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About Jesus - Steve Sweetman
My
Prophetic Path Are you
ready for the Battle of Armageddon?
These words haunted my six year old Evangelical Fundamentalist
soul. How did my grandmother
Sweetman expect me to respond to her question? The
thought of being blown to smithereens in a war that would obliterate
humanity scared the hell out of me, but that was probably the intent of
her question. How was I to
enjoy my childhood when I feared being hurled into the last great war,
or worst still, being burned alive in the Along
with my grandmother's Battle of Armageddon, was dad's Great Tribulation,
the anti-Christ, God's wrath, fire and brimstone, and most importantly, June,
1967 confirmed it. After All
alone in my bedroom, in February, 1970, Jesus rescued me from my
ever-present, guilt-ridden obsession to get saved every other Sunday.
There was no emotion, just an inner assurance of salvation that
inspired me to a serious study of the Bible.
In part, that led me to Hal Lindsey's The Late Great Planet
Earth. I soon realized that
I'd never see 1975. There'd
be no marriage, not even one evening of ecstatic joy.
"This
is the last big purchase of my life," were my exact words when my
friend and I left Radio Shack in 1973 with my two new Realistic stereo
speakers. I could now enjoy
better quality sounding music as I waited for the rapture, or if Lindsey
was wrong, my martyrdom during the Great Tribulation.
In 1974
Dave MacPherson's books, "The Late Great Pre Trib Rapture" and
"The Unbelievable Pre Trib Rapture" caused me to question
Lindsey's Futuristic approach to the Book of Revelation.
I learned that John Darby (born 1800, died 1882) was the father
of today's Prophetic Futurist, pre-trib rapture, doctrine.
Now, with no pre-trib rapture, I'd join those martyred souls of
Revelation 6:9 who in agony constantly scream to God for justice.
In 1975
I discovered that my two favourite Bible teachers, Derek Prince and
Malcolm Smith, held opposing prophetic views.
That put me in one prophetic pickle of a mess, but then came
Maxwell Whyte, a prominent During
the mid 1980's I was a somewhat confused Prophetic Historicist, but with
one nagging irritation, and that was the
By 1988
my pile of prophetic scenarios was ready to topple over, and I didn't
feel like cleaning up the mess, so I almost gave up my pursuit of
prophecy, but I couldn't. I
had inherited that Sweetman prophetic gene, something my pastor friend
told me was evident after hearing of dad's life at his funeral in 2001.
Prior to then, I told my pastor friend who rejected By 1995
I was well aware of the main prophetic scenarios.
I was determined to reach my own conclusions.
I began my search in Genesis, where it should begin.
I worked my way through the Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic
Covenant, the Davidic Covenant, and the prophets.
A good hermeneutical approach to the study of Biblical prophecy
must never begin with the last book of the Bible, but that's where most
want to start their search.
It took
me about 10 years, but I finally fell on dad's side of the prophetic
fence. It's sad to say, but
dad died before I could tell him that the prophetic wall of separation
between us had fallen. Like
dad, I was now a Prophetic Futurist, with the acknowledgement that all
prophetic positions have their problems.
Unlike dad, I can not hold to his dogmatism.
A
bouncing ball doesn't bounce forever.
Sooner or later it settles down to rest.
My prophetic bouncing days are over.
That doesn't mean my prophecy ball doesn't roll around a bit as
my prophetic path shifts beneath my feet.
I have my eschatological leanings, but I'm not consumed by the
slightest hint of the Battle of Armageddon.
Until the future becomes the present, I'm engaged in the work of
the Lord, as is required of us all (Luke 19:13).
This
commentary is based on the 1994 edition of the New International Version
of the Bible. The chapter
titles herein correspond with the NIV's chapter titles, making for
easier comparison. Before
I say anything, I'd like to say that Biblical prophecy in its fine
details is difficult to figure out and understand.
