Prophecy
Hermeneutics Pt.9
 7-30-2009

Contents
Definition
A Different Kind of History
How To Approach a Bible Story
NT Historical Narrative
“Predictive” Prophecy
The Purposes of Prophecy
To Teach About God
To Validate the Prophet

Historical Narrative (cont’d)
Probably the most important principle to keep in mind when you are interpreting a record of an event is that the meaning is not in the event. The meaning is in what the author was trying to teach about the event. If you are teaching children and all you do is let them know what happened – that Jonah fled toward Tarshish was swallowed and regurgitated then went to Nineveh, etc., you haven’t taught them the Bible. The simple fact that those things happened is not the message of Scripture. The meaning does not come from the events.
Nor does it come from the reader. Many Bible teachers seem to think that the way to teach a Bible story is to recount from the Bible what all happened, and then the preacher or teacher gives meaning to what happened. That’s also the wrong approach because the meaning does not come from the event nor does it come from the reader. The meaning always comes from the author. The writer is telling you certain, select pieces of information for a purpose. He has an agenda. He’s making a point about those events. And if all you get is the events and not the point then you have not interpreted the passage. You have not listened to the voice of God in His Word. You have ignored the Scriptures.
That’s why I said last time it’s so important to watch for clues as to the writer’s point.  And you pay special attention to statements of commentary by the author interspersed in the historical account. This week I’m studying 2 Samuel 6.

2 Samuel 6:2 He and all his men set out from Baalah of Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name, the name of the LORD Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim that are on the ark.

All we need to know what took place is the first half of the verse – They left Baalah to bring the ark to Jerusalem. The rest of the verse doesn’t tell you anything about what happened. It’s obviously given to show us the significance that the writer is pointing out. I haven’t figured out what that is just yet (hopefully I’ll get it by Sunday). But it may be better for my purposes right now in this class that I don’t know what the significance is yet. Because if I told you that it would probably distract you from what I’m trying to teach right now, and that is how to spot these kinds of things. Whenever you see these comments that don’t give you any information about what happened, or they emphasize something or repeat it – focus on those.
Jonah
In the past when I’ve taught this class I’ve taken a whole session for going through the whole book of Jonah to show how to do this. I’m not going to do that this time – I’ll just illustrate quickly the difference between seeing God as the main character or the human character as the main character. If your focus is on Jonah, you approach the book this way:
Chapter 1 - God said go east and preach judgment on the wicked Ninevites and Jonah got on a ship going west and ended up being thrown in the sea and swallowed by a fish. Conclusion: Don’t disobey God.
Chapter 2 - This is Jonah’s prayer from inside the fish. Conclusion: God gives second chances.
Chapter 3 – Jonah preached judgment in Nineveh, they repented, and God relented on His judgment. Conclusion: Obey God.
Chapter 4 – Jonah’s plant. Conclusion: ???
Message of the book as a whole – Obey God and don’t disobey God. If you do disobey you might get a second chance.
Now, let’s focus on God and see what we find.
Chapter 1 – Jonah disobeyed, got on a ship and God brought massive judgment on the ship. But when the pagan sailors made an attempt to please Yahweh the storm instantly stopped. Conclusion: God has awesome power but has a hair trigger on mercy when there is some effort to honor Him.
Chapter 2 – Jonah repents seconds before death and God instantly rescues him with a fish. Conclusion: God has awesome power but has a hair trigger on mercy when there is repentance. 
Chapter 3 – The unbelievably wicked Ninevites make an effort to repent and God has compassion and cancels the judgment – just as Jonah feared. Conclusion: God has awesome power to destroy a nation but because of His compassion His mercy is on a hair trigger when there is repentance. 
Chapter 4 – God provides Jonah with a shade plant to give relief from the heat. Then God kills it, and Jonah is extremely upset. And God says, “If you can love a plant that much can’t I love a city of thousands? If losing your precious plant can get you upset shouldn’t it bother Me to lose 120,000 human beings?” Conclusion: The reason God’s compassion is on a hair trigger is because people are greatly valuable to Him.
Overall message – God loves people and has astonishing compassion and as a result has His mercy on a hair trigger when there is repentance. 

