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Voddie Baucham - Which View of Eschatology is Correct? · Voddie Baucham Sermons

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  Speaker 1: Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding
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  Speaker 1: in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and
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  Speaker 1: a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent,
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  Speaker 1: who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for
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  Speaker 1: a thousand years and threw him into the pit and
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  Speaker 1: shut it and sealed it over him so that he
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  Speaker 1: might not deceive the nations any longer. until the thousand
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  Speaker 1: years were ended. After that, he must be released for
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  Speaker 1: a little while. Then I saw thrones, and seated on
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  Speaker 1: them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed.
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  Speaker 1: Also I saw the souls of those who had been
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  Speaker 1: beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word
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  Speaker 1: of God, and those who had not worshipped the beast
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  Speaker 1: or its image and had not received its mark on
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  Speaker 1: their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and
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  Speaker 1: reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of
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  Speaker 1: the dead did not come to life until the thousand
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  Speaker 1: years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and
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  Speaker 1: holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection.
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  Speaker 1: Over such, the second death has no power, but they
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  Speaker 1: will be priests forever. of God and of Christ, and
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  Speaker 1: they will reign with him for a thousand years. And
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  Speaker 1: when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released
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  Speaker 1: from his prison and will come out to deceive the
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  Speaker 1: nations that are at the four corners of the earth,
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  Speaker 1: Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number
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  Speaker 1: is like the sand of the sea. And they marched
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  Speaker 1: up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded
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  Speaker 1: the camp of the saints. and the beloved city. But
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  Speaker 1: fire came down from heaven and consumed them. And the devil,
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  Speaker 1: who had deceived them, was thrown into the lake of
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  Speaker 1: fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were.
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  Speaker 1: And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
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  Speaker 1: Then I saw a great white throne and him who
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  Speaker 1: was seated on it. From his presence, earth and sky
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  Speaker 1: fled away. And no place was found for them. And
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  Speaker 1: I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne.
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  Speaker 1: And books were opened. Then another book was opened, which
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  Speaker 1: is the book of life. And the dead were judged
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  Speaker 1: by what was written in the books according to what
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  Speaker 1: they had done. And the sea gave up the dead
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  Speaker 1: who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the
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  Speaker 1: dead who were in them. And they were judged. each
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  Speaker 1: one of them according to what they had done. Then
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  Speaker 1: death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.
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  Speaker 1: This is the second death, the lake of fire. And
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  Speaker 1: if anyone's name was not found written in the book
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  Speaker 1: of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
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  Speaker 1: Revelation chapter 20 poses many difficulties, not least of which
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  Speaker 1: is its placement. Its placement after Revelation 19 can make
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  Speaker 1: it a bit confusing, since in Revelation 19, we seem
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  Speaker 1: to have had an end of all things and an
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  Speaker 1: end of judgment. But we've seen this before, have we not?
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  Speaker 1: Where we see the culmination of God's righteous judgment and
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  Speaker 1: then a recapitulation, if you will, or a retelling of
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  Speaker 1: this picture of God's righteous judgment. Here in chapter 20,
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  Speaker 1: I believe we have another such recapitulation, another retelling of
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  Speaker 1: God's righteous judgment, but from a different perspective. And so,
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  Speaker 1: as we see these four vignettes in Revelation chapter 20,
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  Speaker 1: we see a picture of of what God is doing
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  Speaker 1: and how God is judging and how God will judge
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  Speaker 1: the world in finality. But the picture here becomes more
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  Speaker 1: specific as we see how he deals with Satan himself
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  Speaker 1: and what the ultimate end of Satan, the unholy trinity,
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  Speaker 1: and those who accept Mark looks like. Today, what we
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  Speaker 1: deal with is those first three verses. And in those
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  Speaker 1: first three verses, we're introduced to perhaps the most controversial
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  Speaker 1: idea in Christianity, the idea of the millennium, the millennial
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  Speaker 1: reign of Christ. We'll find it very interesting for a
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  Speaker 1: number of reasons, not least of which is you won't
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  Speaker 1: see any of the specificity here with which people talk
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  Speaker 1: about the millennial reign of Christ. None of it. It's
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  Speaker 1: just not here. This idea of the thousand years and
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  Speaker 1: what's happening during that thousand years, not very specific at all.
