Necessity of Teaching a Literal Understanding of Prophecy

Why do so many believers today remain blind to the numerous signs that we live in the last days?

I believe a key reason for this lies with pastors and teachers today who in large numbers embrace amillennialism, a belief system that dismisses biblical prophecies related to Jesus’ thousand-year rule and the restoration of a kingdom for Israel. As a result, they regard the miraculous emergence of Israel as a nation as mere coincidence without any prophetic significance.

It stands to reason that if one dismisses the most significant piece of God’s prophetic calendar, the miracle of Israel’s current existence, one will also miss all the many other signs that tell us we live in the season of Jesus’ appearing to take His church back to His Father’s house.

Scoffers claim that those of us with a biblical awareness of the times interpret Scripture with a newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other hand. However, just the opposite is true.

Here are three key examples:

1. Isaac Newton, based on his intense study of the books of Daniel and Revelation, predicted the re-establishment of Israel as a nation over 220 years before it happened.
2. David Reagan recently recounted a story regarding C.I. Scofield. Based on Ezekiel 38-39, in 1909 he wrote that someday a coalition led by Russia would invade Israel. Some criticized him because, at the time, Russia was a Christian nation, and Israel did not exist. Now, however, we see that such an invasion of Israel is a distinct possibility.
3. For years, prophecy watchers said Turkey, a friend of Israel not that long ago, would someday turn against God’s people. They said that based on Ezekiel 38-39. And this has happened in just the past ten years.

I could cite many more examples of how a literal understanding of biblical prophecy has enabled prophecy watchers to know what the newspapers would report many years in advance. But even more importantly, understanding what the Bible says about the news of today/tomorrow reassures us that God is in control as we watch events unfold just as He said would happen during the last days of human history.

Because we live in biblical times of the end, those who proclaim God’s Word must not keep silent regarding the signs that point to Jesus’ soon appearing and the start of the tribulation period. They have a distinct responsibility to teach a literal understanding of prophecy that aligns with the signs of the approaching seven-year tribulation;

Why is sound teaching on biblical prophecy so essential for the day in which we live?

Jesus Scolded Religious Leaders Who Missed the Signs of His First Coming

While on earth, Jesus chastised the religious leaders of the day for not recognizing the numerous signs that their Messiah stood in their midst. In Matthew 16:1-4 we read:

“He [Jesus] also said to the crowds, And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. He answered them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.’ So he left them and departed.”

Just like the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’ day, many of those in places of spiritual leadership today dismiss the many and varied signs of Jesus’ soon return. I believe that Jesus’ message to pastors and teachers who today dismiss the significance of the re-emergence of the nation of Israel would be quite similar to how He addressed the religious leaders of His day.

Would He not also scold church leaders today for failing to recognize the signs of His Second Coming so clearly laid out in Scripture?

There seems to be an assumption among those who criticize those of us who recognize the signs of Jesus’ return that we seek to scare people rather than encourage them regarding the future. Such is not the case. Recognizing that we live in biblical times, the season of Jesus’ appearing, allows us to assure the saints that God remains in control of history. The disturbing events of our day signal the nearness of Jesus’ appearing to take us to the place He’s now preparing for us (John 14:1-3). What an amazing and joyful expectation!!

The signs that we live in the last days should encourage our hearts even as we watch the world race toward the seven-year tribulation. Is this not why the apostle Paul repeatedly mentioned the comfort that comes from anticipating the rapture? (1 Thess. 4:18; 5:11).

Jesus is coming for us before the terrible day of the Lord (1 Thess. 5:9-10), and as such, it signifies the nearness of the rapture.

Jesus Warned Against a Failure to Emphasize Biblical Prophecy at Its Proper Time

There’s a phrase in Jesus’ parable in Matthew 24:45-50 that the Lord keeps bringing to my mind as a way of prompting me to write about it. The words appear in verse 45 where Jesus asks, “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time?” (Emphasis mine)

The Greek word for “proper time” is kairos, which denotes an opportune or seasonable time. The word does not depict time on a clock but rather the appropriate occasion or opportunity for something to take place. The current season of Jesus’ soon appearing calls for the inclusion of biblical prophecy in the diet that spiritual leaders provide to those under their care.

