Hebrews 6.3 H
December 15th 2013
Welcome, welcome.
First time here?
We tape
We sing the Word
We sit in a few minutes of silence together to pray and reflect.
You know the more I spend time digging and studying the more I realize that God has gone to some extreme and almost unlimited ends to save Man.
I used to think in far more black and white and linear terms when it came to God . . . you know,
“God good – Man bad.”
This is solution – accept it my way or die.”
But God is much much bigger than this. And it seems He is drawing all people to the solution named Jesus through all sorts of ways and means.
He reveals Himself in the stars, in nature here, in science (yes, in science) in technology, in history, in art and the humanities of every medium, even through wealth and poverty.
I am not sure God is not calling to all, in some way or another, in everything that happens or exists.
The question is, are we able to hear.
Fortunately for believers, the Holy Spirit is at work within us – opening the ears and hearts and minds of those who are willing to grow.
And above all things we engage with day in and out perhaps the best two witnesses He has provided us that supports His existence are the Holy Spirit and His Word.
Had we lived in Jesus day, it would have been Him and His physical presence and deeds but because we don’t we are privy to two strong witnesses that are here for the taking – the presence of God by and through His Holy Spirit, and the existence of His word.
So let’s take a minute and hear some of His Word put to music, and let’s invite the Holy Spirit to work within and upon us as we learn more and more about Him.
THE WORD
SILENCE
Okay, before we begin, I failed to explain something important last week in our study about Matthew 24 verse 6.
It plays and will play a very important role in our understanding what Jesus is saying (and what will be said) in our future analysis of the rest of the New Testament.
In verse six of Matthew we read:
6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end (of the age) is not yet.
There are all sorts of Biblical tools out there that appeal to the Greek to help us understand what is being said.
There are literal versions of the Bible, like Rotherham’s, Weymouth’s and Young’s, there are inter-linear versions, and there is something called the Emphatic Diaglott, which gives the original Greek in one column and the English in another.
The word for “ye shall,” as in verse six where it says, “and ye shall hear of wars and rumors or wars” is “mello.”
And it means, “this is about to happen,”
“This is going to get started.”
In fact, if you read either the Emphatic Polyglott or from Rotherham or Young’s literal translations, we get a better idea of the timing of the message.
In fact Weymouth’s New Testament translation of Matthew 24:6 says “And before long you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. Do not be alarmed, for such things must be; but the End is not yet.”
And Young’s Literal Translation says “and ye shall begin to hear of wars, and reports of wars; see, be not troubled, for it behoveth all [these] to come to pass, but the end is not yet.”
And the Emphatic Polyglott reads:
“You are about to . . .”
We will come back to this word Mello in other verses but understand this is the context of Jesus message here in Matthew 24.
Got that?
Okay, we on moving on to seek answers to the Question:
“When does the Bible say Jesus should return?”
The reason we are asking this question is because the Bible ties the resurrection to Jesus return and we are attempting to understand the basics of the resurrection of the dead so we can leave that “basic Gospel principle behind so we can move on to what the writer of Herbews says is
“perfection,” (or better put, completion) in the Christian walk.
There are a couple of issues I need to make clear as we continue to move through this attempt.
First, this is by no means exhaustive. Entire books – better said, entire volume sets of books have been written that address, for example, the verse by verse of Matthew 24.
Ours is to point out the best general picture as possible.
Secondly, I may be incorrect in some (I suppose even all) of my assessments. Obviously, I don’t think I am, but you may differ.
The last thing I want to do is divide believers on doctrine. Having said this however, you could probably step outside the door and throw a rock in any direction and find a pastor or teacher who are willing to present “their” view on end times as seamless.
I will never make such a stance on something with so many variables.
Third, I have said, and stand by the stance that the Bible is more than clear on when it says Jesus should return.
Alright, as a quick reminder, we are hitting what Jesus said in the Gospels about His return.
Last week we read the first fourteen verses of Matthew 24. We noted that chapter 24 is Jesus response to three questions given Him from Peter, James, John and Andrew (which were)
Tell us, when shall these things (which we discussed last week) be?
and what shall be the sign of thy coming,
and of the end of the world?
We noted, right off the bat that where the King James posits their last question as “What shall be the sign of the end of the world,” the better most literal translation would be
“and what shall be the sign of the end of the age” (meaning the age or dispensation of the Jews and their temple and economy, etc).
We then ended our study with verse fourteen, where once again, the King James use of the English term “world” is once again not what it should be.
If speaking of the literal WORLD the Greek would be kosmos. But where verse 14 reads:
14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
The Greek word is not KOSMOS but OUI KU MENE, which is better understood as land, or region, as in this region of Rome.
So let’s read on in Matthew 24 and see if there are other evidences within its narrative that tell us “when Jesus should return.”
