The Narrow Path Ministries

This may go nowhere, but I'd like to invite those who hold the pre-mill/pre-trib view to lay it all out, with Scriptures and explanations.

The reason is, it seems lately that other threads are started to do "drive-by" fallacious arguments at the opposing views. Then, a several-page argument ensues with such lofty questions as, "Where is the lion laying down with the lamb?" and "Where are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?".

Why don't you folks lay out your end-times scenario here, so that others may scrutinize your views?

I would appreciate it.

JD

JD,
For research purposes on the modern, futurist viewpoint, I've found this website to be helpful.

http://www.endtimes.org/

It appears to be associated with Chuck Swindoll's church.
However, it seems that many of the assertions that they make already assume a certain viewpoint of Romans 11.

Mattrose (and all),

Just to say that there is a lot of variation within what has been called you called the futurist viewpoint. To get an idea of what's known as Progressive Dispensationalism (aka 'chialism' etc.) check out the Post Trib Research Centre at:

www.lasttrumpet.com

IMO the best resource on eschatology out there - though they don't produce audios which is a big shame as I love audios which is why I love thenarrowpath so much (apart from Steve's amillennialism )

Ely

Hello,
I'm still just learning this but am aggressively trying to get a grip on this subject. I think it's important. Not as important as most other doctrines of the Word of God, but I would like to cement my position. I will only point out a few scripture references that clearly teach a future visible Kingdom. To many of you, you will want to zap these with some sort of spiritualization. That's your right to do so, but it would seem to be an odd thing to do. If this is now the Kingdom that is represented by these verses, it was badly misrepresented by the prophets.

Isa 2:2-4
2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
(KJV)

To say that the nations have already ceased from learining war would be quite a stretch. Spiritualizing this seems like quite a challenge. How could this possibly be answered while retaining the integrity of prophecy?

Isa 11:6-10
6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.
9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
10 And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.
(KJV)
This appears to me to be a return to the perfection that the world began with. The animal kingdom is here said to be at complete peace. It is an unthinkable thing for a toddler to put their hand into a snake hole right now but there will be a time when that will be possible. This must be a future time.

Zech 14:8-12
8 And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.
9 And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.
10 All the land shall be turned as a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem: and it shall be lifted up, and inhabited in her place, from Benjamin's gate unto the place of the first gate, unto the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananeel unto the king's winepresses.
11 And men shall dwell in it, and there shall be no more utter destruction; but Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited.
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
(KJV)

Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited??? Now??? yeah right.

Luke 22:28-30
28 Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations.
29 And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me;
30 That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
(KJV)

The disciples have not judged the tribes of Israel in the Kingdom that now is (as you consider it) but they will in the Kingdom that is to come.

This is how I understand it and wish to understand it so far.
How all this links up together with other scripture is still for my discovery, but the fact of a future earthly kingdom from these scriptures alone convince me beyond doubt.

Schoel, thanks for the link. I have a grasp of pre-trib/pre-mill, it's just that I'd like to hear it explained by those who espouse it here.

Aaron,

How are you? Okay, so you believe there is coming a day where every person on earth will fit on a particular mountain to worship God in His house?
How big will this mountain be? Will people go there and remain there? And what is His house? Which people will He be rebuking during His reign?

Thanks,

JD

AARONDISNEY wrote:Hello,
I'm still just learning this but am aggressively trying to get a grip on this subject. I think it's important. Not as important as most other doctrines of the Word of God, but I would like to cement my position. I will only point out a few scripture references that clearly teach a future visible Kingdom. To many of you, you will want to zap these with some sort of spiritualization. That's your right to do so, but it would seem to be an odd thing to do. If this is now the Kingdom that is represented by these verses, it was badly misrepresented by the prophets.

If you really want to pursue this issue and this question and you really want to understand why those who are Amil believe what they do about the OT passages you quoted then listen to Steve's "Topical Isaiah" series. In these, Steve uses cross-referencing of other OT passages to show how the language was used. In other words, it explains not what those who hold the Amil position believe about these passages but why. Once you understand why, you can then ask more pointed questions. The way it stands now, it would take a lot of typing to try and point out all these passages. So if you are interested in why some of us interpret these passages the way we do, you have the resources available.

I just think spiritualizing everything that can be taken literally isn't a very good way to go about it. For the Bible to clearly tell us that nations shall not war anymore, and then to see battles constantly taking place, can make the Bible be a watery book in which anything can mean anything and there's not read solid ground to stand on.
I like the dispies rule of thumb. If it isn't absurd to take it literal then take it literally.
Is it absurd to think that the nations will no more learn war under King Jesus? Not to me. Is it odd to think that God will restore peace to the animal life on earth? not to me.
Is it odd to think he will reign from Jerusalem? Not to me.

Is it odd say that Jesus reigning from Jerusalem means that He will reign in our hearts? A little.
Is it odd to say that each animal represents how peaceful this world is now that Christ has established his church? A little.
Is it odd to say that "Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited" means that there will be peace within God's church? A little.

Of course I must note that I just made up the spiritualizations here, I don't know what preterists say they mean, but I doubt too many of them agree on all the points since as a preterist you can spiritualize anything to mean anything. That's what I don't like about the system, it makes the Bible slippery and moveable. If something tries to destroy your theological system, no biggie, just spiritualize it and the problem's gone.

Look, Sean, youre right - if I want to know what you guys think I can just get on and listen to Steve talk, but what I'll probably do is just leave you guys alone about these things for a while (seriously this time ) and come back maybe sometime in the future when I can better discuss these issues.