The “faithful and wise servant,” therefore, is the one who watches for the coming of “the Son of Man” (v. 44). And as the signs multiply regarding the nearness of his Lord’s return, he adjusts the “food” he sets before those whom he serves so that it corresponds with the nearness of Jesus’ return.

I interpret Jesus’ words here as a warning that those of us who today minister God’s Word to others have a particular responsibility to instruct others about the Lord’s soon return and warn them regarding the soon start of the tribulation period. I believe Jesus’ parable, recorded in Matthew 24:45-50, strongly cautions Bible-believing pastors and teachers against repeating the error of the Pharisees and Sadducees (see Matt. 16:1-4) who did not recognize their Messiah despite the many ways He fulfilled Old Testament Scripture.

What I am saying is this: Now is the season to proclaim our hope in Jesus’ soon appearing.

In centuries past, it was enough to emphasize the Gospel past and present with a lighter emphasis on the future tense of the Gospel. We revere great preachers such as Charles Spurgeon for his clarity on the good news of salvation, and today we sorely need his razor-sharp biblical insight into God’s grace and eternal security.

However, along with Spurgeon-like insight into God’s steadfast love and mercy, we also need sound teaching on future things. So many pastors either ignore the signs of the end times or cloak biblical prophecies under a mysterious veil of allegory so that those texts have no relevance for us today. They treat biblical prophecy as an allegorical code, especially the book of Revelation, that only they can fully understand. In the end, their message lacks any comforting value for those of us in the twenty-first century.

Jesus Warns Us Against Dismissing the Words of the Book of Revelation

Those who dismiss 90% of the book of Revelation as allegory should not expect those to whom they minister to find even a smidgen’s worth of encouragement in the remaining 10%. That’s because such an approach places the rest of John’s message under a shroud of uncertainty.

For example, if the apostle’s description of the New Jerusalem is not a physical one, but only symbolical pertaining to another reality, how can one have any confidence in John’s other descriptions of the eternal state in Revelation 21-22? How can we trust the precious words of Revelation 21:4 if other key promises contained in these chapters are allegories subject to the varied interpretation of others?

The bottom line is this: we are not free to interpret the book of Revelation any way we please and expect that to inspire hope in those who hear or relieve their fears.

One thousand years means one thousand years; it’s not the eternal state but rather Jesus’ millennial reign that precedes it. Forty-two months means forty-two months; forty-two months is most certainly not the church age; it signifies three and a half years, just as the text tells us. If we cannot trust the words we see on the pages of Scripture, then whose interpretation of them do we believe?

Several varied prophetic schemes have arisen from allegorical ways of looking at the book of Revelation. If words don’t mean what they appear to mean, how do we know which one of them is correct? Not only that, but a wide variance of opinion also exists among them as to what is literal and symbolical. With the use of allegory, we have no objective basis to know what a text really means.

God’s inspiration of His Word applies to the very words of the prophetic texts of the Bible, to the intent of the human author. The Lord does not give us license to change the meaning of a text so that it has no relevance whatsoever to the words we see in front of us. Jesus warns us against such allegorical interpretations of the last book of the Bible in Revelation 22:18-19. Do not symbolical understandings of Revelation take “away from the words of this book of prophecy?” Yes, they most certainly do.

I suspect many will scoff at me for writing these things, but I must write what I believe the Lord has laid upon my heart. I know we live in biblical times, the season of Jesus’ return, and although I may not get everything totally correct, I am persuaded of the truth of Scripture, and that leads to my conviction that Jesus is coming for His church in the near future.

I dare not predict when this will happen, but the signs of the approaching tribulation period tell me the fulfillment of John 14:2-3 and 1 Corinthians 15:50-57 is ever so close at hand.

Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matt. 24:35). He spoke those words after talking about the tribulation and the signs of His return to earth. As we watch the precursors to these tribulation events erupt all around us, how can we conclude anything else apart from the fact that we live in the last days of human history?

