In this study, we are going to review some things that we have gone over regarding the end of the Church Age. I would like to go over some different points on this subject and try to reinforce these things in our minds.
The Bible does tell us to do this. We read in 2 Peter 1:12:
Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.
God goes on for two more times in the next couple of verses, reminding us “to have these things always in remembrance.” We can see why this is because we are very much “forgetful hearers.” We hear certain truths; we understand them and might even know them, but without reviewing them, without going back and putting further emphasis on them, maybe we do not know them as well as we think.
I would like to start in Isaiah 55, just to get this straight in our minds. We read in Isaiah 55:8-9:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
When God is describing His thoughts, He is talking about the Bible. The Bible is revelation; it is Scriptures that are coming forth from the infinite mind of God. This is how we have the Bible. God has moved prophets to write and to record these things and they are the thoughts of God.
We do not really have any other record of the thoughts of God. We can see a testimony from creation, but we have nothing else that really reveals what God’s thoughts are, apart from the Bible. So God lays it out and He wants us to know that His thoughts, which are the Bible, are higher than our thoughts and His ways than our ways.
It is very important for us to have a proper understanding of this difference and of this comparison between the thoughts of God and our thoughts. This is because when we come to the Bible, we do not want to use our thoughts. Believe me; we do not want to use our own thoughts, because our thoughts are tiny, puny, and finite, in comparison to the thoughts of God, to this infinite mind of God.
I have been trying to come up with some type of analogy or picture that could paint this picture, that could show us just how ridiculous it is for men to come to the Bible, for people to come to the Bible, and to try to use their own wisdom and their own intellect and their own understanding in order to understand what this Book is saying.
One analogy that I was thinking of is that it would be like taking a flea and setting it at a control panel at NASA, with all of their computer systems, and trying to have that flea understand everything that would be involved in sending a spaceship into outer space, and so forth. You see, that is our thoughts, compared to the thoughts of God.
Or it would be like taking an ant and putting the ant on a medical journal of some medical school. They have nice big medical journals that they are trying to instruct their students with, and none of the students can even really learn all of these things. It would be like putting the ant on a medical journal and then having that ant figure out that medical journal and understand that medical journal. Then following this, it would be like having the ant go and perform an operation.
This is probably not a good illustration because an ant does not have hands, so maybe a monkey or something would have been better, but I was looking for something small, something tiny that would illustrate the point. Certainly, an ant has a very tiny mind.
You know, you think that would be ridiculous. Who would want to be operated on by a creature like that who you would know was not even possibly able to begin to understand even the slightest thing in that medical journal. They could not begin to understand even a word in that medical journal, and then to put a scalpel in their hands and to go and operate on you.
But this is exactly what happens with creatures and theologians and teachers. They come to a Book that dwarfs all of the medical journals and law books and all of the volumes of the minds of men. You could stack in them all up, and this one Book dwarfs them all, because it is coming forth from a brilliant infinite mind, that we can not comprehend, that contains all of the information about all things.
So we have men, with their limitations—finite little man, a creature of time—who maybe has an I.Q. of 200. What is that? What is that? And he comes to the Bible and he is going to be the authority over the Bible? He is going to be the one who tells the people, “This is what the Word of God says, according to my theology,” and that theology was developed by men?
He is operating. He is a physician of no value. He is not going to help anyone, but he is going and he is, spiritually, performing an operation on the congregation, and it is totally worthless. It is utter vanity when we come to the Bible with the mindset that we are the authority, we are the ones—or our church, or our confession or creed—this is what will interpret the words of this Book.
God has laid out a methodology, and it must be followed. We compare spiritual things with spiritual things, Scripture with Scripture, “here a little, there a little.” It is a very simple method for us to follow, but then He says that if we follow this method faithfully and we make sure that our conclusions harmonize with the whole Bible, that “the Holy Ghost teacheth.” You see, God then takes responsibility for doing the teaching, and it is not coming from man’s mind, but it is coming from God’s mind.
So when we are talking about this doctrine, or any doctrine, but especially this doctrine of the end of the church, we have to make sure that we are not getting our own ideas involved and our own thoughts involved. We just do not want them at all.
Let us go to Daniel 12:8-9:
And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, O my Lord, what shall be the end of these things? And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.
“Till the time of the end.” So God gave Daniel revelation and He gave other prophets revelation concerning very difficult things, concerning the end of the world, the end of time, and then God “sealed” it up. He sealed it up; He closed it up so that man would not be able to understand it.
Over in Isaiah 29, we really have a good illustration of this. In Isaiah 29:11, where it says:
And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed:
If the Book is “sealed,” how much are you going to understand? You can not. You can not understand. It is sealed. If there is a seal on a book and it is closed, you can not understand it until you break the seal and open the book. Then you could read what is inside.