What is Prophecy?
Most people probably think of prophecy primarily as predicting the future. The problem is, if you read the prophets, much of what they say is not about the future. A lot of it is instruction, or indictment about sin, or warning of judgment, etc. So some people have defined prophecy as either foretelling or forth telling. That is, predicting the future or speaking before a crowd. But that doesn’t work either. Lots of people speak before a crowd – that doesn’t make them prophets.
The definition of prophecy is very simple: It’s an announcement of what is on God's mind. If God is thinking about something future, the prophecy is about the future. If God is thinking about the past/present, it’s about the past/present. So technically, the historical narrative that we talked about last time (Bible stories) is in the category of prophecy. That’s prophecy about the past. The prophetic books are Isaiah through the end of the Old Testament. We call the long ones the major prophets (4), and the short ones the minor prophets (12). Those terms are misleading, however. It’s not that the minor ones are unimportant or secondary in any way. We should just call them the long prophets and the short prophets. Prophecy is generally made up of 
Historical narrative 
Visions  (The vision is not the message; it is the occasion for the message.)
Oracles - An oracle is when God speaks directly through a prophet. The prophet is like a messenger taking dictation.
Poetry 
Examples:
Habakkuk - mostly Psalms
Amos - a poem (psalm) broken up with oracles in between 
Four types of oracles:
JUDGEMENT   God announcing impending punishment
INDICTMENT  God spelling out what they did wrong to deserve the judgment
INSTRUCTION  God describing how they should live (Micah 6:8)
RESTORATION  God announcing the time when they will live like they should (for the purpose of encouraging the remnant who are being punished with everyone else).
The vast majority of the prophetic material is about the exile (the exile was the time when the Jews were conquered and deported to Babylon for seventy years). So the Prophets are categorized as pre-exilic (the prophet ministered prior to Israel being conquered), exilic (during the seventy years), and post-exilic (after their return).
The basic message of the prophets was this: 
Pre-exilic: “Hey Israel, you better repent, or you will be conquered by a hostile nation, and then restored. OK, you didn’t repent, so now you are going to be conquered and hauled off to that hostile nation.”  
Exilic: Now you are in captivity, you will eventually be restored.
Post-exilic:  “Now you are back in the land, repent.”
“Predictive” Prophecy
When a prophet speaks about something in the future, we call that “predictive prophecy.”  But we need to be careful with that term. It is “predictive” in the sense that it is about the future, but the prophets did not make predictions in the sense that Jean Dixon makes predictions, or in the sense that sports prognosticators predict outcomes of games, or in the sense that meteorologists make educated guesses about the weather. A better word is “announce” rather than “predict.” The prophets weren’t making educated guesses. They were never wrong. God revealed what was going to happen and the prophets announced it. Having said that, I will stick with the accepted term “predictive prophecy” so we can distinguish between that and prophecy that is not about the future.
Some predictive prophecy was future when it was prophesied, but is now past. For example the announcements of the exile, or the restoration to Israel after the exile, or the coming of the Messiah. But most predictive prophecy is things that have been announced but still haven’t taken place. We call that eschatology, or end-times prophecy. If you are like most people, chances are you are either fanatical about eschatology, or you tend to ignore it almost completely.
For those of you who ignore the end times, I would say that that is understandable, but not justified. It’s understandable, because the approach most often taken in teaching it misses the point and is not edifying. They just try to find out what is going to happen to me in the future, and to draw up a chart. So if you have lost interest because of that, that’s understandable. It’s understandable, but it’s not good. If you have no interest in a major portion of God’s Word, that’s tragic.
According to Barton Payne in The Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy, 28.6% of the verses in the Old Testament contain predictive prophecy, and 21.6% of the verses in the New Testament. So 27% of the Bible is predictive prophecy. This material covers 737 different topics (so there is more to predictive prophecy than just trying to pinpoint the timing of the rapture, the Second Coming and the resurrections).  If you have set aside the study of predictive prophecy because it’s too complicated, ask yourself, do you want to ignore a quarter of God’s Word? So let’s avoid both errors. Let’s not ignore this important category of Scripture, but on the other hand let’s not be like so many of the prophecy fanatics who seem to care about almost nothing else but figuring out exactly what’s going to happen in the future.
The Purposes of Prophecy
To Teach About God
Finding out what is going to happen in the future is not the primary value of predictive prophecy. The primary value of prophecy is…that it teaches us about what God is like. If you learn that, you will be much better off studying prophecy. If you study prophecy to find out what will happen in the future, you will be frustrated. The information about the future is generally cryptic enough that it is frustrating trying to map out exactly what will happen and when. But if you approach prophecy in accordance with its intended purpose, you will be able to mine unlimited riches from it. 
When you read prophecy, instead of asking “How can I draw up a chart?” ask “What does this teach me about what God is like, and how should I therefore live?” The information about the future is not enough to nail down all the events and the order, but it is enough to teach us about God, and how we should live. Like everything else, interpreting prophecy boils down to whether you are man-centered or God-centered. Are you primarily concerned about what is going to happen to you, or about what God is like (as seen in what He has done, is doing and will do).

