I remember CS Lewis once making the distinction between motives of possession. A teddybear may belong to a child, but not in every sense. It is his to cuddle and command; but it is not his to tear to pieces if he wishes.
The same principle is true for scripture, it is given to us, and to no one else, with limits to use and ownership. Our position with respect to its author is part if the biblical ethic.
Nonetheless in one biblical literary type, prophecy, it’s as if the rules of hermeneutics have somehow been suspended. We are in need of re-adhering to sound hermeneutics  again when it comes to biblical prophecy.

We have always had more curiosity than we have the capacity to understand. But our problem with knowledge about the future is more insidious than mere capacity. We have a great desire for ‘crystal ball’ type knowledge; I call it “prophetic candy”. Like Eve and Aristotle both confessed, we want to know; for our personal benefit and from in our narrow, skewed and tainted perspective we desperately want to know. And we will start with the lowest hanging fruit please.
Graciously God has given us what we need and prevented us from having the damaging knowledge that we so desperately want.

What we want is to be able to map out the future, what He has given us instead is reassurance. Jesus’ words are as true for us as they were for those he spoke to in Acts 1:7, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority.”

When things happen, as they undoubtedly will, God’s provision in biblical prophecy will enable us to look back and remember, like the disciples who “did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him” (John 12:16).

You may not see a difference between those two, prophetic candy and prophetic reassurance; but there is one. It comes clear as we examine exactly what God has given us in biblical prophecy, and we acknowledge the things He has not given us.

So when it comes to biblical prophecy, what exactly can we know and what exactly can’t we know?

This article seeks to answer a few questions:

1. What is the history and basis of the dispensational movement,
2. What can we tell about the accuracy of its doctrine purely by looking at scripture?
3. What does scripture say about the end times?

Much of it comes from Dr Michael Eaton’s systematic theology series “The Whole Counsil of God“, preached at Cornerstone in June 2006.

Introduction

Biblical prophecy work as a panorama of the future that unfolds over time. Before the events prophesied we have a general, sweeping view of them. This is achieved largely through the use of the apocalyptic style. We can know generally what will happen but it does not give us a crystal ball view of the future. It does not allow us to map out a detailed story of specifics and then watch them unfold by our interpretation.
Everyone who has tried to treat biblical prophecy as a crystal ball has failed.

But when the events happen the prophecy serves a very significant role. The reader at the time of the fulfillment has a deep and profound reassurance that God is there with them, He has already seen and foretold the events they are witnessing, and it will all be OK.
I don’t think it is possible to overstate the significance of the true value of biblical prophecy, or the danger of seeking prophetic candy where it is not.

The book of Daniel carried exiled and persecuted Jews through some of their darkest and most bewildering centuries, from Nebuchadnezzar all the way through to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman general Titus in AD70. They remained intact envisioned and keeping records right up to the birth of Christ; why? Because they could witness the pre-knowledge of God unfold before them. General overview became definite and specific events as they watched.

The gospels are another good record. The disciples were able to make sense of the specifics of biblical prophecy about Christ after or during the events, but they were utterly bewildered before them.

For Peter the personal prophetic words of Jesus at the end of John’s Gospel must have felt like cold comfort, “…when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” (John 21:18) Jesus told this to Peter to indicate the kind of death he was to die.
At the time Jesus said nothing to James who, not long after, was arrested together with Peter and promptly put to death. Peter was left in jail awaiting his execution the following day. Acts tells us that when the angel came to set Peter free he had to strike him to wake him. Why was Peter sleeping so soundly the night before his execution? Because Jesus had given him a prophecy, even though he could not tell exactly where or when he was to die, he knew enough to be sure it would not be on that day.
If you were James would you have wanted to know your fate? Sure, I would have if I were James.
Would that knowledge have helped James? No it would not have, it would have damaged him.

Likewise biblical prophecy is not given us to untangle the future; to know the detail of events before they happen. That is not wise use of scripture, neither is it sound hermeneutics.

Having said all that, I am not suggesting that we don’t try and know what we can. After all, “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” (Prov. 25:2) There are specifics in biblical prophecy that are knowable. But let’s not throw out hermeneutics in our study, let’s be systematic and reasonable. Let’s start by recognizing that the apocalyptic books are not trying to be difficult to understand, the word itself means to uncover and reveal. They are however trying to be vague most of the time, and when one thinks about it that is exactly what we would expect.
Forcing a definition out of what God is not telling is surely a foolish errand.

So as we discuss end times biblical prophecy it’s good to have in our minds a general summary of it:

1. The bible predicts great persecution for Christians in the gospel age, and that has proved to be the case.
2. It also predicts profound success for the Church, and that has also been the case, increasingly over time. Despite setbacks, failures and persecution, Christians have not only reached many nations with the truth they have also brought the most significant changes to science, politics, cultural development, education and just about every other sector of society.
   Modern history itself has shown us that these two predictions, persecution and success, are not contradictory but may coincide in parallel in different places and at different times and even at the same place and time.
3. All nations will turn to Christ eventually, the last of them being the Jewish nation.  We also know that the path is narrow and few find it (Matt 7:14) and that not everyone who calls Him Lord will enter heaven (Matt 7:21).
4. Jesus will come again, one time more; in final and complete glory.
5. There will certainly be a rapture at the second coming of Christ, but it cannot possibly be a “secret” rapture because it happens simultaneously with His second coming, which is anything but secret.

We will look at three portions of scripture, Daniel, Matthew 24 and Revelation in the order of their appearing. This helps us see it through the original audiences eyes.
When we come to Daniel chapter 9 we will deal with dispensationalism, it’s history, impact and accuracy.

1. Daniel

We’ll only be looking at chapter 2, 7, 8 & 9 and briefly summarize chapters 10 to 12.

1.1 Daniel 2

Daniel predicted, through Nebuchadnezzar’s first dream, that four or five dominant empires would come to the earth and during that God would establish an eternal Kingdom, and that God’s Kingdom would eventually destroy these earthly empires. History now tells us that these empires were:

• Babylonian
• Medo Persian
• Greek
• Roman
• Byzantine, the unstable and unbiblical “church-state” (really an extension of the Roman empire).

The first three are named specifically by Daniel. Rome is not (probably because God was being intentionally vague about it). The focus is on God’s Kingdom, through Jesus, being setup during the rule of the fourth kingdom. This proved to be during the Roman empire (Dan 2:44).
When one looks at it this way from a heavenly perspective one can see how easily we can miss the significant events in life. A little boy born in Bethlehem because of a decree to dirt poor parents hardly looked significant in the light of the Roman empire, Herod the Great and the Pharisaical rule of the day.
Yet it was not invisible, Simeon saw it, so did Anna and the Shepherds (Luke 2) and the Wise Men (Matthew 2).

From our point of view we see one nation conquering another, but from God’s view he sees one building on the next in a similar fashion to how Dr Frankenstein built his monster.
God’s view is, of course, much more accurate. As we examine our own culture we see Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman influences everywhere. Also we know that behind these kingdoms, in the spiritual realm, are principalities and powers, demonic personalities who were around before Babylon and are still around today.

1.2 Daniel 7

Following the timeline, Daniel 7 tells us that this Godly Kingdom would be given to Jesus (Dan 7:13-14) after his resurrection as he returned to the father.
Let’s explore this concept in a bit more detail, Jesus refers to it as “the coming of the Son of Man” which he gets directly from Daniel 7:13.
It is easy to mistake the meaning of this phrase as if He were coming to us, but in the context clearly He is coming to the Father. It is usually (but not always) used as a perspective from heaven, not from earth.

Matt 10:23, Matt 16:27-28, Matt 24:30, Mat 25:31, Mark 8:38, Mark 14:61, Luke 9:26
These gospel references are all of Jesus referring to Daniel 7:13-14  “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”

This is not a picture of Christ coming to earth, as a man or at His second coming. It is a picture of Christ coming back to The Father in Heaven after his resurrection, the gospel references all make perfect sense if read that way. In all these scriptures Jesus uses the phrase “Son of Man” to describe himself, He is referring to this event prophesied in Daniel.

This is especially true for the following verses in Matthew 24
“30 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

Jesus is not dealing here with His second coming to earth, but with His return to Heaven.
It does not matter whether one reads it that the mourning of all tribes and the gathering of His elect are much later results of Him returning to heaven at His ascension; or whether one reads this as poetic symbolism of the significance of His return to heaven. What matters is that he is still dealing here with His return to Heaven, not with His second coming.

A few verses later in Matthew 24 He begins to deal with His second coming:
Matt. 24:36 “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son,but the Father only.” The phrase “that day” is our indication that now Jesus is answering the disciples’ second question (see chapter on Matthew 24),

This must be the way we are to read it because in verse 34 He states clearly that this generation will not pass away till all that his is talking about has happened. Two verses later He speaks about another day, “that” day the timing of which even He does not know. These are clearly two separate events. We will cover this in more detail in the chapter on Matthew 24.