It's my thinking that we won't understand prophecy, and the book
of Revelation, until it is completely fulfilled.
By saying this I don't mean to suggest that we shouldn't study
prophecy because we should.
I've
heard it said that those who study Biblical prophecy are too heavenly
minded to be of any earthly good. In
other words, if you're thinking of the future, you're of little value in
the present. I suggest that
those who understand the seriousness of end time events, including the
Great White Throne Judgment and the The
Bible allots a huge chunk of its pages to prophecy.
That fact alone makes it important.
Israelis in the Old Testament didn't think it was important.
They ignored it and thus missed their Messiah when He came to
them. I wouldn't want that
to happen to you. Many
of those who oppose the study of prophecy will tell you that every
generation throughout history has believed Jesus would return in their
generation, and that is pretty much the case.
By saying this, though, they suggest that the study of prophecy
is futile. "Whatever
happens will happen," or so they say.
"So don't concern yourself with the future."
My answer to that is this. "So
what! What does that have to
do with anything?" The
fact that every generation has looked forward to their beloved Lord's
return is commendable, or so I think.
I suggest we should be anticipating the return of Jesus along
with all of the other generations. Romans
8:18 to 21 tells us that even creation is eagerly anticipating, even
groaning, Jesus' return. If
created things look forward to His return, shouldn't we?
We
all like a blessing from time to time.
Well, Revelation 1:3 tells us that if we take the book of
Revelation to heart, we'll be blessed.
We forfeit this blessing by saying prophecy is too tough to
figure out, so why try. "There
are so many differing opinions, how can anyone know what's right
anyway," it is sometimes said.
There are the various views.
I get that, but this reasoning is both irrational and illogical.
Experts in every field of endeavor have differing opinions on
everything. We don't expect
them to shut down their research just because of these differences.
If we took this approach to life, none of us would have graduated
from elementary school, let alone high school or university.
You don't give up on grade one math because you don't understand
university math. You start
at the beginning. You take
one step at a time until full understanding comes.
In
Mark 13:33 Jesus commands us to watch and pray for the events that end
this age. He is telling us
to pay attention to what's happening in the world around us.
Watch for the prophetic signs that point to the end.
Once we see these end time signs, we pray about them.
Of course, if you don't know the signs to watch for you'll miss
them, and you certainly won't be praying about them.
It's like driving a car. If
you don't know what the road signs mean, you will not be around long
enough to learn them. In
John 16:33 Jesus foretold certain events that would shortly transpire in
His life and in the lives of His followers.
Jesus admitted that His disciples didn't understand what He was
predicting, but He predicted them anyway.
He did so for one specific reason.
Once His predictions came true, the disciples would recall His
words and then they would both understand and react accordingly.
Jesus was giving them a heads up on the future so they could be
prepared for that which would come their way.
This is why the Bible is full of prophetic predictions that we
should know about. Without
the knowledge of the prophecies there is no recollection of them.
Without the recollection there is no understanding.
Without the understanding there is no appropriate response.
Hosea
6:4 states that lack of such knowledge destroys God's people.
This lack of knowledge destroyed I could probably scrape up a few more reasons why Biblical prophecy is important, but I'm sure you get my point. Jesus forewarns us of many things that lie ahead of us. If He has taken the time to tell us these things, we should take the time to listen to what He has said. To
begin this commentary I point out the warning of Revelation 22:18 that
states we dare not tamper with the prophetic nature of this book.
With this in mind, I do not claim to have the full understanding
about the prophecies found in the last book of the Bible. There
are far more educated men than I who have written on the book of
Revelation. I simply say
this: "Consider what I say and the Lord give you the understanding
in all things." If I am
in error in anything I say or write may Jesus forgive me and correct me.
If I am correct in anything I say or write may we all be blessed.
There
are four historical view-points in how to approach the interpretation of
Revelation. The Idealist view-point merely sees Revelation as a symbolic
struggle between good and evil, with no real time frame in mind.
