Little word 'again' destroys all their theology

(new article tomorrow)

In one of His most commonly known parables, Jesus Christ informs, “When a fig tree begins to put forth its leaves you know harvest time is coming. You can tell what time of the year it is; you can tell what’s going on by looking around you.”

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.
[35] Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
[36] But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
[37] But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

“This is the passage people wrongly use to try and date the Rapture and the Second Coming,” explains Richard Jordan. “Anti-dispensationalists say that all these things Christ talked about in these verses about the judgment coming have already passed and are historically filled; there’s no future prophecy.

“With Preterism, Calvinism and Covenant theology, they literally believe that all the prophecies of Daniel, Revelation--they all took place around 70 A.D. when the Romans came in and defiled the temple in Jerusalem.

“That’s just bad Bible thinking. It took until 135 A.D. before they got the Jews out of Israel so the deportation, finally, didn’t take place for another 60 years. Theologians get all that stuff out of things like Josephus’ writings, not out of the Bible.

Luke 21:27: [27] And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

That’s Mark 13:25. [25] And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.
[26] And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great     power and glory.

Luke 21 continues, [28] And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.
[29] And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees;
[30] When they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand.
[31] So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.
[32] Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.

“When those events start to take place, He says, ‘Look up because the Son of man is coming.’ By that verse write down Acts 1: 9-11: [9] And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.
[10] And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
[11] Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

“Just like He personally goes up in a cloud, He’s going to come back in a cloud, this time in power and in great glory, as opposed to in meekness and lowliness, as with His first coming.

“The reason it's asked, ‘Why you keep looking up into heaven?’ is because it isn’t time for Him to come back. When would they look up? When you see all these signs.

“In Acts 1:6, His apostles had asked, ‘Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?’ Jesus said, ‘It’s not for you to know the times,’ and then He ascends up and the apostles look up, He’s gone, and the angel says, ‘Hey, it’s not time for you to look up; it’s time for you to go get busy.’ The time to look up is when you see the sign.”

*****

Acts 1: [5] For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.

[6] When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
[7] And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
[8] But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
[9] And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

“When I read verse 6 the word that sticks out is that word again. That little word again destroys all of amillennial, post-millennial, non-dispensational, covenant theology and all the rest of it.

“The idea that the apostles had misunderstood what Christ was saying to them and He wasn’t really telling them there was going to be a literal, physical, visible, Davidic kingdom; they just misunderstood.

"That little word again destroys all that because the only kind of kingdom Israel ever had up to this point from God was a literal, physical, visible, earthly, Davidic kingdom centered in the city of Jerusalem, the city of the great king.

“They say, ‘Will you restore again to us what we used to have?’ And He said unto them, ‘It is not for you to know the nature or the makeup of the kingdom.’ Oh, no, I’m sorry, that isn’t what He said, is it?

[7] And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.

“In other words, He doesn’t say, ‘You misunderstood the nature of the kingdom.’ He just said, ‘I can’t tell you the times or the seasons; there are some things that have to happen before it’s accomplished and that’s something that has to be done at the Father’s command.’ ”

*****

"Every religion found among mankind has its origin, in some particular way, in the religion God gave Israel.

"It’s a fascinating thing when you study it through," says Jordan. "Study Islam, Hinduism . . . I was reading through the Bhagavad Gita, one of the Hindu holy books, and I’m in this one passage thinking, ‘Wow, man, that’s Leviticus!’ You say, ‘How’d they know about that?!’ Well, it got out.

“You watch Islam. Ramadan is here and they make the pilgrimage. Well, three times a year, every Jew had to go back to Jerusalem, make a pilgrimage. Deuteronomy 16:16. It was required of them. Not just once in a lifetime but every year.

“The Muslims pray toward Mecca. Well, where did Daniel pray toward? Jerusalem. Why? That’s where God’s temple was.

“You look at all that corrupted stuff out there . . . Israel, who had the ‘pure religion,’ as the Bible calls it, corrupted their religion with the false and it’s a screwball kind of a thing where, ‘I’ve got the real thing and you’ve got the fake thing, but I like your fake thing, too, so I’ll bring your fake thing into my real thing and corrupt my real thing, and now both of us don’t have anything worth having!'

“They just swap things around and that’s why II Kings 17 says about Israel that they worship Jehovah and serve Baal. You say, 'How do you do that?!'

"Well, go to any church in America today and you can see it happening. Go to a Catholic church, Orthodox church, Catholic-sympathizing Protestant church, which is pretty much everybody, and you see all those kinds of things.

“I just had a conversation with a brother who's dealing with people in his assembly about the Lord’s Supper; they're glued to doing it in the traditional mini-Protestant Mass form and they think it’s an absolute requirement it be done that way.

"I’m thinking, ‘You know, even if I thought what they wanted to do was right, making it an absolute requirement is exactly the opposite of what I Corinthians 11 says to do.’ You think, 'Where’d that come from?' Tradition gets a hold on you.

*****

“God says in Isaiah 1:13-15 [13] Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.
[14] Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
[15] And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

“When He says there ‘you spread forth your hands,’ that’s how the religions pray. You know why people do that when they pray? It’s, ‘Pour down the blessing, Lord!’ Have you ever watched a Catholic priest do the Mass? Why do they do that?

"You ever watch the Charismatic folks on the TV? Why do they do it? They haven’t got a consciousness of God living inside of them. Why do you want God to drop you something if you understand He lives inside you? ‘What’s He dropping down? He’s in here!’

“Things that you do mean things. People say, ‘Well, Paul says over in Timothy to lift up holy hands.’ Well, as soon as you get holy hands, lift them up, but until then, understand that’s a figure of speech. That’s not talking about the posture of your hands. I’ve looked at most of you all’s hands and they aren’t that holy.

“By the way, people use this passage in Isaiah 1 to say, ‘See, God really didn’t want Israel to have all that bloody religion.’ Yes, He did. He gave it to them! He just wanted them to do it in faith, not make a religious system out of it; not have ‘idols in their heart,’ as Ezekiel says.

*****

“Go to Ezekiel 36 and see how the land had been polluted and made unclean by the blood of the idolaters and offering the children to Molech. All that blood of idolatry, He takes them out of that land for the 70 years so the land can have rest.

“In Isaiah 1, when He says, ‘So is this people,’ He’s talking about Israel and every work of their hand; everything they’ve done in their religion is unclean, unacceptable.

"Talking to the nation Israel, He says they’re spiritually Sodom and Gomorrah: '[10] Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.' The Book of Revelation calls them that.

“The nation Israel is in an absolute condition of rebellion. He calls them that at the end of verse 2. Isaiah 1:4 says, '[4] Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.'

“That’s His description of them spiritually before they go into captivity. Haggai is telling them, ‘You’re still in that spiritual condition.’

“Isaiah 1:11 says, [11] To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.

“The problem isn’t that God didn’t give them commandments and instructions about burnt offerings and so forth; it’s that they’re not bringing them in faith. The Book of Leviticus says ‘if any man will.’ They made a religion out of the sacrifices.

"He says ‘bring no more vain oblations.’ They’d developed the Jew’s religion into a vain religious system. Jesus said, ‘In vain do you worship me, teaching doctrines of men.’ ”