At His ascension Jesus came to the Ancient of Days seated on the throne. He was not like the beasts which came from sea, symbolic of the restlessness of the nations. No, this “Son of Man” came in victory as a warrior conqueror. And at that time He was given a Kingdom.
One of our keys in understanding prophecy in scripture is to see things from God’s perspective, not ours, to set our minds of things above, not on earthly things. At the very least we should be aware from who’s perspective the prophecy is written.
We refer to Christ leaving, Daniel refers to Christ coming; it’s the same event, but a different perspective. From heaven’s perspective the second coming of Christ is the second going of Christ, this “Coming of the Son of Man” is to the Father after his victory over death.

The time context in the symbolic story of Daniel 7 agrees with the gospel references at the beginning of this chapter. This event happened during the Roman reign, at the time of Christ’s Resurrection, His ascension, and the fall of Jerusalem.
The New Testament also agrees, Christ has already been given his kingdom:
“He must reign until He has put all things under His feet.” 1Cor. 15:25
“All authority has been given to me.” Matt 29

In Daniel 7 the four beasts, represent the same first four kingdoms predicted in Daniel 2. Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman. Daniel tells us that in the days of the Roman Empire, God will setup His Kingdom and He will give it to His Son after His resurrection.
Most of Daniel was written to reassure Jews that the Kingdom of God was still on track between Nebuchadnezzar and Jesus, despite the horrors that Antiochus IV Epiphanies and the Romans would inflict on the Jews.
Simeon, who blessed Jesus at his birth (Luke 2:25), could see it unfold before his eyes, he knew that Christ’s coming was imminent, and he was not put off by Jesus’ humble entry into the world nor by the Roman rule nor by the illegitimate reign of Herod. This is the power of biblical prophecy when handled correctly.

It’s important to note that this Roman kingdom is still here, we are Roman from a biblical perspective. Our roots are Greek, Persian and Babylonian, we speak a refined Latin, our philosophy, science and politics comes from these western worldviews.
Incidentally scripture does not mention another great civilization after Rome. The Byzantine (or Holy Roman) Empire was merely an extension of Rome, as is everything we now refer to as ‘Western’.

1.3 Daniel 8

Daniel’s vision of the Ram and Goat in Daniel 8 refers to some details of the Persian and Greek empires and how that transition of power would happen. In this chapter Daniel predicts the rise of who we now know as Alexander the Great and the spread of Greek power and cultural influence.
In this chapter Daniel predicts the antichrist prototype whom we now know as the Seleucid ruler, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who sacked Jerusalem in 167BC. Many antichrists have arisen since then.
Antichrist is a term that John uses in his first and second letters:
1John 2:18 “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.”
There are no specifics given here, we don’t know how many antichrists we are to expect, nether do we know how where in the final hour we are. we may be at the end of the end, we may be at the beginning of the end.

In Daniel 2 the picture of Greece is the torso and waist of the statue. That is because Greece was the pivotal and ‘reproductive’ empire. Greece, as we know, has had the most profound influence of the four civilizations on modern society, its cultural genetics are the most dominant, and its influence has conceived more ideas in politics, philosophy and science than any other.

1.4 Daniel 9

In Daniel 9 we see Daniel in prayer for the return of the Jews to their homeland. Daniel realized, in reading Jeremiah, that the 70 hers of exile was almost up (Jer 25:11-12); and that redemption had been promised for Israel after that.
Appropriately his prayer is a fast and a humble repentance on behalf of Israel, as well as a request for mercy.

In answer to his prayer the angel Gabriel was sent by God to Daniel. and he explained how this redemption was to come using a term “seventy sevens” in verses 24-27.
It’s vital to remember that numbers in this apocalyptic portion of Daniel (like everything else in it) are highly symbolic. There is no indication that they are referring to specific weeks or years and there is every indication that they are not intended to be calculated into specific weeks or years. They represent something, it’s our job to find out what.

So what are they? They are a symbol taken from the seven day week that represent an extended period that has reached its completion, exactly when that period begins and ends is intentionally vague. Seven represents completion because after 7 days the week is complete. Seventy of them represent an extended period coming to it’s end. Again, specific weeks or years are not being mentioned and there are no prizes for finding specific years in this text.
Gabriel’s language here is similar to Jesus’ answer to Peter’s question about whether seven was enough times to forgive someone (Matt 18:21).
Jesus’ answer of seventy times seven is surely not an indication that He intended Peter to keep a record and to stop forgiving at 490. Jesus is using this same symbol, the seven day week, to describe the fact that forgiveness ought to be both extended and complete.
Likewise Daniel is not suggesting that we are to count 490 weeks, years, months or seconds.

The symbol of seventy sevens itself explains the rest of the numbers in the passage, it functions like a key.
Sixty two sevens is just short of a totality, or just before a completion of an extended period. It may or may not be longer than the seventy sevens in literal terms, Gabriel is not being specific. Neither should we expect him to be.

We know from this passage that something significant was to happen as this time of exile came to an end. Gabriel confirms Jeremiah and reassures Daniel.
And after that something even bigger is to happen close to the end of another extended period of time. But even that would not be the final end.

Gabriel’s message was that a “little anointed one” was about to come, a mini-savior at the end of this exile.
This is the Persian king Cyrus who freed the Jews to go back to Israel with a sweeping overnight conquering of Babylon the same night that the Babylonian Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall in Daniel 5.
The exiled Jews in Babylon went to bed slaves of Babylon and woke up as Persian subjects allowed to go home again.
Cyrus had enjoyed a very rich biblical prophetic history in Isaiah, remember that Isaiah was written before the exile. In Isaiah 45:1 Isaiah had named this redeemer of Israel as Cyrus, the only Old Testament figure to be called “Messiah”, or savior. He was no Jew but a Persian.
But this was a small salvation, they were “saved” geographically, but they were still sinners, not yet truly saved. It serves as a picture of real salvation as Cyrus serves as a picture of the real Messiah.
Through Isaiah 40-49 he continued asking the question, if Cyrus is a small savior, who then is he a picture of? Who is the big savior?
It’s not Israel, it’s not the remnant, they all need saving themselves, could it be this Cyrus? But no, he is merely a picture.
In Isaiah 53 we read that the savior is “The arm of the Lord”, it is God Himself.

So Daniel 9 is predicting 2 levels of salvation, with some very important details.

1. A geographical savior for Israel would come in the form of Cyrus and for Daniel his coming was imminent.
2. But after the Greeks, and during the Romans, the true Savior with eternal salvation would come.
   • The temple, though it would be rebuilt, would not remain forever. It would be destroyed again.
     Titus in AD 70 did what Nebuchadnezzar did to Jerusalem, but worse. The most brutal suffering ever of the Jewish people. After AD70 the Jewish “church” and all its records were entirely destroyed.
   • In Matthew 24 while predicting this catastrophe Jesus referred to this chapter in Daniel.

Why did Gabriel mention Christ coming at the 62nd seven, not 70th seven?
Because we are to understand that though this was an immensely significant salvation, history would nonetheless continues after it.
After sin was dealt with, time would continue.
From a BC perspective this is a very significant detail! It would have been easy to assume that God’s final and complete dealing with sin would coincide with the end of time, but it does not.
There were precious few in Israel who got that nugget out of Daniel 9, although Simeon was probably one of them. It certainly made the questions about The Christ restoring the earthly Kingdom of Israel completely redundant.
It’s as if the Jews had lived so long on the much more specific details of Daniel 10 and 11 that they missed the less specific, but more significant truth of Daniel 9.

Are we in the same danger of treating Revelation in the same way; of craving prophetic candy from what is essentially non-specific prophetic reassurance?

Daniel 10 and 11 are a symbolic prophetic story of Israel as the fading and divided Greek Kingdoms of Ptolemy (south) and Seleucid (north) rose and fell toward the ultimate rise of the Roman Empire.
It it probably the most specific prophetic portion of scripture. When one considers that during that time God would be silent for 500 years and the remnant of Jews would remain a conquered nation, despite the Maccabean revolt (167-164BC), it’s easy to see why this portion of prophetic text is so specific,
But in Daniel 11:36-40 the post-Greek story seems to break down, why?
The clearest explanation is that at that stage in chapter 11 Gabriel is no longer referring to the post Alexander Greek kingdoms, but it is instead speaking less specifically about the Romans.

Daniel 12 is a summary prophesy of salvation and judgement, or the 1st and 2nd comings of Christ, all wrapped together in one prophetic picture.