Jonathan Brentner

Website: Our Journey Home

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E-mail: Jonathanbrentner@yahoo.com

I was walking alongside a famous actor and commending him for the way he had performed his role as a soldier. He was in full military uniform with weapon in hand, the picture of the prototype soldier, experienced and seasoned. Moments later, the actor was no longer at my side, and I found myself taking up the rear position of a company of real-life soldiers, in military uniform myself, locked and loaded! I gazed forward beyond the lead soldiers toward a dark reflective glass wall. Propelled forward in time, I could see that an ambush was about to take place in mere seconds.

I saw the enemy and their military vehicles crashing through the glass wall with guns blazing at our group of soldiers. They were heading straight toward us! The enemy had been concealed so well behind the wall that our company of soldiers was oblivious to the danger that lay directly ahead. Uncharacteristically for an experienced and seasoned soldier, I did not warn of the impending ambush but instead decided to protect myself and wait for the dust to settle. I awoke from my dream when I stood up to fire my weapon.

The dream awakened me to the fact that I must not be silent but to speak a warning of the ambush just around the corner, and yet, a battle that is already upon us. Battles can start out small but then rise up into something terrifying and catastrophic. It is time to speak this warning. I have prayed for interpretation of this dream and also shared it with trusted Godly people who have helped me immensely with interpretation and content. I believe it to be a word of the Lord for the Church today. As I begin, I am also reminded by Peter’s words in 1 Peter 4:11 that “If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God.” This verse holds me accountable for the things I am about to write.

My warning shout today is directed toward us, each one of us in the body of Christ. We are being destroyed for lack of knowledge! It is written in Proverbs 25:2, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.” There is knowledge that God has concealed that requires that we, with an open mind, search for and discover.

The enemy has blinded many in the Church by creating a smokescreen (or reflective glass wall) that conceals a Trojan horse in every facet of human activity. Media, Politics, Education, Health, Hollywood, and yes, even the Church universal, have not been spared this full-frontal attack. I believe the reflective glass wall signifies the fact that we’re deceived into thinking we’re fighting an enemy that looks like us when in fact, it’s much more insidious. The battle for our hearts and minds is upon us, but we’re oblivious to the spiritual nature of the attack.

As in my dream, we are walking into a trap, not knowing this gives the enemy the advantage. If we remain on the same trajectory, we will be picked off by the enemy, one by one. The apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:12 that “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

There is an enemy so numerous, so vast and powerful who has swept over the earth. The enemy is deception, and this twisted ‘truth’ has so efficiently deceived us that we allow ourselves to be defeated by lies, lies that are so pervasive they divide the Church and make us essentially irrelevant in the context we’re living in today. Sadly, we have put on glasses with lenses called conformity that we confuse with love. Conformity to the world has caused the Church to grow cold. Many are asleep. Jesus said in the end times that children and parents will be against each other, and the love of many will grow cold. We are seeing this come true everywhere because we have reacted to the enemies’ lies by employing man’s wisdom and not the wisdom of God.

Jesus prayed “That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21). “…all will know you are My disciples if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

BUT WHERE IS TRUTH? Solomon, in all his wisdom, says in Proverbs 23:23, “Buy the truth and do not sell it; get wisdom, discipline and understanding.” Let us seek truth while it may be found and understand that we live in precarious times.

When I was young, I believed the words of Jesus when he said, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” When I gave my life to Christ, I was no longer a slave to sin. However, in my lack of abiding daily in Christ and trusting in him fully, I allowed deception to take root in my life. Oh, it was very easy for deception to take root because deception looks so very much like the truth, and it does so because it carries aspects of truth that disguise the lies, which in turn entice the flesh. Any aspect of truth that is twisted even a little bit becomes a lie. For that very reason, we are told to test the spirits to see if they are from God.

The reflective glass wall highlights the deception; many of those deceived are currently our sources for knowledge and truth, such as our educational institutions, media outlets, social media, the government, health organizations and ‘experts,’ to name a few.