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  Speaker 1: It's just mentioned in a sort of matter-of-fact way. But
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  Speaker 1: we'll look at it here and make some observations. Look
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  Speaker 1: at those first three verses again. Then I saw an
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  Speaker 1: angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the
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  Speaker 1: key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And
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  Speaker 1: he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the
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  Speaker 1: devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years
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  Speaker 1: and threw him into the pit and shut it and
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  Speaker 1: sealed it over him so that he might not deceive
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  Speaker 1: the nations any longer until the thousand years were ended.
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  Speaker 1: After that, he must be released for a little while.
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  Speaker 1: I want to introduce this idea. There'll be more said
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  Speaker 1: about it on the next week, but I want to
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  Speaker 1: introduce this idea. First of all, let's understand. This is
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  Speaker 1: not the gospel, but in other words, there are respected
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  Speaker 1: scholars who hold each of the various eschatological positions concerning
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  Speaker 1: the millennium that we've discussed up to this point and
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  Speaker 1: we'll discuss today. And they are respected scholars. Our confession,
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  Speaker 1: like all the confessions, leaves room for disagreement here. Our
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  Speaker 1: confession doesn't say, here's the particular millennial view that you
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  Speaker 1: must hold. No confession does that, because we recognize that
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  Speaker 1: there are differing views. Nevertheless, there is a new test
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  Speaker 1: of eschatological orthodoxy that has arisen in recent days. As
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  Speaker 1: we've said throughout our time in Revelation, dispensational premillennialism dominates
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  Speaker 1: the current landscape. It is assumed by most Christians that
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  Speaker 1: that's the way you view the end times. This has
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  Speaker 1: risen in popularity because of a number of things, not
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  Speaker 1: least of which are these. The Scofield Study Bible, which
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  Speaker 1: was the earliest of the study Bibles with study notes,
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  Speaker 1: and it was written from a dispensational premillennial perspective. So
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  Speaker 1: people now had a study Bible that was telling them
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  Speaker 1: what these things meant, and this study Bible was from
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  Speaker 1: that perspective. The rise of Dallas Theological Seminary, which has
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  Speaker 1: produced numerous scholars, and the difference is that Dallas Seminary,
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  Speaker 1: unlike most seminaries over the years, has been very specific
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  Speaker 1: in and particular as to what is appropriate eschatology. And
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  Speaker 1: they have been unwavering in promoting the idea of dispensational premillennialism.
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  Speaker 1: The Bible college movement, which accompanied Dallas Seminary, but moved
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  Speaker 1: down into the college level to teach from a same perspective.
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  Speaker 1: The Zionist movement, which connected these things with Israel, and
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  Speaker 1: also popular literature like the late great planet Earth. Anybody
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  Speaker 1: who's eating hands out there, late great planet Earth, or
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  Speaker 1: I won't say who it was, who just sheepishly put
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  Speaker 1: their hand up in the back like this, like the
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  Speaker 1: late great planet Earth, or the Runaway hit series Left Behind,
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  Speaker 1: which was only supposed to be a couple of books long,
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  Speaker 1: but it was so huge that It was ginormous. So
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  Speaker 1: they just kept producing book after book after book in
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  Speaker 1: this series that was only supposed to be, I believe
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  Speaker 1: it was supposed to be maybe three books in the series.
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  Speaker 1: And because of that, people have set in their minds
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  Speaker 1: a particular understanding of the end times. My first ministry position,
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  Speaker 1: I faced this. I did not have a sort of
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  Speaker 1: set in stone vision eschatological position and was really overwhelmed
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  Speaker 1: by all of it. I was a new seminarian in
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  Speaker 1: my first year in seminary, and I was going to
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  Speaker 1: interview for this particular job. And I understood when I
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  Speaker 1: sat in that interview that there was room for disagreement
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  Speaker 1: on philosophy of ministry. I could have a different philosophy
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  Speaker 1: of ministry when I was in that interview. I knew that.
