Skipping through YouTube entries a little while ago, I noticed last night's study at Shorewood already had 323 hits. Here's an outtake:
"Christian pastors don't do that so they do what Pastor O'Hair used to say: 'You tell spiritual lies because you don't have spiritual eyes,' and therefore you spiritualize the Scripture.
"They say, 'See, it says Israel, but that really means God's people and we're God's people; that's us. Since He made a promise to them and we get part of the promises, that's us.' You say, 'Wait a minute, it says the land.' They say, 'That's just a metaphor. It doesn't really mean the land.'
Luke 1: [30] And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.
[31] And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.[32] He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
[33] And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
"The first time I ever heard anybody do this was a professor of mine at Mobile College when I was there in the 1960s. Actually, Dr. Dobbs was the best professor I ever had. He was a jolly guy, brilliant. Had a Thd and a Phd degree--one in New Testament criticism and one in koine Greek.
"He read that passage and said, 'Now, you understand that that's not literal. The house of Jacob--that's us. That's the saints; the people of God. When He talks about reigning over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom, we're a part of the kingdom. The kingdom's within us. So don't take that literally and be a Bible thumper.'
"If verse 32 and 33 aren't literal, then how come verse 31 is literal? It's harder to believe verse 31 than it is verse 32 and 33.
Verse 34: [34] Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
"That's called the miraculous conception of the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't have an earthly father; God the Holy Spirit took the DNA in Mary's body and formed the body of the Lord Jesus Christ in her miraculously.
"Now, it would seem to me that it's harder for people to believe in a virgin birth than it is to believe God would put Israel back in the land. So, if one's not literal . . . How come in one verse it's not literal and in the other one it is and both of them sound like they're real?!
"Those ideas are called all kinds of things in theology. Amillennialism, Post-millennialism, Preterism.
"One of the wildest ideas you'll ever hear is a doctrine called Preterism, which is a Latin word that means 'the past.' The teaching is that all of the prophecies of the New Testament about the Second Coming of Christ, about Him establishing His kingdom, took place in 70 A.D.
"You know who R.C. Sproul was? He taught that. Big shots. Tim Keller from New York City? He taught that. Leading evangelicals believe in Amillennialism, meaning no millennium, no thousand-year reign of Christ on the earth. No literal, physical, visible kingdom on the earth. None of that.
"They pick 70 A.D. for two reasons. One, that's when the temple was first destroyed by Titus the Roman. The problem is, there were three wars. It wasn't until 135 A.D. that the Jews were taken out of the land. Titus went in, the story is he sacrificed a pig on the altar and desecrated the temple, but it was already desecrated. God had already demonstrated He wasn't there. After Christ dies, He takes down from top to bottom the veil between the holy and the Most Holy. What was inside the Most Holy? Nothing. What was supposed to be there? The presence of Jehovah.
"He wasn't telling them the law's gone; He was telling them, 'I'm gone!' Ichabod, the glory's departed. Tearing the building down was just that.
"But Josephus, a Jewish unbeliever, says that when that happened, there were phenomena in the sky; he saw visions in the sky. Now he's an unbeliever, he didn't say that was the Second Coming of Christ. No Believer ever said they saw it, but they (the Preterists) decided that was the Second Coming of Christ establishing His kingdom.
"You say, 'Where would they get such a cuckoo, cuckoo idea?!' Well, if you got an idea you got to find a verse to attach it to.
Matthew 24: [32] Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:
[33] So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.[34] Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
"When you see these things happening in verses 21-23, etc., know His coming is near; it's at the door. Verse 34 is an interesting verse. By the way, you have Preterists and what they call Partial Preterists. Partials believe everything EXCEPT the Second Coming of Christ took place in 70 A.D. But it didn't say that. The verse says 'ALL these things be fulfilled.'
"What's a generation in the Bible? 40 years? This is written in 33 A.D. So they say, 'See, it fits! These people He's talking to have to be there and before they die, they're going to see it.' Problem is, none of these people saw it.
"Look back at Matthew 23: [31] Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
[32] Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.[33] Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
"He's talking to the Pharisees and over and over He says, 'Woe unto you Pharisees, scribes, hypocrites.' He's condemning the religious leaders of His nation for their apostasy.
"He just called the religious leaders 'ye generation of vipers.' In the next chapter He talks about this generation. What generation do you think He's talking about in Matthew 24:34? Dollars against donut holes, He's talking about the generation He just mentioned in chapter 23.
"The apostate leaders of Israel were not going to go away until He comes back and destroys them because He's judged them as irredeemable. Well, that would be a better way of reading it. The difficulty that the Preterists have is none of these things happened in 70 A.D. The kingdom didn't come, the persecution of Believers didn't stop, the church didn't begin to dwell safely and confidently.
"In fact, the early church was persecuted incessantly and murderously until at least 313 A.D. when Constantine made the Edict of Milan to officially stop the persecution of the Roman Empire against Christianity.
"So when you look at it you say, 'None of this fits.' "
(to be continued . . .)
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