Another source that I dare to mention can be church members and our family and friends. Jude speaks to this when he writes about certain people “…who have secretly slipped in among the church, godless men, who change the grace of God into a license for immorality…. They are blemishes at our love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm – shepherds who feed only themselves…. They are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.” Could that grumbler be me? Could that faultfinder be you? We must become introspective and know by the Spirit that we are aligned with Christ, equally yoked.

I have discovered a simple yet profound principle…that any belief, action, attitude, behavior, and word that does not measure up fully to God’s Word, which is altogether true, is deception. It is a lie. Based on this premise, however, is the realization that unless I know the Word-Who-Became-Flesh intimately, how can the Spirit of Truth guide me in all wisdom, knowledge and understanding? Even fully surrendered, we won’t have “all” until we go to heaven, but we have the ever-present help of the Holy Spirit to reveal truth moment by moment as we live a lifestyle of intimacy.

Jesus says in John 4:24 that God is Spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth. It is written in 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 that “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.” But God has revealed it to us by the Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.” God reveals truth by and through His Spirit.

Jesus’ prayer for his disciples and all believers describes truth as a prerequisite for sanctification and highlights the importance of the Word when he prays to the Father in John 17:17. “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” Lest I confuse you, the Pharisees knew the Word of God backwards and forwards, but that alone didn’t open their eyes to the truth. They lacked the Spirit of truth.

In John 16:13, Jesus says, “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” Earlier in the book of John, chapter 8, verses 31-32, Jesus tells the Jews who believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” In John 18:37-38, it is written, “You are a king, then!’ said Pilate. Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.'”

I have learned through the application of God’s Word that the Word should be taken as absolute truth. Knowing His Word brings us into a more comprehensive understanding of where we live, this place called Earth, and how it is currently under the control of a masquerading angel of light, the great deceiver. Where we see deception, let us confront it. We must assess whether what we believe is actually true. We may be holding to a belief that is replete with deception that can lead us to destruction.

Many of us have been deceived by Hollywood’s image of the true warrior. Take Rambo, one of my favorite late-teen movies. This one-man army overcame overwhelming odds to defeat the enemy. The famous actor in my dream reminded me of him – a hero by the world’s standards. In my dream, however, I was at the back of the column and not at the front where I thought I should be. I also felt remorse because I didn’t alert others to the danger. I am alerting everyone now.

When I shared this dream with several spiritual advisors, they all gave a similar alternative interpretation, seemingly confirming that I had interpreted my rear position in the company incorrectly. All of them, without knowing how others had interpreted the dream, shared that God was saying something else regarding my position! I was in the right place!

The Bible describes a true warrior much differently than the world. Jesus says in Luke 13:30, “Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.” Similarly, in Luke 14:11, Jesus exclaims, “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Proverbs 18:13 says, “Before his downfall a man’s heart is proud, but humility comes before honor.”

Brothers and Sisters, it is my firm belief that humility and courage are vital attributes during these dark days. Even as important as humility and courage are to our posture in battle is knowing our capacity to withstand and be strong in the face of adversity. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16:13, “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.” Paul then quotes Jesus, saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul goes on to say, “Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor 12:9-10) This is the posture of a seasoned, experienced warrior of God.

As believers in Christ, we are prototype soldiers – if we abide in him and his truth is in us. We are expected to discern a truth from a lie, to understand the enemies’ schemes and battle against them. We are to speak against the lies and challenge our brothers and sisters not to condone lies nor run after human wisdom when dealing with evil spirit-driven agendas.

Let us heed Jesus’ warning in Luke 21:34-36 when he says, “I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. Be careful or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and the day will close on you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”

Pray like you have never prayed before. Read the Word like you have never read before. Spend time in the presence of God like you have never done before. Expect God to bless you with the Spirit of Truth so that you will be equipped as a true warrior of God, having the full armor of God to withstand the attack of the enemy and to resist him at every turn.

Lastly, in Jude 1:22-25: “Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear – hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy – to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore. Amen.”