Dispensationalism

So then what about the 7 years tribulation at the end of time but before the millennial reign of Christ, and the secret rapture of believers either before, during or after the tribulation?
This question is important because it is such a popular subject. It’s cause has been taken up by many authors.
In order to understand this view we must look at its history. It was not a view held by anyone before the early 1800′s.

Imagine being a Christian in England during the French Revolution in 1789, seeing atheists like Rousseau and Voltaire take centre stage, watching the king of France get executed in the the violent uprising of the bourgeois. Followed by the rise of Napoleon, and Waterloo in 1815.
The political threat was immense and not everyone responded favorably to it. Some, like Wilberforce and the Quakers fortified by Faith, vision and obedience took it on and conquered it, but not everyone did.
During this time In England & Ireland there were prophetic conferences held to try and interpret the times in the light of biblical prophecy. None of these conferences had much representation of Greek or Hebrew scholars, and their interpretations relied heavily on the popular mood of the time and particular interpretations of the Authorized version of the Bible.
JN Darby’s interpretation from the late 1820′s has proven to been the most influential of these views. In America Scofield (via Moody) interpreted Darby’s theories into his footnoted bible, and so entrenched Darby’s views into American Christian culture. Darby’s theory has grown into what we now refer to as American Dispensationalism, all based on one very shaky interpretation of two verses in Daniel 9.

Darby’s interpretation was that in Daniel 9 the “Sevens” are weeks of years, so every “seven”, according to Darby, is meant to be understood as a literal seven years.
God, he suggested, wanted to restore Israel in 490 years. But because Israel rejected Christ the last 7 years would be removed from that time period and placed at the end of time.
He postulated that during that 7 year period, and before the final 2nd coming of Christ, a “secret” rapture of believers would take place.
After Darby, three main views emerged from his interpretation as to exactly where this secret rapture would fit in to the tribulation period. But all of the dispensational interpretations put the millennial reign of Christ immediately after His second coming, and a secret rapture some time in the seven years immediately before.
Revelation 4, it is often suggested, represents the secret rapture.

Since Darby’s interpretations a plethora of books have been written from a dispensational point of view trying to predict the outcomes of current events by finding symbols for them them in these prophetic texts.

So what is wrong with the Dispensational view?

1. The biggest problem with dispensationalism is that it all hangs on a single dubious interpretation of Daniel 9:25&26.
   In this apocalyptic writing style all is symbolic and almost nothing is literal, especially things referring to periods of time. Time is intentionally vague in biblical apocalypse. It is an exceptionally creative way to be clear enough that the event is recognizable when it happens, but too vague to make detailed predictions before the event.
   To make a set of numbers represent literal years is against all reasonable biblical interpretation of apocalyptic writing.
2. The second issue is the idea that 7 years of time are to be removed and placed at the end of the age, there is no indication here or anywhere else in scripture that God intends to do that.
   If it were true it would be a very subjective and uncharacteristic way for God to present His influence over history.
   The idea that two three and a half “times” in Daniel 7 and Daniel 12 represent these seven years is the exact same same error, making literal what is intended to be symbolic. If seven is complete then surely 3.5 is meant to symbolize half way complete. But even if they do represent these seven years, there is no indication anywhere that they are to be removed from the time of Christ and added to the end of the age.
   Now if we were to agree that point one and point two are incorrect interpretations then the whole dispensational theory must be rejected, none of it has any basis anymore. But for argument’s sake…
3. The third issue is that nowhere in scripture is a rapture indicated apart from the second coming of Christ. Every record of the rapture puts it simultaneous with the second coming and every record of the second coming is of it being undeniable, glorious, overpowering and very very obvious (1Th. 4:16-17).
   A theory that relies on a secret rapture cannot be accurate.
   In Matthew 24 Jesus indicates that it will come without warning, but when it comes no one will be wondering what just happened. Their focus will not be on their missing neighbor, but on the returning Christ!
4. The fourth issue is that if Revelations 4 is the secret rapture event, then for us the rest of Revelations describing earthly events is irrelevant, since we won’t be here for it.
   Any interpretation of scripture which makes other scripture irrelevant for a reader is a dubious interpretation.
5. Fifthly there is surely a problem with an interpretation which suggests that Jesus’ only plan for redemption on the earth, the Church, will somehow fail.
   Surely Satan is to fail at every point. He fails to prevent Israel, he fails to prevent the Christ from coming, he fails at the cross, and he fails at the 2nd coming.
   How do we support a view that suggests that the Church will ultimately fail, that evil will be too strong for her? The Church was not some man made stop-gap before the second coming, the Church is Jesus’ Kingdom.
   There is little doubt that the Old Testament prophets indicate that the Church would be victorious, why would Revelation contradict it? And when one looks at it one finds that Revelation does not contradict the Old testament at all.
6. Then there are the years. Besides that there is no indication or president in scripture that these sevens are weeks of years as opposed to seconds, minutes or any other time period; they just don’t work out as precisely as then must do if the interpretation is correct. Where they miss the mark becomes increasingly difficult to explain, and it all gets enormously complicated and unreasonable.
7. Lastly one has to look at the fruit of dispensationalism, the plethora of books following the same interpretation rules. It cannot possibly be that either Daniel or Revelation are meant for confidently finding specific nations in biblical prophecy after Rome.
   It seems so terribly easy to do and so many have done it, and proved to be completely wrong; but these apocalyptic books themselves are not trying to be that specific.
   They are not dealing with China, Russia, Iraq, Islam or even with the modern nation of Israel.
   God never intended to give us a crystal ball for very obvious reasons. We only discredit ourselves and our Faith in the eyes of the world pursuing prophetic candy.

A much better way to deal with dispensationalism is to start over without referencing it at all. To look at the scripture with good hermeneutics and without preconception and see what it says for itself. If we do that, I believe some good and surprising conclusions emerge. Let me reiterate:

1. There will be great persecution, but there will also be great victory for The Church. However you interpret “the fullness of the Gentiles” it seems abundantly clear in Romans 11:25 that Israel will be the last of the nations to turn to Christ in large numbers.
2. Jesus is coming back one more time, in undiluted glory. At that time He will gather his own. His coming will be unannounced and unexpected to many, but it will not be secret. And there is no secret second coming before then besides through His Holy Spirit in the Church, the “mystery” revealed for those relationally minded enough to see it (Col. 1:26).
3. There is to be a sustained, long term worldwide success for the Church, a Golden Age before Christ’s second coming.
4. Daniel does not give us fine, minute details of the end times, and neither does The Revelation, and we should not expect them to.

What then about Jesus words about the end in Matthew 24?

2. Matthew 24

It is amazing how Matthew 24 is so often interpreted exactly opposite from what it actually says. I hear so many Christians saying (as they did in the 1820′s after a Darby prophetic conference) that the wars and the famines and earthquakes and tornadoes and such are signs that the end is near.
In Matthew 24 Jesus says the exact opposite, He says that those things are signs that the end is not near and that signs that the end is near are things to do with peace and prosperity, not war and disaster. 1 Thessalonians 5:3 tells us that when people are enjoying peace and security the end will come.
Matthew 24:6-8 “6And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.”
These things are not the end, they are a beginning, He describes them as a birth. They may be the end of a pregnancy, but a pregnancy is much more than simply an end, it is more significantly a beginning.
A sign of the end is given in verse 14: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
Not only are these world events no indication of the end; the real indicators of the end are success, not disaster.

Matthew 24 is very easily understood when one realizes that the disciples were asking Jesus two questions and he was answering them both in a very structured manner.
The first was answered more specifically than the second because there are less specifics available to answer the second.

Jesus had just told the disciples that the temple was to be destroyed for a second time, as Daniel had predicted in Daniel 9.
In Matthew 24:3 they said this to Him: “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” – Two questions.
Jesus’ answer was first a warning not to be deceived by these ideas that calamity is a sign of the end.
These are two great questions, He was saying, and they are very different events. The end of Jerusalem, the end of Apartheid, the end of America, the end of Al Qaeda, whatever human establishment; is quite literally not necessarily the end of the world. This is a very sound biblical point of view.

Then He answered them about the fall of Jerusalem and the horror of that time for Jewish people when one stone of the temple would not be left on another (verses 9 to 35) . He answered them using the exact same Old Testament prophetic poetry that predicted this calamity in symbolic language: Joel 2:30-31, Isaiah 13:9-10, Ezekiel 32:7-8, Daniel 8:10. His warning is now all the more real since the language makes it easier to confuse the two events.
Don’t be confused. Jesus had just told his disciples that literal calamities do not indicate the end. Figuratively they indicate a time of destruction for Israel, a dreadful time.
These words came true about 40 years later in AD70 when Titus sacked Jerusalem. For the kingdom of Judah is will be as if, “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” (v29) Because Jerusalem would be destroyed and many lives would be taken in the most brutal fashion.
It also stands to reason, that winter or being pregnant does not matter at the end, these are the kind of things one worries about before the end.
It seems that the believers in Jerusalem heeded Jesus warning and ran for their lives when Titus marched on Jerusalem in AD70, and incidentally this happened in the Summer of that year.