But when God says to seal up the words and to seal them up “till the time of the end,” He is indicating that what He said is going to be kept secret. It is going to be hidden and it is going to be closed to the understanding of man until a certain point in time, “the time of the end.” Then the indication is that the Book will be opened and the Book will be understood.
A good Biblical illustration of what it means to seal up something is found in Genesis 26:15. We read there:
For all the wells which his father’s servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth.
The word “stopped” is the same word as “closed” that we find in Daniel 12:9.
There were some wells and there had been some strife between Abraham and these Philistines. As soon as the Philistines had a chance, they got some dirt and they filled up the well. They filled it with dirt. We do not know how many feet of dirt they put in it, but there was water there. You could drink that water, but the Philistines were jealous, or for whatever reason, and they filled it with dirt. They did not want Abraham or his family feeding their flocks or drinking their water there.
That area of the world can be very hot and you get very thirsty. If a stranger were to come along to the well and lower the bucket down into the well, when he pulled it up, he would get nothing but dirt. Nothing but dirt, so maybe he would even try to dig. Who knows? Maybe he would go down and dig a foot or two, and all he would find was nothing but dirt. This was because the well was filled to such a degree that he would have to conclude that there was no water there. So their conclusion was that there must be no water, yet in Genesis 26:18-19, it says:
And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father; for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham: and he called their names after the names by which his father had called them. And Isaac’s servants digged in the valley, and found there a well of springing water.
So they digged the wells out again. They went back and they digged deep, several feet, however deep it was, down into the well, and there was the water.
You see, this is what God has done with the Bible. This is what God has done with the Word of God. He “stopped” up the Word, concerning events dealing with the end of the world. He “closed” it up. He “sealed” it.
Where did He hide these things? Where did He hide all of these things? It seems that there is an abundance of revelation that is coming forth now concerning the end of the church and the end of the world and all sorts of information that is just, really, overwhelming. It is so much. It is everywhere it seems in the Bible.
Where was it hid? Well, all God did was make it so man would not be able to understand; he would not be able to comprehend. In other words, the “water” has always been there. The “water” is always there. The “well” was “stopped” up of these Scriptural truths. God “closed” them up, but, deep down, the “water” was always there. It is just a matter of Christ opening up the understanding of His people, opening up our understanding to get to the “water,” so that we can then “drink” of the water and we can then understand the things that He is telling us.
So this is what has happened. In other words, God hid these truths in plain sight—plain sight. Just like Jesus spoke in parables, so God spoke about Babylon and God spoke about fleeing Judaea and God spoke about many other things that could not be understood until the right time, until the time of the end.
Well, let us also go back to Daniel 12. It says in Daniel 12:4:
But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
God tells us that He is going to open it up, and at “the time of the end…knowledge shall be increased.”
In our day, there is increased knowledge in just about every field of learning, is there not? When you look at technology and you look at what is going on in the world with communication, for example, with phones, is there a phone that can not do anything today? They have phones that perform all sorts of functions. There are computers that have joined the world together. The electronic medium has just exploded, as far as all of the things that are possible today.
Is this what God had in mind when He said, “Knowledge shall be increased”? We know, no, this is not what He is talking about. God worked this out along with the timing of the world’s history. He allowed man to begin to understand things concerning electrons and things like that at a particular point in history, because mankind was basically stuck in horses and buggies for thousands of years, up until a hundred or two hundred years ago, then things began to change.
We call them geniuses, but certain people began to develop things and they began to have ideas regarding phones and things like that and the automobile. Yet, of course, it is all God who was working in the secular world, giving these people an understanding to a certain degree, because He had an ultimate plan of sending forth the Gospel outside of the church through the electronic medium in the last days of the Great Tribulation. So all of this just was part of God’s plan. But when we read that “knowledge shall be increased,” this has to do with the knowledge of the Word of God, the Bible.
If we go to Proverbs 1:1-4, it says:
The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel; to know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity; to give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.
The Proverbs give knowledge. All the Scriptures can impart knowledge to the readers. God’s Word is full of information, and when we come to the Bible, we learn; we gain knowledge. But there are some things that theologians could not learn, that Bible teachers could not understand, and those were the items dealing with events concerning the end of the world.
Now that we have reached the time of the end, knowledge is increasing dramatically and we are coming to an understanding of the duration of the Great Tribulation. We have a good understanding that it is probably, in all probability, 23 years, and so we know when it will end. We have a very good and possible date for the end of the world in 2011. All of these things, God has been opening up and revealing to His people during these last few years, and knowledge is increasing.
God tells us in another place, in Ecclesiastes, “He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” So as God’s people learn these things, we learn that, in all likelihood, time is very short, and we have unsaved family members, unsaved friends, unsaved people all around us, and we realize and we know that there is a strong possibility, in just a few years, Christ will return—the world is going to end.