After (in verse 14) Jesus says:
“Then shall the end come,” He continues with more in verse 15 saying:
15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:
17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:
18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.
19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:
21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.
Okay, history tells us, no matter how much we want these descriptions to describe our day, that in the mid 60s AD, the Romans attacked Judea and Jerusalem.
And that by 70 AD Jerusalem was utterly destroyed – temple included.
We know that over 1,000,000 Jews were slaughtered and the rest were taken and made prisoners or dispersed out over the world.
After describing all these things to THEM and saying they would exist, Jesus adds at verse 15:
15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
I think it is significant that the Lord, in connection with his discussion of the destruction of Jerusalem used the remarkable prophecy that had been given five centuries earlier to the prophet Daniel.
This is what Jesus said in verses 15-16:
“When therefore ye see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let him that readeth understand), then let them that are in Judea flee.”
The dispensational theory, the pre-trib rapture folk have long argued that the “abomination of desolation” is coming.
This is what they say:
“The Antichrist,” (an alleged world dictator) will “make the temple abominable” in the so-called tribulation period just prior to the Lord’s second coming.
I would suggest that they are correct. “He, them, and it” did show up prior to His second coming with the tribulation beginning around 60 AD and it’s culmination being in 70AD in Judea.
In fact, we find Luke’s account of this description in chapter 21:20-21. This is how he put it:
Luke 21:20 And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.
The Greek word for Desolation is “Eray-mosis” and it is used only three times in the entire New Testament – once in Matthew 24 (where Jesus answers when He should return) and in the similar accounts found in Luke 21 and Mark 13).
Again, this is how Luke describes the abomination of desolation to the disciples:
Luke 21:20 And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.
Then the Lord says:
“Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.
This was a major sign Jesus gave to his apostles directly – something to look for and observe for their own well being.
Even the Jewish Historian said, relative to the Daniel prophesy in his Antiquities of the Jews (10/11/7):
“Daniel also wrote concerning the Roman government, and that our country should be made desolate by them” (Antiquities of the Jews 10.11.7).
This abomination of Desolation was something that would happen to them not something that would happen thousands of years later but within a time frame of their own lives – “their own generation.”
Now, I want to pause here and address the resistances and questions that Christian futurists raise relative to the term “generation.”
A few of you have asked where generation is defined as forty years.
We know from scriptures that the Hebrews reckoned time by “the generation.”
In Abraham’s day a generation was a hundred years (as evidenced by Genesis 15:16.
But when we get to Moses book of Deuteronomy we see that “a generation” has been red-defined as a period of “thirty-eight years.”
(this configuration is based on the contents of Deuteronomy 1:35 and 2:14).
Also the generation that would perish in the wilderness during the Exodus was 38.5 years.
However, there are plenty of evidences that a generation was about 42 years as well so from what I can tell the best Bible scholars say forty years is a close approximation and not a hard and fast span of time.
What is hard and fast is that biblically a generation is close to forty years.
Additionally, Matthew 1:17 says:
“So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations.”
Since the Babylonian captivity occurred in 586 BC we can divide that by 14 and get about 41.89 years.
Now, there are those who say when Jesus said (twice in chapter 23 and 24 of Matthew)
34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
That the Greek word for generation is Ghen-ee-ah, and while it can mean generation (as in forty years) it can also mean a nation, or a people (where we derive genealogy).
Therefore they interpret Jesus words as meaning, “behold this people (the Jews) shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled.”
I don’t see it this way for the following reasons.
First, in plain speaking, generation meant generation – around forty years. Admittedly, Jesus does speak in parables and so this is not the best reason.
But here’s a challenge:
Get out your concordance and look up every New Testament occurrence of the word generation (in Greek, genea) and see if it ever means ‘race’ in any other context.
Here are all the references for the Gospels: Matthew 1:17; 11:16; 12:39, 41, 42, 45; 16:4; 17:17; 23:36; 24:34; Mark 8:12, 38; 9:19; 13:30; Luke 1:48, 50; 7:31; 9:41; 11:29, 30, 31, 32, 50, 51; 18:8; 17:25; 21:32.
Not one of these references is speaking of the entire Jewish race over thousands of years but all use the word in its normal sense of the sum total of those living at the same time. In every case it refers to contemporaries.
(In fact, even proponents of the genea theory who say it means “race” tend to acknowledge this but will say that that the word suddenly changes its meaning when Jesus uses it in Matthew 24!
The best explanation that I have found to explain this (in addition to what we’ve already said) is when Jesus was in the temple berating the Jews in Matthew 21-23, He finally says in Matthew 23:36:
“Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.” And most scholars agree that here Jesus is speaking to those Jews who were alive and present at that time out forty years.