Verses 32-35 are a dividing point between the two answers as Jesus tells them what they can and can’t know about the very end. This generation will still be around to witness the temple fall and the destruction of Jerusalem; but about that day (verse 36), now referring to His second coming, no one knows, not even the son.

The rest of Matthew 24 (verses 36 to 51) is dedicated to describing the second coming. In verse 37 Jesus compares Noah’s time with the second coming. The point of view is not heaven, but earth, so “the coming of the Son of Man” here refers to His second coming to earth.
The picture Jesus paints of the end times are ones of peace, not war. The whole tenant of the text is that people, even believers, won’t expect it to happen.
The challenge at the end will be to not get too comfortable, to remain ethical in prosperity, to stay awake, not to stay alive.

3. The Revelation

The Revelation is written in an apocalyptic style. Daniel was the first to write in this highly symbolic style, a style which has been copied extensively through the centuries.
The style, I believe, was meant to reveal the prophetic truth to the reader without being very specific. The word apocalypse or apocalyptic did not mean calamity, tragedy or disaster as it is taken to mean today. It simply means uncovering or revealing.
The book was never intended to be a complex and terrifying riddle of global catastrophe, impossible to solve. It was actually intended to simplify and reveal what will happen at the end.
It does this by symbolic representation and by giving us a less detail, less specific general view of events so that when they happen they will be recognizable. We are not supposed to guess the specific times and dates of the events. But we can at least see the sequence of the major events.
What is important is to remember that almost everything is allegorical and symbolic in Revelation, that almost nothing in this writing style is intended to make literal sense.
John Bunion did something similar with The Pilgrims Progress, but this is not a very common style. Our western minds are not well trained to think in this un-literal way, it takes a little bit of imagination discipline to see it the way it was intended.

The style delivers to us a panoramic (good Greek word) view which unfolds as it happens and is rendered perfectly clear and detailed in hindsight.
A good, short summary of The Revelation is simply this: God’s complete victory in spite of great persecution.

In its structure The Revelation goes round and round the same theme eight times. Each time it begins again is like the changing of scene in a play; eight scenes therefore seven changes of scenery.
In each of the eight scene there are seven of the same focal points. So Revelation can be thought of as eight sevens.
The word “opens” is a clue to the change of scene.

1. Ch 1-3 is seven letters to seven churches.
2. Ch 4-8:1 is seven seals of seven scrolls
3. Ch 8:2-11:18 is seven trumpets of warning
4. Ch 11:19-15:4 is seven visions of seven persons (a woman, a dragon, a child, 2 beasts, the Lamb, Michael the Arc-angel)
5. Ch 15:5-16 is 7 bowls of wrath
6. Ch 17-19:10 is words of judgement
7. Ch 19:11-21:8 is seven visions of God’s triumph
8. Ch 21:9 -end is seven glimpses of final Glory

It seems that seven is a very important number in this book, why then are there eight scenes?
Well if seven is the number of completion, taken from the seven days in a week, then 8 is surely the new beginning, confirmed by Rev 21:5 “Behold I make all things new“. The last scene is given to us as a picture of what life will look like after Judgement, after the second coming; in a completely new age.

What is the Millennium in Rev 20?
There are three views (four if you count dispensationalism) and they revolve around the binding of Satan in Revelation.

1. The pre-millennial view sees Satan bound when Jesus comes to earth again. (dispensationalism is an extension of this view).
2. The a-millennial view sees Satan bound at the cross. He is bound from preventing the gospel from going forward to the nations. According to this view we are in the millennial age.
3. The post-millennial view sees Satan bound during some golden age before the second coming of Christ.

One thing apocalyptic writing does often give us, in terms of time, is sequence. We may not be given specific days, but we usually (though not always) are told in what order things will happen.
These three views can’t all be right, and they can’t all be wrong. In fact we are on very safe ground to assume that one, and only one, is the correct view. Why do I think it is the post-millennial view?
Before we look at that let’s just say that it’s OK to disagree about this and still love each other as Christian family, but it would be so much better if we agreed.
The way we build church, the way we evangelize and disciple people, and the way we interact with the world depends very much on how we expect this all to work out.
If we expect the Church, in the face of stronger and stronger opposition, to fall into greater and greater persecution we will operate very differently than if we expect the Church to enjoy more and more success in the battle against Satan even in the midst of persecution.

The Binding of Satan – Revelation 12 and Revelation 20
In Revelation 12 the woman represents Israel before the birth of her child and represents the Church after the birth. Jesus is the child. Satan starts persecuting the church, as soon as Jesus is caught into heaven. In this picture Satan is “thrown down to earth” by which we are to understand that his power is reduced at the cross, but not completely.

In Revelation 20:2 we see Satan “thrown from earth to the pit” for a thousand years. A further reduction of his power and influence for an extended period of time. Therefore the binding of Satan in Revelation 20:2 is greater than that of Revelation 12 and they are two separate events.

Now in Revelation  19:11, between these two events of Satan’s binding, we see a great “riding forth” of the victorious Christ.

What is this great riding forth meant to symbolize? Is it the 2nd coming of Christ or is it the preaching of the Gospel?
Surely it must be the preaching of the Gospel. He is now going to conquer through His Church. The second coming is still to come, the second binding of Satan that marks the beginning of the millennial reign is not at the time of the second coming but before it, and before this millennial reign. There is still a further reduction of power for Satan the Revelations 20:2 one was only temporary. In Revelation 20:10 He is completely overcome and destroyed at the second coming of Christ and judgement.

I mentioned earlier that Satan surely is to fail at every point. He fails to prevent Israel, he fails to prevent the Christ from coming, he fails at the cross and he fails at the 2nd coming. Why would we we think the Church will fail?
The only reason we could think that The Church would fail to overcome Satan would be by accepting a dispensational view of the end times; increasing persecution coinciding with a decreasing success for the Church. According to a dispensational view of end times prophecy, it eventually gets so bad for the Church that Christ has to come and take them out of it.
But this view denies the predictions of success for the Gospel in the Old Testament prophets the Letters and here in Revelation.

The millennium is a result of the preaching of the gospel and the the binding of Satan, and surely must take place before Jesus’ second coming. It is the sustained success story of the Church. Not by politics, it will not be a world of Christian states by decree or law, not by economics, it will not be a financial revolution. This is revolution of unity, truth and love, in a word the Gospel.
There will be a plurality of belief at this time, not everyone will be saved despite the binding of Satan for so long. But the Church will see sustained, worldwide success. All nations will not only be reached, high percentages will be saved. The world will enjoy peace and prosperity as never before. And Israel will finally turn to Christ (Rom 11:25).
That will be the sign of the end, at that time the second coming of Christ will be imminent.
Who knows how far we are from that event, Jesus says it’s not yet very near, but things can change rapidly.

But wait… there’s more.
At the closing of the seventh scene one expects the story to end. Christ has returned, he has taken us with Him, Satan has been destroyed and Judgement is done. Then Revelation 21:9-27 starts up again. You think you’ve come to the end, but there is more. Heaven comes to a New Earth as we get to live with God.
To a degree this “city” has already come, we are able to go into it and go out of it again. We are able to invite others, and bring nations to the King in this Gospel age, this year of favor of our Lord.
One day it will come in all it’s fullness, and opportunities for evangelism and faith will disappear with it’s presence.

In Luke 4:21 Jesus read from Isaiah 61 in the synagogue in Nazareth, his home town.
In Isaiah 61:2 he stopped in mid sentence “…to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,” and closed the scroll declaring the words to be fulfilled. But there’s more to the sentence: “…and the day of vengeance of our God;…”
Right now the “city” is open to all who would come in, but it is not very visible. It must be entered by faith. Our preaching, our loving, our giving; the power, enabling, and protection of the Holy Spirit, will succeed in all nations coming to Christ at some point in time, even Israel.
Let us preach while unsaved ears may still hear the sound of the Gospel.