To Validate the Prophet
Predictive prophecy also serves another function. It demonstrates the divine authority of the prophet’s message. It’s one of the ways we know the Bible is God’s Word. The Bible is unique in being a prophetic book. How do we know that the Bible is God’s Word and not all the other holy books? One reason is that other holy books do not make specific prophecies. And the announcements the Bible makes are nothing like the predictions of psychics, etc. They are not vague things that would be likely to happen anyway. (“You are about to go through a major change”). Also the Biblical prophecies have a record of 100% accuracy. The Old Testament  prophets announced exactly what would happen with the nations around Israel.
For example, regarding Tyre Ezekiel announced: 
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon would destroy Tyre (Ez.26:8)
Many nations would come against Tyre one after another (Ez.26:3)
Tyre would be made like a bare, flat rock (26:4)
Fishermen would someday spread their nets over the site to dry them (Ez.26:5)
Debris from the city would be thrown into the sea (Ez.26:12)
It would never be rebuilt (Ez.26:14)
From secular history we know:
Three years later Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Tyre.
Tyre kept trying to rebuild, but was destroyed by Babylon, Greece (repeatedly), Antigonus, and the Moslems
This is the exact phrase secular historians use to describe that Alexander the Great did. If you go there today this is what you will find:
Only fishermen are there.
When Tyre was first destroyed, the people went out to an island just off shore.
When Alexander the Great came, he did not have a fleet to get across the water, so he took the debris from the mainland city and threw it into the sea making a two hundred foot wide road.
He then marched out and besieged the new city.
That great city, even though it is a prime location with plenty of water has never recovered.
This also happened with Sidon (Ez.28), Samaria (Hos.13, Micah 1), Gaza (Amos 1 Jer.47, Zeph.2), Moab (Ez.25, Jer.48-49), Edom (Isa.34, Jer.49, Ez.25, 35), Thebes and Memphis (Ez.30), Nineveh (Nahum), Babylon (Isa.13-14, Jer.51), Jerusalem (Jer.31), Palestine (Lv.26, Ez.36), etc.
These prophecies were fulfilled with one hundred percent accuracy and were very specific - even naming names.

Isaiah 45:1-4 "This is what the LORD says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him … 3  …so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summons you by name. 4 For the sake of Jacob my servant, of Israel my chosen, I summon you by name and bestow on you a title of honor, though you do not acknowledge me.
13 I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness: I will make all his ways straight. He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, but not for a price or reward, says the LORD Almighty." 

You ask “Who is Cyrus?”  That’s the same thing they asked. The king of Israel was Hezekiah (726-697). Over one hundred years later, in 599, a Persian woman gave birth to a baby and named him Cyrus. In 586, while Cyrus was celebrating his 15th birthday, the king of another country - Babylon - conquered Israel. Cyrus became king of Persia at age 42. He was a great military leader and was bent on conquering the world. At age 63 he conquered Babylon, and a short time later, he made an edict letting Israel return to Jerusalem! So the prophet Isaiah talks about Cyrus – the man who will rescue Israel from Babylon, but at the time he is writing all this Babylon hadn’t even attacked Israel yet! It would be like if someone said, “Here’s the name of the man who will finally help the United States regain its independence.”   
Daniel announced the world kingdoms from his time until Jesus (over 500 years) (Dan.9). He also gave detailed descriptions of Alexander the Great’s campaign (Dan.8)   hundreds of years before hand.
Messianic announcements:
Some prophecy teachers see almost everything in the entire Old Testament as a direct messianic prophecy. I’ve heard it said that Jesus fulfilled 333 messianic prophecies, and that proves He was the Messiah. The problem is many of those 333 are debatable. They are things that you would never guess had anything to do with the Messiah when it was first written. For example, Psalm 22, where the psalmist says “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” and then goes on to talk about how they pierce his hands and feet and divide his garments. Those things happened to Jesus, but before they happened to Jesus how would anyone have known that was a messianic prophecy?
I don’t think it’s a very strong argument, if we are trying to persuade people that the Bible is God’s Word, to point to things like that. Why not point to prophecies that were clearly messianic when they were made? What prophecies were known to be messianic when they were made? Three categories: The Prophet like Moses in Deuteronomy 18 (probably), The Davidic King (The Branch from the root of Jesse) and The Suffering Servant of Isaiah.  
Dual meanings
Are there prophecies with dual meanings? Based on what we said before regarding authorial intent, I would say no. There are two kinds of passages used to support the “dual meaning” view: Passages that seem to have an ultimate fulfillment in the end times, but seem to have partial fulfillments in history and passages that are clearly speaking to a near fulfillment, but that also seem to fit New Testament realities. I do not deny that there are prophecies in which the fulfillment consists in a series of parts separated by intervals, and may be expressed in language that may apply to the nearest part or the remotest part or to the whole. What I do reject is the idea that a prophecy can have some sense other than the normal, natural original meaning of the utterance that only emerges later and relates to a different matter supposedly concealed in the very same words.

