We looked last week at the time statements in the Bible as to the coming of the Lord. We saw that he said he would come -- while some that were standing there were still living; in that generation; soon; quickly; at hand; he said his coming was near. Everywhere that the Bible talks about the Lord's coming it gives us a time statement. The NT saints fully expected the Lord to return in their lifetime. How could we possibly miss this? Yet the majority of believers today, some two thousand years later are still saying that the Lord will return soon. Can the same event be imminent at two different periods of time separated by two thousand years? Someone said to me that they felt that the Lord said he was coming soon because he wanted every generation to be watching for Him. Think about that. What that means is that when he told the first century believers that he was coming back soon, he really didn't mean it, he was giving them false information to keep them looking for Him. Can you live with that? If that was the case what else did he tell them that wasn't true? Do we have a God who intentionally deceives men? Isn't it much easier to simply believe what Jesus said and believe that he came back in the first century?

What is at stake here is the inspiration of Scripture. If Jesus was mistaken or if he lied to us then what good is the rest of the Bible? There are those opponents who say that if you believe that Jesus came back in the first century then you don't need to read your Bible any more. I don't understand that argument, but if Jesus didn't come back in the first century, when he said that he would then you might as well throw your Bible out because if it isn't inspired, it isn't any good. I believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and therefore without errors.

Have you ever wondered why it is that two men can read the same passage of scripture and come up with two totally different interpretations? Or why two men can read the same Bible and yet see things so differently? Two men who love God and yet see the same scripture in two different ways. Is it that one of them is stubborn or unreasonable? No, it is because each of us has within us paradigms of what life is really all about. The word paradigm means a model or a map. We look at life through our paradigms. Inside each of us is a map or model of what life ought to be like. Our paradigms are representations of life. We all have them, and we all have paradigms of eschatology. Eschatology is a word that frightens people, they don't understand it so they are afraid of it. When I talk about eschatology, I am not talking about the end of time, but the time of the end. There is a very large difference between those two ideas. Eschatology is the doctrine of last things but it is the last things of God's plan to redeem us, not the last things of planet earth.

Does the Bible speak of the end of the world? Everyone seems to think so, but could they be wrong?

While most assume Revelation is about the end of planet Earth, it actually never speaks on such a topic. So what does it teach?

For a book that was written to reveal, much of the plain language seems to confuse so many so easily.

What is Scripture telling us when it speaks of the sun being darkened and the stars falling from the sky? Most people seem to be confused on this topic.

1 Thessalonians 4:17 (NKJV) Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Most Christians today view this verse as describing an escape from the troubles of this world. They believe that one day soon, (it is always soon, it was "soon" when Jesus spoke it to the Thessalonians and it is still soon today) Jesus is going to physically appear in the sky, and immediately all the dead are going to be resurrected and rise to meet Him, and the living Christians will be caught up in the clouds with them to be with Christ. They believe that Christians will physically be "raptured" off of this planet. I'm sure you've seen the pictures of the unmanned cars crashing and bodies coming out of the graves with everyone going up into the sky.

Are you aware that this "rapture of the church" idea is not a historical teaching of the church but something that was started around 1830 by the Plymouth Brethren? It was popularized in America by the Scofield Reference Bible and by elaborate End Time event charts published by Clarence Larkin. During the twentieth century, the "physical rapture" of the Church became a dominant eschatological view.

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Matthew is filled with time text indicators of the events to occur in the "last days" but many do not take a serious consideration of them, or seek to explain them away if they do not fit with their expectations.

Matthew is filled with time text indicators of the events to occur in the "last days" but many do not take a serious consideration of them, or seek to explain them away if they do not fit with their expectations.

The resurrection of mankind is not a New Testament prophecy, but comes from a promise to Israel in the Old Covenant. It had been laid out hundreds of years earlier, and both Jesus and Paul came preaching that resurrection hope. That hope was to happen at a certain time, and Daniel 12 holds many keys to knowing the time.