Conclusion

I think that right now the world is waiting for a unified Church, not politically or denominationally but :…of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” Phil 2:2
We are still some distance from that. Our biggest hurdle I believe, is the way we handle our eschatology. Here are three steps I would like to see the Evangelical Church in the western world take:

1. Let’s leave Israel’s politics alone, unless you plan to plant a church there. She is in need of apostles, preachers, evangelists, pastors and teachers like any other nation. But there is as much biblical precedent to protect and defend modern Israel as there was to wage crusades 800 years ago.
   We have made this mistake before, God has not called us to establish or protect any modern political system or nation. He has called us to make disciples.
   I’m not suggesting that we hate or condemn Israel either. We are no longer trying to allying ourselves nationally at all. There is nothing wrong with patriotism until it tries to make itself equal with The Kingdom in a Christian’s heart.
   I know this is an offensive thought to many but it is the truth. Some of us believers still need to be weened off of the breast of our mother culture so that we can start to eat the meat from the table of The King. Colossians 3:1-2 “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”
   We are primarily citizens of The Kingdom of God, and it is a Kingdom of all nations: Romans 16:26. Galatians 3:8, Revelation 15:4
2. Let’s stop reacting, and start pro-acting. It matters very much how we teach our kids to think. Doom, gloom and despair can overrun a household in the same way as it can overrun a stock market and a nation. I can find no biblical basis to teach our children that all they can expect is for things to get worse. And I can find every reason to teach them the opposite.
3. Let’s have a thousand year vision for The Church. A favorite story I once heard is of an architect who was called to an Old English Neo-Gothic cathedral. The building had huge oak beams running down the middle as support and they were now 800 years old and had to be replaced.
   As he was standing in the building scratching his head wondering where on earth he would get that kind of timber, the groundsman came along and they got talking. He explained the problem to the groundsman who just smiled and said, “come with me.”
   They walked outside and the architect realised that they were in the middle of a huge grove of very old oak trees.
   “These trees have been here since the building was erected,” said the groundsman, “they were planted so that there would be timber available when the beams needed replacing.”
   That is the way we should be building churches today, except not with Oak Trees but with our children, physical and spiritual. We need to think 4 generation down the track.
   What will this church, this city, this nation look like in 80, 100, 800 years? Let’s build it that way.

The truth is that we just don’t know when the millennium will begin, or perhaps has begun.
Lets plan like it’s still to start, lets live like it’s about to end.

Lets get practical. What exactly do these generations look like? How do they operate, and how do they interact with each other?

We’ll start with Socrates… he seems fairly original.

1. The Pessimist Generation

Socrates was the great inquisitor. Not much fun at a party, but great at The Symposium. “Death may be the greatest of all human blessings“, ” “The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be“.
Philosophically Socrates was the father of the pessimists, a Skeptic. More importantly he was the original skeptic.
The pessimist generation alive today we call the Silent generation, born 1929-1946. Those still alive are in the last season of their lives. This is the generation born during the great depression and World War II. The Pessimist generation is always born in some kind of human crisis and grow up believing that the worst is most probable. pessimism can look very noble and pragmatic, even righteous, but don’t be fooled. Faith for the worst is not faith at all.

Very important to note is that a new Pessimist generation is currently in development. Children born from 2008 onward are growing up under its influence.
Isn’t it interesting that when we look at this picture in the light of a future generation (particularly one that includes our children and grandchildren) we start to form some sort of denial: “This is not a crisis,” “My kid’s not a pessimist.” and so on.
It does not help to redefine the generational cycle to fit our sentimental values. It does help to teach our children how to rise above their propensities, armed with the truth of their realities and perceptions and ours, but more importantly armed with the truth of scripture!
Christians are created new so that we can stand out like stars against the dark sky of our generation, and so bring a piece of God’s light into the chaos on earth, knowing full well that one day all will be soaked in His splendor, and darkness will have no hiding place, let alone influence.

Daniel’s Picture of the pessimistic generation (Daniel 7):
“The first was like a lion and had eagles’ wings. Then as I looked its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man, and the mind of a man was given to it.”
The symbolism in Daniel’s picture is richest when compared with the other pictures, and with the rest of Daniel’s revelation. This is a picture of potential wasted. As I said, a pessimist generation is born in the midst of some kind of human crisis; those who created the crisis are usually in denial about the crisis and so they pin huge expectations on this generation who don’t have the confidence or resources their parents had. So they fail, and a rift forms between them and their parent generations.
The American soldiers in the Korean war are a prime example.
This generation learns quickly, and wrongly, that resources are not just limited, they are scarce; that risk is an evil, and that you should trust no one.
Do not let this happen in your home, in your church. The challenges and opportunities that children face today are nothing like the ones you faced growing up! Do not exasperate them by assuming that they have it easy while you had it hard.

The biblical stance is always further away from any of the four generation’s worldviews than they are from each other. The Gospel suggests circumspection and wisdom but with great, even lavish generosity with possessions, love, and faith.

I tend to think of biblical figures as heroes. Moses comes out of retirement and starts working at 80, Abraham has a child at 90, Paul faces death all day, and Daniel survives a den of hungry lions. But have you ever thought that they would consider us as heroes?

Paul, the leather-skinned apostle, said this in 2 Timothy 3:1 “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.”
Really? Are these the times that Paul would consider “difficult”? (as opposed to prison, shipwreck, sickness and floggings)

Well, let’s see, Paul continues in 2 Timothy 3: “People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power.”

It would be difficult to imagine a time that fits Paul’s description more accurately, but perhaps human behaviour can get worse than it is now? Daniel had his lion’s den experience, but it seems, so do we.

I believe that Daniel predicted (among other things) a demonic plan to subjugate humans not merely by national conquest, but by influencing their ethos; an inside job. Changing the way they think.

This plan was to be Satan’s ‘counter attack’ to the Messiah he knew was coming. It was, and remains, crucial for him that it is an insidious attack, that humans remain generally unaware of it. Too bad for him that God announced it in big, bold letters through Daniel two and a half thousand years ago. Since then Satan’s counter plan has been to keep the minds of western people blind toward what is certainly their primary influencer.
Daniel’s book is partly Apocalyptic which, contrary to popular belief, does not make it necessarily a book about the end of the world. It means that it is a Great Revelation, just like John’s apocalypse. The word means a Revelation of global scale; significantly more important than iPhone 5 and Beeber’s new hair style, but not quite as significant as Jesus Christ.

One can see the hell-plan working itself out when we take a few giant time leaps through scripture from Daniel’s point of view:

1. Nebuchadnezzar – went from narcissistic dictator to mad man, but there is one thing he never was… he was never questioned.
2. A few decades later Darius was tricked into creating a “law that cannot be revoked” – the very first record of a ruler accountable to his own rule. And it didn’t take the bureaucrats long to figure out how to use that against him.
3. By the time Jesus faced Pilate 500 years later, Pilate asked, “what is truth?”

From unquestioned authority, to fledgling accountability and bureaucratic abuse, to the questioning of the absolute nature of truth itself. Clearly a momentous shift in Worldview took place between those 3 events, a short space of a few hundred years!

So what exactly is this grand prediction? What was the plan from hell that has brought about these “times of difficulty”? Well here it is:
Set 4 mildly opposing philosophies to battle against each other for dominance in the human realm; let them rotate power in ±20 year generational cycles (generation type 1 gives over to generation type 2, which gives over to generation type three, which hands off to generation type 4; generation type 4 then hands over to another generation of type 1 and the cycle repeats itself).
So create the dominant worldview we now know as “The West”. Make sure that generations do not flow smoothly into each other, rather they should bump along like a square wheel as they are driven by human behavior and influenced by spiritual forces, without the bump we would not have the manufactured generational conflict we see today. This generational conflict should be both obvious and confusing for those suffering under it.

We can define the 4 generation types a couple of ways:

1. by the pictures God gives us in Daniel
2. the 4 founding Greek philosophers
3. their 4 founding philosophies
4. or by some common names for them.
   I think of them as: Selfish | Cynical | Idealists | Pessimists

These are the 4 demonically inspired Generation types predicted by Daniel, in a ongoing cycle of repetition.

The pictures Daniel gives us are symbols, not only of the human generations, but of the demonic personalities that champion these philosophies and war against God and each other for dominant influence over the human generations.
If the battle is for the hearts of mankind, then the battlefield is surely the mind.

Next we’ll look at each generation type in a bit more detail…

The Hebrew revolution was started by a Hebrew and his Hebrew disciples. You might try and make a case that the Christian Church has nothing to do with the Old Testament, but the Old Testament itself would prove your wrong without much effort. The corrupt Medieval Church was overthrown by churchmen like Tindale and Luther. The printing revolution started with the printing of the bible, not some other manifesto.
All through its history there have been excesses, errors and travesties committed by the Church equalled only by its awakenings, corrections and revolutions all started from within the same body.

Surely this should  make the neutral observer suspicious that there is more going on here than sociological evolution? The trouble these days is finding a neutral observer. They are few and far between.