How Much Did the Prophets Understand?
This is where we run into a snag with authorial intent. What exactly did the prophets know about how their prophecies would be fulfilled? And if the fulfillment is something other than what the prophet intended when he wrote, how can we possibly interpret it? Prophecy is a little different from the rest of the Bible, and should be interpreted differently. But it is not just a free-for-all. There are still some principles. One difference is in the clarity. I taught you before about the perspicuity of Scripture – the Bible communicates clearly. That’s not always the case with predictive prophecy. The information the prophets were to write was given to them by God, very often, in riddles, visions and dreams. And the meaning of those was not always apparent. There was only one prophet that this didn’t apply.
 
Numbers 12:6-8 "When a prophet of the LORD is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. 7 But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. 8 With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles;

So how much of their own prophesies did the prophets understand? While some things were hidden from them, the basic meaning of the prophecies was understandable by not only the prophet but also by the original readers or hearers. We saw that with Jonah. He understood exactly what his prophecies about the coming judgment of Nineveh meant, and what the implications were. That’s why he fled. The Ninevites also understood – that’s why they repented.

1Kings 22:1-38 
In 1 Kings 22 King Ahab is trying to get Jehoshaphat to help him in a war.

5 But Jehoshaphat also said to the king of Israel, "First seek the counsel of the LORD." 6 So the king of Israel brought together the prophets-about four hundred men-and asked them, "Shall I go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain?" "Go," they answered, "for the Lord will give it into the king's hand." 7 But Jehoshaphat asked, "Is there not a prophet of the LORD here whom we can inquire of?" 8 The king of Israel answered Jehoshaphat, "There is still one man through whom we can inquire of the LORD, but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me, but always bad. He is Micaiah son of Imlah."  "The king should not say that," Jehoshaphat replied.

13 The messenger who had gone to summon Micaiah said to him, "Look, as one man the other prophets are predicting success for the king. Let your word agree with theirs, and speak favorably." 14 But Micaiah said, "As surely as the LORD lives, I can tell him only what the LORD tells me." 15 When he arrived, the king asked him, "Micaiah, shall we go to war against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain?" "Attack and be victorious," he answered, "for the LORD will give it into the king's hand." 16 The king said to him, "How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD?" 17 Then Micaiah answered, "I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd, and the LORD said, `These people have no master. Let each one go home in peace.'" 18 The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, "Didn't I tell you that he never prophesies anything good about me, but only bad?" 

Clearly even wicked Ahab could properly interpret and understand Micaiah’s prophecies. Examples like these are repeated over and over. God gave prophecies to get people to repent, or to regard Him a certain way or to live a certain way – how could God expect those things to take place if prophecy was not understandable by the original audience? What about passages that seem to indicate that the prophets themselves didn’t understand their own writings?

Peter 1:10,11  Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

This doesn’t say they didn’t understand their writings – in fact, it indicates that they understood them far better than most people realize. They understood that the Messiah would come and suffer, and they understood that the Messiah would come in great glory. The only thing they didn’t know was the time and circumstances, and how those two things could both be true. But the reason they didn’t know those things isn’t because they couldn’t understand their own prophecies, it was because that information was not in their prophecies.
The only other passage I could think of was 

Daniel 8:27 I, Daniel, …I was appalled by the vision; it was beyond understanding.