So there is sorrow involved with this information, as well as the sorrow associated with the end of the Church Age, as people are being deceived within the churches and congregations, thinking that they are pleasing God and serving God. But actually, they are going contrary to the will of God by remaining in the church. This is a very awful place to be, because anyone who remains there will be bundled as a tare and cast into the fire of Hell on the Last Day.
Let us also go to Mark 13 and look at one verse. This is just following the idea that God is going to open the Scriptures and knowledge will increase. In this chapter, it is dealing with the question of the end of the world and the Great Tribulation. It says in Mark 13:11:
But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate…
This is very strange. It is very strange that God says, in this context, “Do not premeditate.” This word “premeditate” is the same word “meditate” that we find in 1 Timothy 4, “Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them,” meaning, the Word of God.
God always encourages His people to “study to show thyself approved.” “Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you.” But here, He says in Mark 13:11, concerning this time of judgment:
…take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye…
“That hour” immediately jumps out at us, because Revelation 17 and 18 speaks of the Hour of Judgment, which we have come to realize is dealing with the time of Great Tribulation. Mark 13 is a chapter dealing with the Great Tribulation, so do not take thought beforehand, do not premeditate on what you will say “in that hour.”
Why would God say this? He was really addressing all the theologians of history—all of the theologians. He was addressing Calvin and Luther and Wesley, and all these people. Matthew Henry, Spurgeon—He was talking to them all, and He was telling them to not take thought beforehand, to not consider or premeditate what they would say “in that hour.” That is, they were not to try and figure it out. They were not to try to understand what God’s plan was for that Hour of Judgment, for the Great Tribulation, because they were not going to be able to understand.
The Word was sealed up. The Word was closed. This was guidance that God was giving to all of the theologians. He was basically telling them to save themselves a lot of trouble. He was telling them to save themselves a lot of trouble, yet they put forth tremendous effort in studying these things, to try to come up with some kind of doctrine, some kind of understanding of the Bible concerning the end of time.
The church had pre-mill, post-mill, a-mill—it had all kinds of theologies laid out, doctrinal studies done concerning the end, and they all disagreed with one another and they all, none of them had it right. None of them had it right—not a one!
God was basically warning them with this verse to not premeditate, to not take thought of what they would speak in that hour, but:
…whatsoever shall be given you in that hour…
You see, the Word is “sealed till the time of the end,” and in the time of the end, knowledge will increase. God will give His people information. He is going to give us knowledge concerning these passages like Mark 13 and Matthew 24 and Luke 21 and books like Jeremiah and Revelation, and so forth. He is going to open it up, and He will reveal truth to us. But notice here:
…that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.
You see how God takes responsibility. People like to say, “Well, you are following a man. You are following a man.” Or, “This is your understanding. This is a man’s understanding.”
No, God is taking full and complete responsibility for the end of the Church Age. God is the One instructing us concerning what we are going to speak. This is what believers do. We learn and we speak. We declare it. We share it. God teaches us and, no matter what it is, we will share it with others. But whatever we are going to speak, the Holy Ghost will speak.
This is also giving us some insight into how we are going to uncover these things, or how God is going to reveal them. It is going to be through that methodology of comparing Scripture with Scripture, because 1 Corinthians 2 tells us that this is when “the Holy Ghost teacheth,” this is when the Holy Spirit speaks.
So here we are and now God is opening up these things, and what is He saying? Let us turn to Matthew 24. These commands have always been in the Bible. They have been there since God moved the prophets to write them. In Matthew 24:15-16, we read:
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:) then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:
Do you see how it is connected to understanding? It is connected to knowing these things about the “abomination to desolation.” This meant nothing to generations past. They would read it and they would not understand it. They would read it, generations come/generations go; but suddenly, it is activated.
Did you ever get one of those strips or something and as long as you did not stretch it out, it was nothing. But you stretched it out, and it activated it.
And so God gave a command and this command is hidden. This command is disguised. It is couched in language that the people do not understand. But there comes a time, there comes a point in history, and God activates it. God, just by it being the fullness of time, by it being the proper time in His salvation plan, He sets things in motion. Now the people of God understand.