Thank you all for the conversation.
God bless you all,
Aaron Disney

Hi Aaron,

I like the dispies rule of thumb. If it isn't absurd to take it literal then take it literally.

To me, this exact "rule of thumb" is the Achilles heel of dispensationalism. The funny thing is, I have never seen anyone apply it consistently. We must be careful about forcing the Bible into our own 20th century western paradigm. We are 2000 years removed from a culture very foreign to us with its own way of communicating truths. The burden is on us to try and scale that barrier and understand their method of communication, not the other way around.

The only faithful (and correct) hermeneutic is one that seeks to find the intended meaning of what is being said. Any other man-made method of interpretation can only result in error.

As far as I know, God never commanded people not to understand His words spiritually. In fact, I think the opposite is true in many cases. Many of Jesus’ earlier followers were stumbled by this very thing when He told them that they must "eat His flesh" to inherit eternal life (John 6). In fact, it caused most of them to leave Him. But what did He say?

John 6:63
The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.
NKJV

Also, there are many OT passages that the apostles could have taken literally, but they themselves “spiritualized”.

I would encourage you not to paint yourself into a corner by adopting any man-made “rule of thumb”. It will only stunt your growth in my opinion. I think it's safer to admit to ourselves that we all understand this stuff very little and remain open minded.

Lord bless.

AARONDISNEY wrote:I just think spiritualizing everything that can be taken literally isn't a very good way to go about it.

Aaron, in another place you said:

AARONDISNEY wrote: I was reading the other day, about Jesus washing his disciples' feet and the verse that leaped off the page at me was this one..(bolded)

John 13:6-11
6 Then cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet?
7 Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.
8 Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.
9 Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
10 Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all.
11 For he knew who should betray him; therefore said he, Ye are not all clean.
(KJV)

When we have been washed by the blood of the Lamb we are every whit clean, but as we walk through the world we're gonna get some mud on our feet. What we then do is go to the Lord and have him "wash our feet".
We are clean but we get some world junk on us sometimes (even of our own doing) but if we fail to allow Him to wash our feet we will become once again every whit filthy and be servants of the world and not servants of our Lord.

If I do this to Isaiah 2 you would say I "spiritualized" it. Yet you had no problem going against your own policy of taking it literally.

Do you see how confusing this can get?

You said:

Is it absurd to think that the nations will no more learn war under King Jesus? Not to me.

So the nations will learn war no more, literally beat their swords (do we have these anymore?) into plowshares when Jesus comes back? The problem with this being literal is in Revelation 20 it says:

Rev 20:7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
Rev 20:8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.


So after learning war no more, they learn war again. Aaron, this fails the "literal" test.

wolf and the lamb lying together? What is a wolf and a lamb. Clean and unclean animals.

Why did Peter see a vision of animals (Acts 10:11), unclean animals when God was trying to get him to understand that the Gentiles were no longer enemies? Why didn't God just tell him? Why use images of unclean animals? Because that's how the bible uses this imagery.

Eze 34:23 And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd.
Eze 34:24 And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the LORD; I have spoken.
Eze 34:25 "I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild beasts from the land, so that they may dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods.
Eze 34:26 And I will make them and the places all around my hill a blessing, and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing.
Eze 34:27 And the trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase, and they shall be secure in their land. And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I break the bars of their yoke, and deliver them from the hand of those who enslaved them.
Eze 34:28 They shall no more be a prey to the nations, nor shall the beasts of the land devour them. They shall dwell securely, and none shall make them afraid.


Isa 56:6 "And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant--
Isa 56:7 these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples."
Isa 56:8 The Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, "I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered."
Isa 56:9 All you beasts of the field, come to devour-- all you beasts in the forest.


In Daniel 7, all the Gentile nations are called "Beasts". Aaron, if you do your own studies on how the OT prophets use the word beasts and wild animals, etc. you will see that they refer to the Gentile powers that were always at war with Israel. Just something to think about.

Hi Sean,
I'm really trying to bow out of the Eschatology threads here but I keep reading them and wanting to respond.
Once again I will emphasize that I am just beginning to come to an understanding of the dispensational view. I had always known what I believed but never had a full grasp on why I believed it. I went about finding out about things the wrong way and studied something that went against my assumptions in listening to Steve's lectures, so now when I hear dispensational eschatology, I know what the preterist rebuttal is in the back of my mind. Some of it makes real good sense, some does not.

You were comparing what I said about Jesus washing His disciples feet to what you do with the OT prophecies. That's a fair argument, but what Jesus said is easily understood. It doesn't take a lot of twisting things around to make that assumption. And yes I did have to spiritualize it because it was a sort of object lesson for his disciples. What I cannot understand is how you can look at a passage that says the nations will no longer learn to make war and translate that into absolutely anything that's going on right now. Your question about that concerning the end when there is a great war is a good question, but I believe the release of Satan is the answer for that. He will once again be allowed to deceive the nations, which will include re-teaching war.

That is one of those things I can't remember preterism's answer to, I've heard but I can't remember. But when I read what Jesus said I don't need a decoder, it just makes logical sense to me.

Once again, I am gonna try to ignore to the best of my ability the next post. I'll read it but I want to resist the urge to post on this again for awhile because I don't know enough about the dispensational position to debate and defend it very well, but I do beleive it is defendable, and hopefully in a couple of months and a lot of prayer, I can be back on to discuss it with more understanding with you guys.

God bless
Aaron