The Preterist view-point interprets Revelation as a symbolic
vision of what happened to the church and the world in the first
century. The Historic view-point interprets the events of Revelation as
certain events that have taken place, and will take place in the church
age. The Futurist view-point
is that this Revelation is about what takes place in the few short years
before the return of Christ. I
hold to the Prophetic Futurist view point.
I do understand some of the proofs given for the other viewpoints
of which some are somewhat convincing, but still; I understand the
events of Revelation to be futuristic.
To
understand the book of Revelation you need a good understanding of Old
Testament prophecy that goes back as far as Genesis 3:15 where God
predicted the Saviour who would rescue man from his fall from grace.
Beyond that, I believe we need to understand the Abrahamic Covenant,
which I won't explain here because I've done that elsewhere.
I'll simply say that we need to understand that covenant as
Abraham understood it, not as Replacement Theologians have understood it
over the years, meaning that Christians and the church are now the
recipients of the covenantal promises, and not the Jews.
The promises in this covenant predicted a day when The
book consists of a vision that John received from Jesus while on the Concerning
the dating the book of Revelation many, if not most today, place the
dating of Revelation in or around 95 A D.
Those who believe that the book relates the history of the
first generation church, that is, the Preterist view, are forced to
believe this book was written around 64 A D, but again, in my view, as
well as the view of many others, this is highly unlikely.
We
should note the writing style of the book of Revelation.
Although it is written in Greek it is Hebrew orientated.
It has been said that there are at least 285 references to the
Old Testament within the book. All of the imagery and idioms are Hebrew.
I believe this is important because the last seven years of this
age is all about two things. One
is that the nations of this world are judged, and, two, Although
it is not popular these days, some commentators understand the book of
Revelation to be written to and about There
are three basic questions that one must ask when studying the book of
Revelation. The first
question the needs to be asked is: "Is what I am reading a symbol
or is it literal?" In
some cases the answer to this question is easy to answer because the
text itself will explain what the symbol is.
If the text doesn't answer this question for you, then it's up to
you to dig around for the answer. One
thing needs to be understood at this point and that if something is a
symbol, most of these symbols can be seen, or, they're alluded to, in
the Old Testament. When
thinking of these symbols, or signs as they're often called, we should
think of these signs as if they were road signs.
We shouldn't think of them as symbols to represent something.
Signs point to something. The signs you see in Revelation point
to something as well. The
second question to be asked is: "When does what I read take place
in human history?" Of
course, as I've already pointed out, the answer to this question has
been well debated over the years. Still,
in order for you to formulate your view of the book of Revelation for
yourself, you must answer this question. I
will speak to this in greater detail later.
I'll only say one thing at this point, and that is this.
In the visions found in Revelation John is transported into the
future. Therefore, any
reverence to the present tense found in the text should not be
understood to be in John's day but in the future day that John is seeing
in the vision. You may not
understand the significance of this point now, but you will later as you
continue to read.
The
third question that should be asked is; "To whom is being spoken of
in the text?" The
majority view among Prophetic Futurists is that the seven letters of
chapters two and three are directed to seven first-century, churches,
but that could be questionable. As
some think, and as you will see later, they might well be directed to
Jewish communities during the tribulation period.
How you understand to whom Revelation is written to will
determine much of your understanding of the specific prophecies in the
book. The seven letters may
be written to and about Jews, not the church.
These
three questions are hard questions to answer.
You need to have an understanding of the various views of
Revelation. You need to know
a bit of history, especially Old Testament history, since much of what
you read in Revelation stems from the Old Testament.
One
last thing to think about is all the weird things we see in Revelation.
For example, we see the four living beasts, other weird looking
characters, and, even the New Jerusalem. We
cannot discount these weird things because they don't seem to fit into
our present reality. We must
remember that John is transported into a different dimension that looks
nothing like the time, space, earth we live in today.