Perhaps the only other organization with a similar kind of self-righting system is Science. But there are a few key differences:

1. The scientific method is not very old, you could make a case for it being a few hundred years old at a stretch. It has not had the time to be tested against real revolution yet.
2. The science revolutions have not really come from within science itself, apart from a few. By definition and practice Science has attempted to include anyone and everyone in the process. So when Einstein or Faraday or Hoyle come along they become part of Science by their contribution; but they were not before except in the broadest possible sense; which, in my opinion, is not a very clear demarcation. It’s a bit like going to the races and putting everything on ‘the horse that will win’.
   That’s OK, I guess, if you can find a willing bookie.
3. The major difference between Church and Science though is that Science was built to be self-righting. Self-righting has been hard coded into its constitution. Church was not, the self-righting has happened, it seems, by accident. The right kind of courageous people at the right place and time at precisely the right moment. The Church movement, which lends itself to human domination, gets righted by the unlikeliest underdogs without any or very little Church authority. Unlike Science which is designed to challenge the dominant position (I’m not suggesting that it is successful in its design, just that it was designed so). This surely must make us at least ask what, or who is behind the Church? It’s like Family, that most ancient institution which has been tossed aside, ripped appart and abused in every conceivable manner and yet is still the binding fabric of society.

I can’t think of any other worldview with a built-in self correction facility, can you?

http://firebrandchurch.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8:the-self-delusion-church&catid=10:encouragement-theology&Itemid=10

“Strength,” my friend told me … “Not all those who wander are lost.“

I’d like to unpack that thought for a moment.

Not all those who wander are lost, but more importantly most who are lost do not wander.
This is a frighting thought but it is true when one thinks of it. I suspect that life has come to be, through it’s various manipulations, more like a gilded cage than a well worn path, more like a cozy trap than an adventure. Far from the cry that nature is raw in tooth and claw, it seems that human nature is soft in stomach and bum.
Sadly most people do not die by seeking meaning, they die by comfort.

OK, but some who wander are indeed lost (speaking of bums). And lost wanders are, to many, the scariest kinds of people. The smelly, passive-aggressive, utterly unpredictable people who wander across our paths occasionally. Now if we are not wanderers we only cross paths by their adventure, and if we both are lost at least these wanders have the courage to admit it, if not the strength to change it!
In fact they are not quite as unpredictable as we think at first. Certainly from their point of view it is us, ‘settled’ people, who are unpredictable. We are set in our strange individual ways like jello made out of bizarre molds. We don’t just criticize these wanderers, we reject them;

it is us who are scary to the wanderer.

These wandering hobos, life’s true cynics, are not the scary people. They are only scary to us because it is us who on the brink of unaware lostness.
Scary people are those sweet smelling, well adjusted, settled down ones who are so lost they don’t even remember getting lost. Those who are more concerned with their hair than with their destiny. Now that, my friends, is scary!

So we may say that not all those who wander are lost, but also most who are lost do not wander and some who wander are nonetheless lost.
We have then an unexpected outcome. The lost wanderers and the un-lost wanders have the unsettling nature of looking somewhat similar.
A ragged band of wanders against the backdrop of human urban, but some are lost and some are not.
It it imperative that we know the difference between these two, and take both inspiration and action of the wanderers who are not lost. The inspiration is not enough, action is required; however small the action. Giving away set of clothing may set you on a path that will turn your world upside-down, and turn you into one of the wandering un-lost.

I think it’s time, my friends, that we ditched the notion that it is God’s desire to sort out all of your stuff. It is simply not true; God is not trying to reduce your concerns, solve your problems or settle you down!
If anything He’s doing the opposite, and may I just say that if He is not upsetting your apple carts on a regular basis then what evidence do you have that He has any dealings with you at all?
We have a poor definition of what it means to be lost, respectability has nothing to do with not being lost, and being un-lost has got to be the most disturbing place to exist. It comes with stone pillows, heartbreaking knowledge, an enormous lack of what you used to think was provision; and many other people’s baggage, not just your own.
Hebrews 11 describes the life of the un-lost wanderer well:
” 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37 They were stoned; they were sawn in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and ill-treated– 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. 39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised.  40 God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”

Don’t be scared to find yourself among the wanderers; because true seekers are not looking to find, but to be found.

We are left with one group whom we have not yet discussed, those who do not wander but are also not lost. Now that is indeed a tiny group of our population. So tiny we might find that if they were camels they may even fit through the eye of a needle.

This is an Easter story for little people.

Glossary:
Baba = Father
Mamba = an aggressive and venomous snake from Africa
Umfaan = a small boy

———————-

“Umfaan, eat your food slowly, you are not a wild animal.”
“I am a lion, Baba. A wild lion.”
“Ahh, Umfaan, the lion is wild; but there was a time when he was much more polite… and much more wild!”
“When was that Baba?”
“That was a very long time ago, Umfaan; when the animals could speak. Do you want to hear about it?”
“Yes please Baba. I want to hear about when the animals could speak!”
“Well then you need to sit nicely, eat slowly and politely, and I will tell you…”

The Lion was King of the forest when the animals could speak. He was a good King; he was thoughtful of the tiniest of creatures and he was wilder then the wildest lion that has ever lived, and he was very polite.
Almost all of the animals loved him, some of them were jealous of him; but no one dared to plot against him because he was wise and powerful, and very very wild.

One day a hunter man came to live in the forest, he was a bad man who wanted to catch every animal in the forest. So he built a big, ugly house and he built lots and lots of traps that would catch animals, big and small. His traps were long, cruel tunnels, that would lead the animals right into his house. Once an animal entered a trap they could not go back and they could not turn around; and once they got into his house he would put them in cages and torture them.
At night the animals of the forest heard their captured friends screaming, and they were all terrified. No one knew when the next animal would be captured in one of the hunter’s traps.

Eventually the good King Lion called the remaining animals together to discuss what to do about the hunter man and his awful traps.
“We must destroy his house,” suggested the Elephant, “I can run it over with the help of Rhinoceros here, then he will run away and never come back.” Rhinoceros nodded his head in agreement.
“Yes,” agreed the animals, “let’s destroy his house.”
King Lion smiled and shook his head, “my friends,” he said, “you have forgotten that so many of our friends are in that house, they would be destroyed also.”
The Elephant was silent.

“I will lie in wait for the hunter,” said the Mamba snake, “and when he comes I will strike him and he will die.”
“Yes,” agreed the animals, “let the Mamba kill the hunter man.”
Again King Lion smiled and shook his head, “my friends,” he said, “if he is dead how then will we enter his house to free our friends captured inside?”
The Mamba was silent.

So the day went on, each animal spoke of some plan to get at the hunter man, and each time King Lion had to remind them that in their anger they had forgotten about their friends captured in the hunter man’s house.

Eventually the King sighed a big sigh which silenced all the animals, “I have a way to free our friends,” he said, “at first you will not understand it, but you must all trust me.”

With that he stood up slowly and walked away with his head down and a very sad look in his eyes. He turned round to look at them, “don’t follow me,” he told the animals, “just trust me.” Then he walked silently away as all the animals spoke about what he could possibly mean.
The King’s friend, Eagle, followed him despite the King’s instruction. He jumped into the air as soon as the Lion had walked off and watched him from high up as he made his way through the forest.

The King Lion stopped at the entrance of a cave. But from high in the air the Eagle could see that it was not a cave, but was actually one of the hunter man’s traps!
The Eagle called as loud as he could, folding his wings into a steep dive. Perhaps he would be in time to warn the King.
When he reached the cave, he called out, “come out from the cave, it is a trap!”
“Ahh, my friend,” came the Lion’s deep voice from deep inside the cave, “I know it is a trap, didn’t I tell you not to follow me?”
The Lion’s words were kind, not angry, and very very sad.

As the Lion entered the trap it got narrower and narrower until it pressed in on him from all sides. Sharp teeth came out of the sides to the tunnel away from the cave, they prevented him from turning round or backing out and they cut him cruelly.
It was a long and painful day for the King as he crawled froward down the tunnel, He imagined the confusion and hopelessness of the animals as the Eagle told them what he has seen, he could hear of all his friends suffering in the hunter’s cages as he got closer to the hunter’s house; he felt his own pain and despair… but still he pushed on through the tunnel.

Towards the evening King Lion reached the house. His great head appeared in the tunnel exit, blood dripped off his nose as he paused before entering.
Inside it was dark, the dirty curtains pulled closed. The house was filthy inside, hundreds of animals were trapped in cages of all sizes, there were holes in all the walls, the lion recognized them as tunnel exits for all the traps the hunter had set in the forest.
In the cages some animals lay motionless, some sat sobbing, they were all injured and in pain. The hunter man was busy around the cage of a monkey. He was poking him through the bars of his cage with a sharp sword while a fire on the other side of the cage singed his skin and burned his fur.
The hunter was laughing as the monkey screamed in fear and pain. The monkey stopped rather suddenly when he saw the Lion’s head.
The hunter turned round and looked at the Lion.

