What Is Next?
(Part 1)
page
l 1 l 2 l
- 1 -
Dear Mr. Wilson:
What does Bible
prophecy predict will happen next?
One Internet site says one thing and
another says something else. Because
I am not a Bible scholar and
honestly, I don’t have much
confidence in my pastor, I don’t
know who or what to believe. From a
secular point of view) politically,
economically, ecologically,
militarily, religiously, etc.), there
is a great deal of uncertainty. I am
guessing there is going to be a
global implosion of some kind and I
cannot figure out what I should do.
Would you break this down for me? I
would like to know what is coming
next?
John
Dear John:
Yes, it seems as
though there is a new crisis roiling
the world every month or so, but if
recorded history proves anything, it
proves bad news does not mean that
the end of the world is at hand. I do
believe that the end of the world is
near, but on the same basis of what
we read or hear in the media. God has
given all of us something far better
than media driven eschatology to
indicate the nearness of
Christ’s return. It is called,
“Bible prophecy!”
The books of Daniel
and Revelation are different than the
other books in the Bible. The book of
Daniel was written around 600 B.C.
and God put a seal on this book until
the time of the end. (See Daniel
12:4,9.) This indicates that God has
something to reveal to the final
generation that He had not revealed
before. The book of Revelation was
written around A.D. 100 and even
though it was not sealed up like the
book of Daniel, Revelation depends on
the unsealing of Daniel to make
sense.
God embedded two
amazing elements within the book of
Daniel and Revelation for the benefit
of the last generation who would live
on Earth. First. He put a
chronological sequence of prophetic
events in these books. These events
began to unfold about 6—B.C. and
the sequence will continue without
interruption until the world of sin
is purified – 1,000 years after
the Second Coming. Second, God puts
eighteen spans of time within each
sequence of events so that we can
determine the overall duration of
God’s plan.
Once we understand how
the prophetic sequences of Daniel and
Revelation align with each other, we
can determine our chronological
position within God’s plan. With
a little training, an ordinary person
can determine the previous
prophetic event and the next prophetic
event for himself because the Bible
speaks for itself. This feature of
apocalyptic prophecy is the basis for
any assertion that the book of Daniel
has been unsealed and that
Christ’s return is very near.
Why
Experts Disagree
When its comes to
interpreting the Bible prophecy, it
is true that one expert says on thing
and another expert says something
else. Prophetic expositors arrive at
different conclusions because there
are as many different methods of
interpretation as there are people. Methods
of Interpretation is a phrase
that defines a controlling set of
ideas or views that a person has in
mind before he or she actually
begins to interpret prophecy.
Doctrinal beliefs, presuppositions,
assumptions, concepts about the role
and authority of Scripture, the use
of external authority, and church
traditions produce controlling ideas.
Notice how they work: A Catholic
Scholar will interpret prophecy so
that his Catholic doctrines and his
prophetic conclusions harmoniously
align; a Baptist scholar will do the
same thing. In other words, two
scholars can study the same passages
of Scripture and arrive at different
conclusions because everyone
approaches Bible prophecy with some
kind of baggage. This baggage is
called “methods of
interpretation,”
“presuppositions,” rules of
interpretation,” or
hermeneutics. Perhaps the
following parable will illustrate the
controlling power that comes from
baggage.
The
Parable of the Math Teacher
Once upon a time,
there was a math teacher who was
invited to teach math in a college in
a distant city called Overspent.
During the first week of college
algebra, the teacher discovered a
puzzling situation. His students
could not solve a single math problem
correctly. In fact, all of the
students gave identical answers for
each math problem that he gave them.
He asked the students to explain how
they had entered college – given
the fact they did not have the skills
necessary to resolve basic math
problems. The students said their
high school teachers did not require
them to work through math problems
because highly educated and
spiritually guided math teachers long
ago had solved all math problems and
all they needed to do was to memorize
the answers. The teacher was shocked.
The next day, the
teacher set out to remedy the
problem. He put this equation on the
board: 3c + 5 = 20. He asked the
students to solve for c. All of the
students reported that c was equal to
3. The teacher could not believe his
ears. He demonstrated on the
chalkboard how c was solved, and he
proved that c = 5 in the equation
using rules of substitution.
The students became angry. They were
insulted by this “outsider”
because he showed no respect for
their high school elders and their
traditional way of solving math
problems.
The student s told the
teacher that if he had written 3e + 5
= 20, their answer would have been 5
because “e” always equals
5. They had always been taught that
“a” always = 1,
“b” always = 2,
“c” always = 3, etc. The
teacher responded by saying that in
math, a variable’s name does not
determine its value. It does not
matter whether a variable is called
“e” or “c” or
“x.” When it comes to
resolving a math problem, the process
must conform to the valid rules of
substitution or the answer will be
erroneous. The students could not
bear to hear any more of this heresy,
so they rose up as one man and
stormed out of the class. The math
teacher was stunned. He wondered how
he could help these students. They
knew nothing about working through
math problems or that math is
controlled by four self-evident
rules of addition,
multiplication, subtraction, and
division. He thought to himself,
“They think they have been
properly informed and they are afraid
to consider answers that are contrary
to traditions of their elders.”
Perplexed by their hostility, he
wondered what he could do to get the
students to put aside their
traditions so that they could
consider the truth.
The next day, the
teacher plainly said to his students:
“Please hear me out. You have
been misled. Your knowledge of math
is worthless. Memorizing the answer
to a math problem is not to be
confused with properly working a
legitimate process to find the
correct answer. If you follow the
four rules that govern math, you can
test the validity of your answers
because accurate math solutions are
not a matter of opinion, they are a
matter of fact. Accurate solutions
are true because they can be proven
true by self-evident rules!”
Immediately, the students became
hostile. The teacher had condemned
their traditions and their beloved
elders. He had insulted them and
their exalted high school teachers.
They threw desks and chairs at the
teacher and in a riotous frenzy, they
beat him to death.
When the bell rang,
the students went away happy. They
were relieved that the offending
teacher had been silenced. They
petitioned the dean of the college to
provide a math teacher who would
teach according to their elders and
their wish was granted. Years later,
many of these students graduated from
Overspent City College and some of
them went to work for the elders of
the city. Later, the city faced an
enormous financial crisis and all of
the elders and college graduates
could not stop the city from going
bankrupt. When the auditors showed
up, no one in the accounting
department could figure out what went
wrong – literally.
There are four lessons
to be learned from this silly
parable. First, for most of us,
traditions are more important than
truth. Traditions are familiar and
predictable, whereas the truth can be
disruptive, humiliating and socially
divisive. Second, it is impossible to
be “a defender of the
faith” and at the same time, be
“a seeker of truth.” These
two mindsets stand in opposition to
each other. Third, if someone exposes
the folly of a tradition, he or she
will surely suffer for it. Last, if
we reject or ignore the truth,
failure cannot be avoided. We may
arrogantly defend our ignorance, but
ignorance will not save us from the
results that truth demands.
page l 1 l 2 l
- 1 -