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  Speaker 1: I had talked to people about that. I knew that
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  Speaker 1: there was room for disagreement on spiritual gifts. I knew that,
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  Speaker 1: that this church had a particular position on spiritual gifts.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't have to hold to that position on spiritual gifts.
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  Speaker 1: There was room for disagreement on the role of women
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  Speaker 1: in ministry. I knew that. The church that I had
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  Speaker 1: come from before I went to seminary in Fort Worth
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  Speaker 1: had a different position than this particular church that I
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  Speaker 1: was interviewing with. That wasn't going to be a deal breaker.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't a big deal. However, there was no room
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  Speaker 1: for disagreement on eschatology. If I sat in that interview
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  Speaker 1: and said that I held to anything other than dispensational
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  Speaker 1: premillennialism and a pre-tribulation rapture, I would not have gotten
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  Speaker 1: that position. Period. All those other things were negotiable. This
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  Speaker 1: one was not. Nor is this my experience alone. Listen
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  Speaker 1: to this from Kim Riddlebarger. He writes, another problem encountered
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  Speaker 1: when examining this subject is that discussions of it often
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  Speaker 1: generate a great deal of heat, but not very much light.
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  Speaker 1: One local prophecy pundit has quipped that the people in
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  Speaker 1: heaven with the lowest IQs will be amillennial. Hal, late
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  Speaker 1: great Lindsay, goes so far as to label amillennialism as anti-Semitic, demonic,
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  Speaker 1: and heretical. It is not uncommon to hear prophecy teachers
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  Speaker 1: label amillennial Christians as liberal or accuse them of not
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  Speaker 1: taking the Bible literally. Sam Storms, a graduate of Dallas Seminary,
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  Speaker 1: who moved gradually away from the dispensational premillennialism that he
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  Speaker 1: was taught. The first thing that went for him was
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  Speaker 1: the idea of a pre-trib rapture. He just couldn't hold
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  Speaker 1: it together, even before he left seminary. And then the
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  Speaker 1: rest of it sort of caved. And he talks about
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  Speaker 1: his experience in this regard. He says, it wasn't long
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  Speaker 1: before Ladd, Hoikema, and Gundry together with a few others,
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  Speaker 1: had persuaded me that there is no basis in Scripture
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  Speaker 1: for pre-tribulational rapture of the church. That was, in the
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  Speaker 1: eyes of many, bad enough. Indeed, I distinctly recall the horror,
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  Speaker 1: trust me, horror is by no means an exaggerated term
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  Speaker 1: to describe the reaction I received, in my church when
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  Speaker 1: I made it known that I could no longer embrace
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  Speaker 1: pre-tribulational rapture. More than a few were convinced that that
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  Speaker 1: I was well on my way into theological liberalism. But
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  Speaker 1: when in the early 1980s, I abandoned premillennialism in all
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  Speaker 1: its forms, public reaction was such that you would have
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  Speaker 1: sworn I had committed the unpardonable sin. I'm not suggesting
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  Speaker 1: that all or even the majority of dispensational premillennialists feel
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  Speaker 1: this way today. I hope and pray that few do.
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  Speaker 1: But the atmosphere in the 1970s and 1980s and again,
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  Speaker 1: my experience was in the 1990s, was something less than
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  Speaker 1: amicable for those who departed from the accepted eschatological faith.
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  Speaker 1: So while I say to you, this is not an
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  Speaker 1: issue central to our understanding of the gospel, know that
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  Speaker 1: this is an issue of importance. of more importance to
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  Speaker 1: some than to others. Nor do I argue that it
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  Speaker 1: shouldn't be held as something that is very important. This
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  Speaker 1: will say much about the way you read the scriptures
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  Speaker 1: as a whole. It'll say much about the way you
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  Speaker 1: view the Great Commission. It'll say much about the way
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  Speaker 1: that you view geopolitics. It will influence the way you
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  Speaker 1: view culture. And it will influence the way that you
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  Speaker 1: view the future. So it is of consequence. So as
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  Speaker 1: we look at this, keep those two things in mind. One,
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  Speaker 1: we're not talking about something that is central or cardinal doctrine.
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  Speaker 1: But two, we are talking about something with a great
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  Speaker 1: deal of significance to all of us as believers.