Then Jesus exits the temple with His twelve, He predicts the temples fall, they go to the Mount of Olives, and after they ask Him their three questions, He describes the end of the age to them, and then says in chapter 24:34
“Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”
But because they do not understand His coming and believe it is still in the future, they are stuck.
So in this singular case they say “generation” does not mean what generation has always meant – that it means nation or people-group – and this gives them a solution to support their errant position.
I mean consider this – scholars and Bible commentators will cite the destruction of Jerusalem as the fulfillment of Jesus words to the Jews who hear Him in the temple but when it comes to the same words to the apostles they say it means “nation.”
Nothing changes between Matthew 23 to Matthew 24 – in fact it’s the same message!
But in order to excuse the fact that they don’t believe Jesus has returned they change the meaning of a word in this single New Testament instance.
Okay, so the Lord says that when Jerusalem is surrounded that
16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains (by the way, that is not a very effective way to escape a nuclear holocaust, is it?) And . . .
17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:
18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.
These are very reasonable instructions for the people in Jesus day.
Then, Jesus gave another very applicable suggestion (in verse 17): “Let him that is on the housetop not go down to take out the things that are in his house.”
Edersheim mentions that this advice makes great sense when applied to 70 AD because the houses of old Jerusalem were flat-roofed and situated right next to each other allowing Christians to escape on “a road of roofs” to the edge of the city therefore escaping invading soldiers.
Then, Jesus urges (in verse 20) for them to:
“Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter” nor “on a Sabbath,” advice which would have meaning anciently when primitive travel during winter would be harsh and the city gates were closed on the Sabbath.
Add to all this the fact that when the Romans actually did attack Jerusalem and the Christians read these signs Jesus had supplied them, they fled to Pell (according to Eusebius) which was beyond the Jordan (This is found in Ecclesiastical History III.5) and NOT a Christian convert was lost.
Then Jesus says:
Jesus continues in Matthew 24, saying:
19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:
Knowing all the horrors that were going to fall on those very people must have tormented the Lord. Luke tells us in chapter 19 about His weeping over the city.
Then in Luke 23:27-30 Jesus responds to some women in a very interesting way.
The narrative says:
27 And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him.
28 But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.
29 For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.
30 Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.
Notice the similarity when Jesus speaks to the Daughters of Jerusalem here in Luke 23:28 and His words here in Matthew 24:19, where Jesus says:
“Woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck (are breastfeeding) in those days?”
Lukes account puts it this way:
“Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bare, and the paps that never gave suck.”
Friends, all of this – and much much more fell upon the Jews at Jerusalem in those days and do NOT describe something we are still waiting to occur in our day and age some 2000 years later!
I mean, in the Luke account, we read:
30 “Then shall they (especially the mothers, it seems) then shall they begin to say to the mountains, “Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.”
You know where else this line is used? Revelation 6:15-17.
Speaking of the judgment of the Lamb falling on Israel John the Beloved wrote:
Revelation 6:15 And the kings of the earth (the country) and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.”
We’re going to get to how Revelation describes when Jesus should come in a few weeks.
But there is the explanation of Matthew 24:19-20.
Jesus continues, saying
20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:
21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.
Now, we have read of a lot of carnage when it comes to war in the world. Was Jesus right when He said (in verse 21) “for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world,” (and He uses Kosmos here, so He meant world) “to this time, no, nor EVER shall be.”
Either Jesus was wrong about this (and we have either experienced a greater tribulation – World Wars, etc) OR there is a tribulation that awaits us (and THAT is what He is talking about here) OR what happened in 70 AD was the greatest tribulation the world has ever seen OR there is something we are missing in the language.
Admittedly, this one is tougher to explain in the context of scripture than any of these other points.
Let me conclude today with some possible explanations.
First of all, the Jews are known for describing apocalyptic events with tremendous hyperbole.
Was the Lord using this method to stress the point? This is the typical explanation preterist’s give.
Symbolic language was common in the Old Testament, which, if we take it all literally it leads to some real problems.
Here’s a few.
In describing Hezekiah 2 Kings 18:5 says:
“He (Hezekiah) trusted in the LORD God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him.”
Then in describing Josiah 2 Kings 23:25 says:
“Now before him (Josiah) there was no king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses; nor after him did any arise like him.”
How can Hezekiah and Josiah both be the most devoted kings f Judah of all time?
They can’t. Obviously the language is hyperbolic.
Hebrew hyperbolic language was also applied to other earthly judgments besides 70 A.D.
Exodus 11:6 says:
“Then there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as was not like it before, nor shall be like it again.”
Ezekiel 5:9
“And I will do among you what I have never done, and the like of which I will never do again, because of all your abominations.”
Daniel 9:12
“And He has confirmed His words, which He spoke against us and against our judges who judged us, by bringing upon us a great disaster; for under the whole heaven such has never been done as what has been done to Jerusalem.