This is the same in Luke 21:20-22:
And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. 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. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
You see, this command is now activated. Or if we go to Revelation 18:4. This is in the context of speaking of “Babylon.” It says:
And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
You see, what does that mean? What did this mean to generations past? They had their ideas. They had their thoughts. “Oh, ‘Babylon’ is the Catholic church. ‘Babylon’ is the world. ‘Babylon’ is this. ‘Babylon’ is that.” They did not know. They had no understanding, because they could not know. God had closed up their understanding concerning these verses, until the right time. Look at Revelation 18:1:
And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
This is the same word “enlightened” in Ephesians 1, where God now is enlightening the earth with His glory, enlightening our understanding so that we realize, “Babylon. Oh, Babylon is representing the church, just like Judaea in Matthew 24, just like Jerusalem. It is a type. It is a figure. It is just like Jesus spoke in parables. Without a parable, He did not speak unto us. Christ spoke that way to teach us how to understand the Bible. The Bible is written mainly in parables and historical parables, and things have to be understood spiritually. It is a spiritual Book. Now, we see. Now, we understand.”
Suddenly, it is a command that demands obedience. It demands obedience. You have some people who say, “Well, I do not have to obey that. You are talking about Judaea. You are talking about Jerusalem fleeing the mountains and coming out of Babylon. I am not over in the Middle East. I am not in Babylon.”
They think that being ignorant of the spiritual meaning, of the deeper meaning, means that they do not have to obey, yet that is not true. Let us go to Luke 17. In Luke 17, we have a passage that really shows us that the ultimate meaning of the Bible is the deep spiritual meaning, the Gospel meaning, and not the literal meaning of a verse. Actually, you know how people say, “Well, I follow the Bible literally. I take the Bible literally. Show me in the Bible where it says to come out of the church and I will do it.” Well, yes, but you see, when you take the Bible literally, you could end up on your way to Hell. You could end up on your way to Hell. Here in Luke 17:11-19, we read:
And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: and they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.
Is that not strange? Is that not very unusual? Do you see the problem there? Ten lepers come to Jesus and Jesus said unto them:
…Go show yourselves unto the priests…
The reason that He did this is because of what we read in Leviticus 14:2:
This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest:
So it is a Law in the Law of Moses. A leper in the day of his cleansing is to be brought to the priest. Jesus did not come to do away with the Law but to fulfill the Law, and so He says to them something that He is basically quoting from Leviticus 14:
…Go show yourselves unto the priests. And…as they went, they were cleansed.
They were cleansed of their leprosy. They were walking and as they left, at first, they were lepers, and on their way, at some point, the leprosy just vanished. It just went away. You can imagine the joy and the incredible terrific joy that you would have if you had leprosy and the digits of your fingers were falling off and your toes were falling off. You had this terrible disease for who knows how long, and suddenly, like that, you are cleansed.
So this Samaritan, he could not contain himself. He was probably jumping and leaping, and he takes off as quickly as he can. He runs back to Jesus and falls on the ground, and Jesus asked the question. This is the strange thing. This is the amazing thing:
…where are the nine?
Why did He ask that? Of course He should know where they are. It said in Luke 17:14:
…Go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went…
They obeyed Him, literally. Literally! They were on their way to Jerusalem to find a priest so that the priest would offer the sacrifice, because of the Law in Leviticus 14:2:
…the leper in the day of his cleansing…
And yet, they failed to glorify God. But a Samaritan who disobeyed Jesus; he disobeyed—Jesus said, “Go show yourselves unto the priests”—he ran back and fell at Jesus’ feet, and he gave glory to God. How is that possible?
Well, you see, what is the purpose of the Law? The end of the Law, the Bible tells us, is the Lord Jesus Christ. The end of the Law is the Lord Jesus Christ. Leprosy represents sin. Who is the Great High Priest of His people? Jesus.
So that Law was given in Leviticus to teach a spiritual truth that a sinner on the day of his cleansing from his spiritual sin-sickness is to go to Christ and to find salvation in Jesus. The Samaritan out of joy, out of just not caring about anything, about going to some priest, just wanted to go thank the Lord Jesus Christ because of this great miracle. He fulfilled the spiritual meaning of the Law in Leviticus that he had to go show himself to a priest because Jesus is what was behind that. Yet those other nine, “Well, take the Bible literally. Take the Bible literally. Take it with you all the way to Jerusalem.” But the more you are going in that direction, the further you are getting from Christ. Jesus was back there, and they are going away, and they are going away from Him.
It is a dangerous thing to take the Bible literally, without first searching for the Gospel meaning, the spiritual meaning. It is a very dangerous thing, and Jesus shows that here. He says in Luke 17:18:
There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.
So the nine failed to give glory to God. Remember that verse in Romans, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” So they are definitely not saved individuals and they are not experiencing the salvation of God, but rather they have gone far from God.
So it is when people say, “Well, Babylon, Babylon, what does that mean to me?” Well, Babylon, you have to look for that deeper meaning, just like “the leper in the day of his cleansing.” What does Babylon mean? What does it mean to come out of Babylon or Judaea and flee to the mountains? By God’s grace, God has enlightened His people’s understanding, so that we can obey these things and we can come out of the churches and congregations.