What did Daniel mean? Was it that the vision was complicated and confusing that he was appalled that God would even give it? Did it mean that Daniel was writing words, but he didn’t know what they meant? Look at what he had just written:

23 "In the latter part of their reign, when rebels have become completely wicked, a stern-faced king, a master of intrigue, will arise. 24 He will become very strong, but not by his own power.

He will cause astounding devastation and will succeed in whatever he does. He will destroy the mighty men and the holy people.

25 He will cause deceit to prosper, and he will consider himself superior.

When they feel secure, he will destroy many and take his stand against the Prince of princes.
Is that hard to understand? It’s about as straightforward as it can be. There isn’t even any symbolism. It just says that this wicked man will wreak havoc, and will destroy God’s holy people. I don’t think Daniel had any problem understanding the meaning. What was beyond understanding, and what was appalling to Daniel, was the fact that this was going to happen.

How to Interpret an Announcement of the Future
Keep in mind your ultimate goal right from the beginning – just like any other kind of Scripture; you need to determine what the purpose of the passage is. Is this announcement about what is going to happen in the future given to bring about repentance? Is it to cause me to live in a certain way? To think a certain way about God? If you can’t figure out the purpose of a prophecy – a purpose other than satisfying our curiosity about the future, you don’t understand the prophecy. After describing the rapture in 1Thessalonians 4:18, he doesn’t say, “Therefore, make a chart with these words.” He doesn’t say, “Therefore, try to match up these words with the words in Daniel.” He doesn’t say, “Therefore argue over these words.” He doesn’t say, “Therefore plot these words onto a timeline.” He doesn’t say, “Therefore ignore these words and speculate about other words not revealed.” What he said was, Therefore encourage each other with these words. 
So the information about the rapture has a very clear purpose – to be an encouragement to us. It should cause us to live lives that are alert, lives of hope, lives that look forward to that day, lives that live in the light of that Day, and the purpose of those words is to provide us with strength and encouragement now. If someone preaches a sermon or teaches a class or a Bible study on the rapture, and the people don’t walk out afterward encouraged, that teacher has failed. If you study the rapture in your own personal Bible study or devotions, and afterward you are the world’s greatest expert on the rapture, but you are not encouraged, you have missed the point of the passage and have failed in your Bible study. On the other hand, if you study the passage and those things are accomplished in your life, you have succeeded – even if you still don’t know everything about the future.
Determine if the announcement is conditional or unconditional Assume an announcement is conditional unless there is an indication otherwise. For example, if a verse says, “This judgment will come upon you, unless you repent,” we say, “I see a condition, so that is a conditional announcement.”  But if it just says, “This judgment will come upon you” we tend to think it must be unconditional. That’s the wrong approach. Always assume an announcement is conditional unless there is an indication otherwise. Jonah’s prophecy is a good example.

Jeremiah 18:7-10  If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 8 and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 9 And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 10 and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.

Verse 7 sounds unconditional. But God says, “Whenever I give a statement about judgment or blessing, even if it sounds unconditional, always remember this caveat (v.8). The same is true of individuals

Ezekiel 33:13-15 If I tell the righteous man that he will surely live, but then he trusts in his righteousness and does evil, none of the righteous things he has done will be remembered; he will die for the evil he has done. 14 if I say to the wicked man, `You will surely die,' but he then turns away from his sin and does what is just and right- 15…he will surely live; he will not die.

There is a section in Deuteronomy 28-32, and Leviticus 26 that set out numerous conditional statements (blessings and cursings). Those two sections are quoted hundreds of times in the prophets (Silva). So when you see an announcement about something in the future that has to do with either blessing or cursing, unless there is something in the context that calls for an unconditional interpretation, it is best to assume it is conditional. 
There are times in the New Testament (especially in Matthew) when a prophecy that was clearly intended to refer to an Old Testament fulfillment is applied to Jesus, but that doesn’t mean there are dual fulfillments. It only means the New Testament writer is applying the Old Testament principle to the situation he is writing about, or he is using Old Testament language to describe something, because that language is so appropriate.
For example, when Jesus’ parents took Him to Egypt to escape Herod, Matthew says that fulfilled the prophecy in Hosea 11:1 Out of Egypt I called my son. (Mt.2:14-15). But Hosea was clearly talking about Israel at the Exodus, not the Messiah. Matthew isn’t claiming that Hosea had the Messiah in mind or was prophesying anything about the Messiah. He’s just applying the principle. The Hosea passage is all about how tender God’s love is toward Israel as His son. Matthew points out that God has that same tender love for Jesus as His Son. And since Israel’s role as God’s Son was a picture of the Messiah’s role as God’s Son, it’s a profound statement about Jesus’ Messiahship. But there are not dual meanings, hidden meanings or double fulfillments. However there are sequential fulfillments.

