Great Bible Doctrines
Lesson No. 12: Eschatological Teachings
Date: August 14, 2002, Wednesday Evening Adult Bible
Class
Speaker: John Phillis
We are continuing in our series of lessons on the Great Bible
Doctrines. Last week we looked at the Bible doctrine of
rewards and punishments. As Paul said to the church in Rome,
“Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those
who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in
His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off,”
Romans 11, verse 22. This passage, as well as a
hundred others, as well as examples that are set forth in both the
Old Testament and the New Testament, tell us that God is a rewarder
of the obedient and the faithful, and that He will punish the
disobedient and the unfaithful. And although some want to
think of God only as a rewarder, think of only His goodness, as we
pointed out last time, we must look at the entire nature of
God. God’s justice demands that every sin be punished, and
since all accountable souls are sinners as Paul says, Romans 3,
verse 23 [“For all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God,”], sinners or the sin of mankind, as a whole and
individually, must be punished. And therefore, some who are
found to be in a lost condition will spend eternity in hell.
But God’s desire is that all men be saved, 2 Peter 3, verse
9 [“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some
count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that
any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”],
and He has provided a way—the Way, the
onlyWay—for men to be forgiven of their sins and to
be saved. That ONLY WAY IS IN CHRIST! Therefore, each
person makes that decision. Each person decides by his own
life and by his obedience or lack of obedience to God, whether he
will receive the benefits or the rewards of God, or if he will be
punished by God eternally.
These thoughts concerning the rewards and punishments, those
things that we looked at in Lesson 11, prepare us for this
lesson. This lesson will be an examination of what the Bible
has to say about what will transpire at the end of
time. This is called “Eschatology.” Eschatology is the
doctrine (teaching, instruction) of the “last things,” or the
“final things,” or the “end times.” So that is what we’re
looking at in this lesson.
Let me just say that time does not permit us to look at every
thing that we might explore on this subject. As a matter of
fact, I was thinking as I was preparing for the lesson that it was
three years ago that I attended the Spiritual Sword Lectureship in
Memphis, Tennessee. It was in October of 1999, and the
subject matter of that lectureship, the entire week’s worth of
sermons, several each day, was the subject of “Eschatology,” the
study of end times. So in a few minutes this evening, we’re
obviously not going to cover every aspect of this subject.
Although it is not its primary purpose, the Bible is still a
book of history. The Bible is accurate in every aspect,
whether it has to do with medical things, or historical things, or
social things, or cultural things. Whatever the Bible speaks
about, it speaks about it in an accurate way.
The Bible certainly speaks accurately in the area of
history. But specifically, in the context of what we’re
talking about tonight, the Bible relates to us the beginning
of all things, that is, all the temporal things, the things that
we’re familiar with in this physical realm, Genesis 1, verse
1, “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the
earth,” and so on. So that was the beginning.
The Bible also tells us that an end to these things will
come. Peter says in 1 Peter 4, verse 7, “But the
end of all things is at hand,” [“But the end of all things
is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your
prayers.”]. Then, the Book of Revelation gives us
a look into the things that will occur at the end—at the
termination of these physical things. And the Book of
Revelation gives us a glimpse into eternity, as well.
As I said, Eschatology is the study of “last things.” It is a
study of the order in which the end will come, when Jesus makes His
second appearance—His second coming, as we refer to it
sometimes. The second coming of our Lord was promised by
Himself. It will be the very climax, the “crescendo,” of all
of human history. It will bring the removal of humans from
the earth to another place, which we’ll talk about later. It
will declare the end of the earth and of the universe, because it
will all be consumed.
Let us first look at THE ORDER OF EVENTS IN THE
END. Now we are speaking of specific events which will
transpire surrounding the second coming. We know that we live
in the last days. We are living in the last days now.
We’ve been in the last days now for 2,000 years. It will
still be the last days if this earth stands another 1,000 years, or
another 5,000 years. But we’re talking specifically about the
events that surround the second coming—the end time, the
last things.
First of all, the Lord will return in that second coming
without warning. He will descend from Heaven at some
future moment in time. That might occur before I finish this
sentence! It might occur before we return to our homes this
evening. It might occur before the sun comes up
tomorrow. It might not occur for hundreds or thousands of
years. But when it does occur, it will come without
warning. We can look at a long list of passages of Scriptures
that speak to the second coming of Jesus. This is not some
remote possibility. This is not someone’s “pipe dream.”
No, it is firmly implanted on the pages of Scripture, that He will
come again. Jesus said that the Father only knows the time of
that return, Matthew 24, verse 36 [“But of that day and
hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father
only.”]. Even the other Heavenly beings—the angels—do not
know. Even Jesus Himself does not know. He says in that
passage that only the Father knows that time.
| | | | |
