians it's the nation of Israel The Book of Life is for Israel Revelation 2015. the books plural are the books of Works to judge the unsaved dead Revelation 20 verse 12. my name and hopefully your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life Revelation 21 27. that doesn't appear here in this judgment and those who were written in the book of life like they were alive one time if they don't accept Jesus their name is erased out of the book of life and okay that's it so but we don't have to worry about the book of life we have to worry about the Lamb's Book of Life uh Zechariah 4 and the angel that verse 1 and the angel that talked with me came again and waked me as a man has waked wakened out of his sleep and said unto me what see you sound I said I've looked and behold a Candlestick all gold Bull on the top of it is seven lamps there on seven pipes to the seven lamps uh verse 32 olive trees by it one upon the right side of the bowl the other on the left so I answered and spake to the angel to talk to me saying what are these my Lord uh verse 11 then answered I and said unto him what are these two olive trees he doesn't get the answer right away what are these two olive trees on the right side of the Countess candles taken on the left side thereof and I answered again and and said unto him what what be these two Olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves and he answered and sentenced to me knowest thou not what these be and I said no my Lord Ben said he these are the two anointed ones that stand by the lord of the whole earth that confusing chapter unless you read your Bible and interpret it dispensationally context is either tribulation second coming or Millennium verse 7 says a mountain shall become a plane that matches Isaiah 40 verses 1 to 5 as a reference to the second Advent now turn to Revelation 11 keep finger here in Zechariah Revelation 11 this Vision shows the two olive trees with two Olive branches and a pipeline of gold which delivers oil to the Candlestick which has seven lamps so it's the menorah and this is a picture in Bible type of the two anointed Woods in Revelation 11 two prophets who witnessed during the last half of the tribulation Revelation 11 verse 4. These are the two olive trees and the two candlesticks standing before the god of the Earth these are the same two witnesses who stood by the Lord on the Mount of transfiguration Matthew 17. GA on in that moment Jesus Shine Like the Sun a picture of Christ at his second Advent Peter James and John know that this is second Advent stuff they know Jesus is going to return it to Feast of Tabernacles so they offer to make three Tabernacles Matthew 17 4 they knew their Bible they knew the last book of their Bible said Elijah was going to appear before the day of the Lord Malachi 4 5 and lo and behold here he is and and to really they knew that Malachi 4 4 said Remember the law of Moses and behold here he is these two stand before the Lord of the whole Earth so two men appear there with Jesus because in the mouth of two or three Witnesses it has to be confirmed that Jesus is perfect man Deuteronomy 19 15. one Witnesses Moses the other one is Elijah one represents the Law the others the prophet says no it's all covered he did it all I have no complaints both of them are satisfied and yet they cannot get out of limbo unless Jesus accomplishes his decease at Jerusalem Luke 9 verse 31. the Rapture takes place the Earth the the church is out of here the Antichrist confirms the Mosaic covenants to the Jews so they can offer sacrifices and for the first three and a half years everything is hoity-toity and but in the middle of Daniel's 70th week he breaks that Covenant he stops the sacrifices so he can set up his own image and be worshiped as God and Matthew 24 Jesus tells them when they see that abomination of desolation when they see him put his image as God to be worshiped in the temple they need to flee immediately to the wilderness because God has a plan to save that remnant of Jews and he sends down those two men uh Moses and Elijah to take care of them and Zechariah 5 we may have to end with this one Zechariah 5. so Moses and Elijah come they do the same Miracles they did before before they died right and before Elijah went to heaven in in the Whirlwind and Chariot of fire Elijah shuts heaven so it doesn't rain Moses turns the water that is Left Behind to blood and they lead the remnant of Israel down through the tribulation you say well I don't believe it could be that easy well neither did the king of Syria whatever Elisha Elijah's successor Elisha smote his SEAL Team Six with blindness and sent them back and when he relayed two when when Elisha relayed to his own peeps everything the king of Syria said in his bed chamber even more accurately than Alexa so no I think this will be feasible Zechariah 5 verse 7 we'll end with this I think and behold there was lifted up a talent of lead and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah and he said this is wickedness and he casted into the midst of the epha and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof then lifted eye up mine eyes and looked behold there came out two women and the wind was in their wings for they had wings like the wings of a stork and they lifted up the IFA between the Earth and the heaven so now this is a UFO here is a woman in a bushel basket two more women with the wind beneath their wings the context is either tribulation second coming or millennium well the woman in the IFA is not Wicked she is wickedness so she matches the Queen of Heaven in Jeremiah 44. she was worshiped in the Old Testament as asterath the consort of Baal judges 2 John calls her mystery Babylon the great the mother of harlots and Abominations Revelation 17 5. the other two women have the wings of an unclean bird Leviticus 11 19. they hold the woman in the ephah off to shinar according to verse 11. shine R was where the tower Babel was built which is Babylon and there she is set upon a pedestal like a statue so this is that false prophetess the woman Jezebel Revelation 2 20. so all that to say that Disney Pixar and Spielberg have nothing on the Bible chapter 7 8 9 10 all have to do with the tribulation second coming in millennium uh what it will be like when the Antichrist breaks the Covenant that he confirms with the many Daniel only mentions it but what takes place well complete picture is Zechariah 11 verses 7 to 13. the Antichrist breaking that Covenant he was a murderer from the beginning how does he destroy people Zechariah 11 15 to 17 verse 17 just just focus verse 17 last thing he will be a shepherd of Idols i-d-o-l no other translation gets that right they all cover for him they call him Idol idle not Idol um but he will cause the world to worship His images he is the idol shepherd He will prosper by Craft Daniel 8 25 which is related to Craftsmen making images Acts 19 25 verse 17 he has a bad arm and a bad right eye why because he had a fatal wound Revelation 13 verses 3 and 12 from a sword Revelation 13 14 he gets a head wound that kills him and then this man of sin becomes the Son of Perdition by being possessed by Satan and raised from the dead and yet he Bears the marks of his death only not on his hands or his side but in his eye because it put his eye out okay don't don't get the Red Rider BB gun with you know with compass in the stock because you'll shoot your eye out and that's what happened well had other things we could say but what what a great place to end I mean even so come Lord Jesus and one day before then the Rapture is going to take place and after that the man of sin is revealed and everything will be hoity-toity for three and a half years and you won't even miss us you won't even miss me being gone but then the tribulation starts and everything the Antichrist does to the Jews God does 10 times over for worshiping the Antichrist and belonging to him by way of taking his mark the Antichrist owns you so everything the Antichrist do unto the Jews God's going to do to the Gentiles and to this planet and and the one thing sitting at the right hand of God will leave his throne in the third heaven and he will descend with his armies of saints to be glorified in them and with them and he will rescue the remnants who call and Believe on him and he will return in glory and power to destroy the Nations and the armies of the son of the Destroyer Son of Perdition son of apollyon son of the destroyer and this one who comes back and we come back with him shall reign for ever and ever and the scriptures cannot be broken my time is up I thank you for yours let's pray father I thank you again for the 16 weeks we've shared together in looking at sound Doctrine as it supports biblical discipleship and in looking at dispensational theology as it knocks every other contemporary theology out of the ring um God we've all we're the only ones I don't know what else to say it's not a matter of Pride it's a matter of humility because we should have had other people on our side a long time ago with the gospel and with the word of God and by the power of the spirit and Lord we're the ones who have failed and so father I pray make us fire brands in the midst of this Burning give us the ability not to be burned but rather to be a light and to uh to be something that will lift others uh up to be with the Lord Jesus when when they die or when he comes back as well so father we ask these things because Jesus is so worthy we ask it in his precious and Powerful name amen foreign