Daniel 12:1
“At that time Michael shall stand up, The great prince who stands watch over the sons of your people; And there shall be a time of trouble, Such as never was since there was a nation, Even to that time. And at that time your people shall be delivered,
Joel 2:2
A day of darkness and gloominess,
A day of clouds and thick darkness,
Like the morning clouds spread over the
mountains.
A people come, great and strong,
The like of whom has never been;
Nor will there ever be any such after them,
Even for many successive generations
So it is possible that the Lord appealed to traditional hyperbole borrowed from the Old Testament to describe the destruction of Jerusalem in 64-70 A.D.
Another line of thinking is that it was the first century Jews crucified Jesus. Their crime was the worst in history. Therefore their punishment was the worst in history “covenantally speaking.”
Worst crime = Worst punishment.
Israel was divorced by God as His covenant people. Never again would the Jews have a special status with God. Now in Christ their is neither Jew nor Greek.
So we could interpret verse 21 in this sense as well.
But I wonder if we look at the conditions of the day, the lack of pain killers and/ or antiseptics, and the fact that it was God pouring out His wrath upon Jerusalem who rejected His Son, that maybe Jesus was right?
(beat)
Let me conclude with a report from Flavius Josephus of the end of that age.
Most of our knowledge about the sufferings of the Jews during the siege and fall of Jerusalem come from his writings.
See, Josephus was a Jewish general who fought against the Romans and was captured in July of 67 AD.
He made a very low-odds prophesy that the Roman general, Vespasian, would one day become the Emporer of the Roman Empire. This prophesy seems doomed because Vespasian didn’t have a sound Roman pedigree.
Nevertheless, two years after Nero killed himself (on June 9th 68 AD) Vespasian became the new Roman Emporer.
He was so impressed with Josephus that he freed him from prison, made him a Roman citizen, adopted him as a “Flavian” and then commissioned him to write a history of the Jewish people.
Isn’t that wild?
Josephus first work was The War of the Jews. We’ll Vespasian had a son by the name of Titus. And when Titus went into Jerusalem for the final destruction, Josephus went with him.
This gave the historian a first-hand position to record what he saw occur in the final year of the war.
Josephus, still a Jew who loved the Jews, even tried to persuade them himself to surrender. No doing.
So he reports their destruction.
First, the starvation. The Jews has enough wheat for a number of years but due to infighting (that’s right, the love among them waxed cold) they destroyed their own supplies.
Then they robbed and slew each other through the most barbarous of means and methods. Josephus says they did as much harm to themselves as the Romans.
Soon dead bodies were all over the city. At first they tried to bury the dead (something very important to Jews so to not was the height of barbarism for them as a people) then they just piled them into houses and shut the doors.
Before long they tossed thousands upon thousands over the wall into the valleys below. Josephus writes:
“When Titus, in going his rounds along those valleys say them full of dead bodies, and the thick putrefaction running about them, he gave a groan; and spreading out his hands to heaven, called God to witness that this was not his doing; and such was the sad case of the city itself.”
When Jesus said to the Jewish leaders on the temple mount in Matthew 23:33
“Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”
I believe He was speaking of this very fate. The reason, again, points to the Greek and the King James translators.
See, Jesus did not use the word that means hell in English today here. He said, Gehenna, which in English refers to the valley of Hinnom and NOT hell!
Hinnom was just one of the valleys surrounding Jerusalem and that very valley became full of dead bodies.
A better translation of Jesus words is what the literal Greek says:
This generation of vipers would not escape the damnation of the valley of Hinnom,” or better yet, Jesus asks:
“How can you flee from the judgment of Gehenna?”
These terms Gehenna Hinnom ere in Matthew 23-24 have nothing to do with hell as taught by the futurist Christian church.
But that subject is all-together different, isn’t it?
Anyway, Josephus reported many horrors. For instance he witnessed a mother snatching up her son (who was breastfeeding) killing him, then roasting him. He literally said she saved half of the child for later.”
He said the starvation was so horrible most wished they could die and viewed the dead with envy.
He reported that they got so desperate for food they searched the sewers for human and cattle waste and consumed it – noting that by the law they were forbidden to even touch it.
Outside the city walls Romans soldiers caught more than 500 people per day who were trying to escape.
They crucified as many as possible. Josephus adds:
“Their multitude was so great that room was wanting for the crosses and crosses wanting for bodies.
Listen to Josephus’s own words as we conclude today:
“Neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation (which was Jesus generation, by the way) more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from the beginning of the world.”
(beat)
He adds:
“those carried away captive 97,000. And those that perished one million one hundred thousand – a large number because the city was full of visitors due to the Passover.”
(beat)
We’ll continue next week.