“Ahhh,” he said walking toward the Lion, “what a wonderful surprise! I didn’t expect you so soon, come on in, let me get your new home ready.”
The Lion forced himself through the hole and collapsed in a heap on the floor. His body and paws were covered with open cuts and he looked exhausted.
The hunter was laughing loud and congratulating himself as he pulled a large cage out from under a pile of rubbish.
“I had not been expecting to use this for some time,” he said, “good thing I had it ready for you.”
He turned to look at the Lion on the floor.
“Look at you!” He said mockingly, “the Great King of the forest, lying in a heap on my floor… Ha ha ha.”
Then he whispered, close to the Lion’s head, “There will be a new king now that you are out the way; I will rule the forest. Actually I have been ruling for some time now. Have you noticed how fearful your subjects have been lately?”
He stood up and threw his hands in the air, “Well imagine how fearful they will be when they realize I have captured the King! I have the great wild Lion, the wildest Lion that ever lived right here in my house!”

Just then the Lion began to stir, he shifted his weight onto his front paws and began to stand up.

“Wait a minute,” said the hunter man, as the truth slowly began to dawn on him, “I have a Lion… a wild Lion… IN MY HOUSE!”

The King Lion was on his feet now and the whole house began to vibrate with his growl, his lips lifted revealing the glimmer of his teeth, his claws started pushing through the fur on his paws; and in his eyes was an anger the hunter had never seen before.

“No, no, you are supposed to get in the cage, here, get in the cage.” said the hunter pointing to the cage while backing away from the King.
The Lion shook himself, his muscles rippled under his skin, he forgot the pain of the of the cuts and opened his mouth and roared at the hunter. The hunter turned to run, “I have a Lion in my house! Help!” he shouted.
With one leap the Lion was on him, and with a single swipe he hurled him right into the cage he had prepared for the Lion, the door slammed shut. The hunter screeched in agony, the Lion’s claws had shredded his shirt and opened his back.

Then the Lion began breaking apart the house, punching holes in the walls and breaking open the cages setting all the animals free.
“Nooooo!” Wailed the hunter man through the bars of his cage.
“Silence!” Said the Lion, with a voice like thunder, as the roof caved in and sunlight poured into the house.

Then the King smashed open the front door and all the animals made their way out of the wreck of a house and back into the forest, some leaping for joy, others slowly helping the weak and the badly injured. Only a few hung back and respectfully thanked the King for rescuing them.

The free animals were overjoyed to see their friends again and made them tell the story of the Lion’s rescue over and over again and they nursed them back to health.
No one ever heard of the hunter man again, but there were rumors that he was last seen in the cage, crying like a little baby, being dragged by the Lion into the deepest, darkest part of the forest.

The Lion arranged teams of animals to destroy all the traps that the hunter had setup and there was peace once more in the forest.
The King Lion became known not just for his wisdom, his kindness and his politeness; but also for his courage. And he was still the wildest lion that ever lived.

It seems pretty clear that something more is going on in the world today. Wars breakout with Twitter support, massive earthquakes are a regular occurrence, storms and floods, tsunamis, tornados, fires and record heat and cold. What’s going on and what should we do about it?

Well the first thing is that we should be shocked, even horrified. This is not math, it’s humanity. These people in Haiti, New Zealand, North Africa, Australia and now Japan are real people, with families and hopes and dreams, they fall in love, they feel loss, they feel pain, just like you and I; if we don’t respond with compassion, prayer and help then what are we?

Then once we have cried and prayed and helped as much as we can, we need to make sense of it. Perhaps we do need to jump to conclusions, but let’s make sure they are the right ones.

Many people will say that these are the signs of the end that Jesus predicted in Matthew 24, I don’t think so. In Matthew 24 Jesus says that we will hear of “wars and rumors of wars,” and that, “nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.”
Does that sound pretty accurate so far? What we are seeing seems to be what he’s speaking about I think. Well then let’s be very careful about doing what He suggests we do. Clearly Jesus is speaking into our present, and what we are to do about it, so what does he say? “See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.”

Oh; we should NOT be alarmed, these things are NOT signs of the end… well then if these are not signs of the end then what on earth are they? And how far is the end?
It is possible, I believe, to be shocked and even horrified, but not alarmed. We must learn that kind of level headedness in the midst of tragedy and devastation. There is very good reason why these things must occur, and they are horrific, but they are not the end; and tragedy is the only means by which we can become aware of all that we take for granted.

tragedy is the only means by which we can become aware of all that we take for granted.

These things, says Jesus, are the “beginnings of the birth pains?”
It reminds me so much of what Churchill said early on in the War against Fascism which ravaged Europe, and the world. “This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, it is perhaps the end of the beginning.”
Jesus uses a very real example to illustrate what it is that we are experiencing, this is the beginning of the beginning of something entirely new, it is like a woman in the early stages of labor, He says. Let us not give in to fear, let us not be tempted to bow to Fate and Luck as the Israelites did (Isa 65:11). Let us not forsake our LORD and His holy mountain (which, by the way, has nothing to do with any location in the Middle East).

Now, being male, I have ever experienced labor pains but I understand that they are extreme, that women in labor so often what to send the object of birth back to where she or he came from.
But not too long after the pain (relatively speaking) she experiences a beginning, not an end. She see’s something new come to life, not something old fall away. And the relief she experiences is not just an end to her pain. The relief is said to be more intense than the labor, and this must be so because most women have more than one child.
And that is what Jesus says we are to expect.

The reason why I’m making this point is because we have the tendency to panic, and we Christian humans have panicked before. We have failed to read Matthew 24 accurately, or else we have failed to believe it. We have jumped to the wrong conclusion.
JN Darby in the mid 1800′s picked a particularly panicky time to throw a cat among the pigeons. Dispensationalism was born under very similar circumstances to what we are experiencing today. Revolutions were popping up in Europe, monarchies were collapsing in favor of these democratic governments. Nations were still reeling after Napoleon’s meteoric and bloody ascent. Economies were teetering slavery had just been abolished and almost every Christian expected something cataclysmic to happen.
Many Christians have been under this delusion since those days, we have been predicting and expecting things to get worse and worse till the end, but it seems that Jesus expects them to get a whole lot better, Jesus expects His Church to have the resources to preach the gospel everywhere before the end.

Now, this is just the beginning of the labor, Christians will still be persecuted, treachery will still run both deep and wide. Hatred must still become the overriding action of the world religion of ‘Tolerance’. Some will abandon Christ, and lots more cults will develop with false promises from false prophets. Wickedness will increase, societies will collapse and love will grow cold in the hearts of most people.
But not all people. The glowing embers of love and family and community will remain, and they will grow into a warm bonfire again. Some will love their neighbors more than they tolerate their bad ideas.
And this gospel will not only reach the ends of the earth, it will succeed! It will breakdown philosophies and ideologies and cultures and the demons who rule them, it will set people free and it will be proved right; not by force but by love. It will succeed where every other worldview and ideology and government has failed. Yet it will be neither a system nor a government.

God is going to use this generation, maybe the next and the next after that, to bring into existence a joy beyond comparison. A millennial reign of peace and prosperity. Some see it as Christ reigning with the Church, others see it as Christ reigning through the Church. Either way there is no denying that the best is yet to come.

So don’t give up, fatalism is not a biblical option, and whatever you do don’t panic!

David often used his eloquence to successfully defend his contrary position, like Daniel who would come after him (Daniel 1:8-13). Saul could not refuse such an powerful request such convincing determination. However it’s one thing stating the case, doing the job is something completely different. But when a man speaks like this in these kinds of circumstances it is never without a real, underlying courage.
The kind of courage David displayed is the kind we are in desperate need of. Fortitude, CS Lewis calls it; it’s the kind of courage that endures.

Fortitude taught him not only to defend and care, but also to see himself as defended and cared for. And David’s fortitude taught him how and when to speak out to define his courage and what he intends to do with it. What would we do without David’s Psalm written by a shepherd, but from the point of view of a sheep (Psalm 23).
I believe that this kind of courage does not come from some deep seated understanding of self, but it comes from a contextual understanding of who you are in Christ.
If you know who you are in Him, there is nothing for which you will not have enough courage. In every act of courage from David, Daniel, Peter, Joseph, Jesus, John, James and Paul, their courage came from their relative identity in Christ, not from within themselves or even their community. “Know thyself”, yes, but not thy isolated self. Alone your self will work against you as either fear or bravado; but “Know thyself ” (in Christ), as the New Testament is so often encouraging us to do; there you will find courage to spare; there you will find real men.

We seem to have a disproportionate excess of fake courage, of bravado. The kind of stuff you see on choreographed wrestling shows, those testosterone soap operas. The boring tirade of threats and insults mark the words of bravado as distinct from the disarming clarity of real courage. Fortitude speaks with an irresistible authority.
Faced with real danger bravado either runs or gets killed, it can give no account of it’s words or its actions. Its words are meaningless and its actions are foolishness.