The weird things you see might well be real, not merely symbols
of things that we might be familiar with.
It
will take much time to begin to understand the prophecy of this book,
so, let's try to begin now.
Many
new Christians want to jump right into the book of Revelation, but that
is futile. The following are
a few preliminary points to consider before you even attempt to think
about understanding the most difficult to understand book in the Bible. First
of all, you should have a good understanding of basic Biblical
interpretation rules. This
is called Hermeneutics. It
is the process by which we understand anything someone says from their
viewpoint, not from our own viewpoint.
Biblical hermeneutics includes a number of common sense rules or
principles of common communication, like taking things in their context.
When it comes to Revelation, context means placing the contents
of the book in its proper Biblical setting as a whole, which is, the
last book of the Bible. That
would mean, what precedes the last book of the Bible cannot be ignored
in your attempt to understand the book.
You
cannot understand Revelation without having a good grasp of the Old
Testament. The problem with
the modern day church is that it tells new Christians to ignore the Old
Testament until you have a half decent grasp of the New Testament.
That doesn't work when it comes to Revelation because Revelation
is as I've said, the last book in a long list of prophetic writings.
If you don't know what comes before Revelation you certainly
won't know and understand what's in Revelation, especially sense
Revelation has at least 285 allusions to the Old Testament, or so they
say. In
the process of understanding the Old Testament, you must realize that
all the Old Testament books are important, not just the prophetic books.
The books of the law, that is, the Law of Moses (Genesis, Exodus,
Deuteronomy, Leviticus and Numbers) have their prophetic element to
them. They are, thus,
important.
In
your attempt to understand the Old Testament you'll soon discover a lot
of history, especially Jewish history.
You cannot understand Revelation without knowing some Old
Testament Jewish history, and really, history up to our present day.
There is much in Revelation that is historical in nature,
including names of cities. That
would suggest some historic geographical knowledge is important as well.
One
very important thing to come to grips with concerns Besides
what we call the Abrahamic Covenant, there is also the Mosaic and the
Davidic Covenant that must be understood.
Again, there are varying views on the historic importance and
prophetic meaning to these two covenants.
In
the process of understanding the above, you should have some knowledge
of the major views of Biblical Prophecy, which by the way includes the
four major views of the book of Revelation.
While
attempting to apply hermeneutics to your Bible study, there are some
other things you will have to decide upon.
One is how you approach any text in the Bible.
Does the particular text that you're reading need to be
understood literally, symbolically, or, allegorically?
This is real important in studying Revelation.
Should you take its contents literally as possible, or, should
you view it symbolically or allegorically?
Along
with this, you will have to form your opinion on numbers found in the
Bible. Are they to be
understood literally or do they have some special meaning?
This is especially important when studying Revelation since there
are a variety of numbers found in the book.
What do they mean in light of Biblical numerology? It
sure helps to have access to some kind of text that can help you with
Greek and Hebrew. It's also
good to use more than one version of the Bible.
It is next to impossible to translate the Bible into English
without imposing some theological bias into the translating process.
It would also be good to have access to a text that could help
you with idioms of the day in which the text was originally written.
As
I stated in my introduction, it is somewhat important to know when
Revelation was written, and, there is diversity of thinking on that
point. There's even
diversity of thinking what particular John actually penned the book.
Was it John the Apostle or was it John the Elder, or, where these
two John's the same John? Really,
there is diversity on pretty much every point in the book of Revelation.
I could probably add to this list of preliminaries, and, at some
point I probably will, but at least for the moment, this will get you
started in the right direction. Someone
recently told me that he wanted to get into the book of Revelation and
study it. I began to tell
him just some of what I've said in this section.
He interrupted me and told me that he had just changed his mind
about studying Revelation. Whatever
your take on the book is, the following is my verse by verse thoughts as
I presently think, with the emphasis on the word "presently."
I have been noted to change my thinking on things over the years.
It's just a part of the maturing process of Biblical education.
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