My brother-in-law believes that the two most dangerous words in the world are “hey dude…” because they are usually followed by some cockamamie plan which ends with a visit to the hospital or from the sheriff’s office; or both. But there are “hey dude” moments in scripture which are conceived in real courage and suggested with Churchillian fortitude.
1Samuel 14:1 “One day Jonathan son of Saul said to the young man bearing his armor, “Come, let’s go over to the Philistine outpost on the other side.” But he did not tell his father.”
A “hey dude” moment if ever there was one. But one born not out of bravado but out of real courage. They knew the odds, yet God took the faith of His own inspiration in these two men, and defeated an army with it. It’s quite something to realize that they only had one sword between them (1 Samuel 13:22).

Courage, David teaches us, is a learned skill, and it is not rooted in bravado, prowess or an abundance of testosterone; but in love. Love for the ones your courage protects. It’s amazing how well we get to know the enemy we have prevailed over after a long battle.
Short, easy battles teach us very little; and although we need to be able to produce courage in an instant we often look back and realize that it was a measure of instinct, providence and adrenaline that got us through. The commodity God is committed to installing in us is fortitude; it’s a big install that uses a lot of resources, but it is a killer app.

Lessons:
1. What has God used in your life to teach you fortitude? What is He using now?
2. Don’t give up to easily, and when it comes to relationships never give up at all.
3. It’s simple to be intimidated but it takes practice to think clearly and speak directly when everyone in panicking.
4. Practice obedience, finding courage in your position in Christ.

Jesus did the same:
Jesus was not afraid to take on the religious leaders, scholars and teachers where they were wrong. He was not afraid of 40 days in the wilderness with no provision and Satan as company, nor was he afraid of the storm which terrified the disciples. Jesus wrestled Himself into submission in order to face the cold cruelty of the cross, and He overcame.
His 30 years had given Him courage, He knew who He was.

Tangent:
There is very little reason to disbelieve the biblical account of the first kings of Israel. It is one of those things which has been subject to the minutest scrutiny and the broadest publication. Archaeological findings merely serve to prove the existence of Saul and David and the accuracy of the biblical record of their lives on earth.
In his wonderful book, ‘The Gift of the Jews’, Thomas Cahill makes the point that from Abraham’s story a new kind of record keeping was born, vastly different from the records of the kings and kingdoms of it’s day, which were notoriously unreliable – they serve as literature, not as history. The Jewish emphasis was always on accuracy, not on the pseudo-greatness of the individual being recorded. It is worth saying again that archeology has proven the biblical record again and again as a reliable historical record, the very first and oldest reliable historical record.
Nonetheless there is a worldwide secular attempt to discredit the bible. It is reliant on assumption on the one hand and and on religion on the other.
The secular, atheist assumes that God does not exist and therefore approaches the text convinced already of it’s inaccuracy. You will hear people say things like, “well you do know of course that the Israelites leaving Egypt were probably just a handful of families and their stories were passed on word of mouth and so became legendary… that’s what people did in those days.”
These kinds of statements are remarkably unscientific coming from those who suggest that Science has replaced the need for God.
The religious attempt to discredit the bible is a humanist approach that wants very much to dilute God into the human condition.

David’s long history in the bible opens at a strange time in Israel. Their very first king, Saul, had turned the fortunes of Israel around, almost destroying the Amalekites in the East, and his son Jonathan had leveled the playing field against the Philistines in the West. But God had rejected Saul as king for his disobedience at his moment of triumph and Israel was now facing a prepared Philistine army, which these young men followed Saul to face.
It’s interesting to note that by the time David faced Goliath as a boy he had already been anointed as replacement king of Israel, but it was to be a further 15 years or more before he actually became king.

There was a standoff between the armies of Israel and Philista and, as was common practice, one side brought forth a champion. The simple rule was that instead of risking the lives of hundreds of men each side’s strongest would fight it out, the looser’s side would then concede.
But the Philistine champion was a mountain of a man, it was a stroke of genius and amazing courage which landed David in front of Goliath; foolhardy Faith, I call it, and it is one of the most memorable stories in the bible. But it would never have happened if David had remained at home like four of his older brothers, and it almost didn’t happen because David, alone of his fathers sons, also carried the sole responsibility of his father’s sheep.
It seems amazing to me that in a family of 8 sons that the youngest of them would willingly care for the family’s sheep as well as respond to the adventure of battle. Sheep caring was a full time, dangerous occupation even for a grown man, let alone an adolescent; and it does not seem like any of the other brothers who did not go to war shared the responsibility. When David left for the battle front he did not leave the sheep in the care of one of the other brothers, but with a shepherd:
1 Samuel 17:20 ” 20 Early in the morning David left the flock with a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry.”

The fact that David felt torn between his duties at home and his thrill seeking desire for the front line tells us a lot about him. It seems like shepherding was no more a duty for David than defending his country or writing songs. He loved what he did as a shepherd but he so badly wanted to defeat those Philistines. There is no indication in scripture that he was considered too young for the army, that may have been the case, but he was there as often as he could be, not cowering in the back, but dropping his goods with the store man and ran to the front line.
This broad shouldered attitude of taking on a challenge with love, diligence and joy, and which set David apart from his brothers, served to make a very dramatic entrance for him. Goliath had come forward and taunted the Israelites for 40 days now, and things were looking desperate. David supplied the courage that was so desperately lacking, and just in the nick of time.
His oldest brother, Eliab, very quickly turned on him. This probably was not the first time that David had showed him up in his lack of courage and leadership. In verse 28 Eliab ridicules both David’s selfless shepherding and is boldness – the contradiction in his ridicule does not seem obvious to him. A David type responsibility is very disarming, for Eliab, Goliath and later we will see even for Saul.

I don’t think that we should glean from this story that David was one of those people who did not know how to say ‘No’, that he ran himself ragged trying to please everyone else. Taking on more and more responsibility so as to try and keep peace is a law of seriously diminishing returns if ever there was one. That is not the David motive. No David loved his sheep, and David was an astounding warrior, and he was prepared to be both shepherd and warrior. You will also notice that three times David was told of the reward Saul offered to Goliath’s vanquisher.
So the story starts by contrasting David with his brothers. David was not the sort of man to throw down one load when he became excited about carrying another.

We live amongst a generation who seem allergic to long term commitment, especially to commitment as simple as shepherding; as servant leadership. Thrill seeking, adventure tourism and reality TV has us itching to squeeze more out of our overworked adrenal glands. Lifelong, honest monogamous marriage has been toted as dull and boring by the vast majority who have never tried it. Those who have tried it and succeeded, however, tell us of adventure, excitement and deep deep satisfaction.
There also seems, in this age, an eagerness to rise into conflict with those closest to us, and to make bonds of friendship with our enemies. Many parents are intimidated by political correctness, technology and pure aggression. David’s responsibility gave him a very clear focus as to who the enemy was. He identified his enemies because he knew so well whom it was he was protecting. David was not just a blood thirsty adventurer, or some cunning strategist vulnerable to corruption. He knew that he was protected, and he knew whom he was called to protect.
Can it be said of us, like of David, that we can kindle our passion again in the intimate moments, that we can be satisfied at being unrecorded warriors fighting shepherd battles that no one will ever know about?
The only way we can do that is with a deep seated assurance of our position in God, and some perseverance training in the wilderness:

Lessons:
1. Don’t be afraid of a fight. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but it’s still a battle.
2. Identify the enemy, don’t turn on the ones closest to you.
3. Forgive those weaker than you when they loose their courage, especially when they turn on you.
4. Take on the Nehemiah duality with a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other (Neh 4:17).

Jesus did the same:
Looking after His disciples, maintaining his close friendships and not forgetting or neglecting the battle, to the point of sweating blood; Jesus is the true shepherd whom David represents in his responsibility.

Tangent:
It’s often asked why it is that the Old Testament was full of racial battles between people groups with God most often siding with the Hebrews, and that the New Testament rejects bloodshed between people and instead makes the battle a spiritual one. Some regard this as contradictory saying that if God never changes why is there such a vast difference between the Testaments?

The bible is clear that it has always been God’s plan to get inside people, to change them from the inside out. Jer 31:33 ““This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.””
It is the single most delicate operation removing the tumor of sin from the souls of men. God’s way to do it was to choose a man, Abraham, and make from him not just a nation, but a culture… an ethos. Cultures are not born, neither are they established, without bloodshed and conflict.
Within that ethos God created a context for Himself, not just for a messenger but for Himself to come.
It is not God who has changed, but God has changed what He is doing. He is no longer building an earthly kingdom.