Sequential Fulfillments 
That is when there is an announcement of some future sequence of events that sounds like it may be a single event. One example of that is in Ezekiel, when the destruction of Tyre was prophesied.

Prophecy						Fulfillment
1. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon would destroy Tyre (Ez.26:8)	1) Three years later Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Tyre.	
2. Many nations would come against Tyre one after another (Ez.26:3)
	2) Tyre kept trying to rebuild, but was destroyed by Babylon, Greece (repeatedly), Antigonus, and the Moslems	
3. Tyre would be made like a bare, flat rock (26:4)
	3) This is the exact phrase secular historians use to describe that Alexander the Great did.	
4. Fishermen would someday spread their nets over the site to dry them (Ez.26:5)	4) If you go there today this is what you will find. Only fishermen are there.	
5. Debris from the city would be thrown into the sea (Ez.26:12)
	5) When Tyre was first destroyed, the people went out to an island just off shore. When Alexander the Great came, he did not have a fleet to get across the water, so he took the debris from the mainland city and threw it into the sea making a 200 foot wide road. He then marched out and besieged the new city.	
6. It would never be rebuilt (Ez.26:14)
	6) That great city, even though it is a prime location with plenty of water has never recovered.	

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon would destroy Tyre (Ez.26:8)
2. Many nations would come against Tyre one after another (Ez.26:3)
3. Tyre would be made like a bare, flat rock (26:4)
4. Fishermen would someday spread their nets over the site to dry them (Ez.26:5)
5. Debris from the city would be thrown into the sea (Ez.26:12)
6. It would never be rebuilt (Ez.26:14)

1) Three years later Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Tyre.
2) Tyre kept trying to rebuild, but was destroyed by Babylon, Greece (repeatedly), Antigonus, and the Moslems
3) This is the exact phrase secular historians use to describe that Alexander the Great did.
4) If you go there today this is what you will find. Only fishermen are there.
5) When Tyre was first destroyed, the people went out to an island just off shore. When Alexander the Great came, he did not have a fleet to get across the water, so he took the debris from the mainland city and threw it into the sea making a 200 foot wide road. He then marched out and besieged the new city.
6) That great city, even though it is a prime location with plenty of water has never recovered.
If you read Ezekiel 26 you would assume all that would happen in one event. Ezekiel just says certain things will happen, but neither the prophet nor the original readers know that Nebuchadnezzar would do some of those things, and Alexander the Great would do the rest hundreds of years later.
They didn’t need to know that, because when it would happen had nothing to do with the purpose of the prophecy. The purpose of that prophecy was to show how God responds to a nation that is brutal against Jerusalem. So the only pertinent information is what will happen to Tyre – not when or in what order.
“Why doesn’t God give more times and dates?” Since God is a perfect communicator, it’s safe to take the basic assumption that all the information provided is relevant, and only the information provided is relevant. So if God had included dates and sequences, then we would assume that those dates and sequences had some bearing on the meaning of the passage, and we would miss the point. For Him to include times would have been misleading as to His purpose. God does not include details that would throw us off the trail of the point He is making. And yet what do we do today?
God did not provide dates for the end times. Jesus said it’s not for us to know the day or hour. God tells us emphatically that it is not necessary for Him to tell us about times or seasons regarding the end. So God says, “Do you want to understand end times? Do you want to know the meaning of these things I revealed about the future? I’ll give you a hint. The meaning does not rest in the hour, or the day, or the times or the seasons.” So what do we do? Ninety-nine point nine percent of teaching about end times is an effort to put every major prophecy verse into a slot on a time line. That’s why prophecy seems to confusing. If you take the one thing God has said He has not revealed, will not reveal, and that is not germane to the point being made by the prophecies, and you make that the central focus of your study, of course you are going to be frustrated. You get the impression that prophecy teachers think that God took the whole picture of the end times that He wanted us to have, cut it into hundreds of jigsaw pieces, and scattered them all over Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel, Matthew 24, and Thessalonians, and He expects us to find those little pieces and put the puzzle back together. Each passage stands alone, and makes its own point that is understandable simply from what that passage says. The timing or order of events is significant only if the passage itself makes a point of it.
There are some future events in which the order does have some significance, and so it is revealed to us in Scripture. I believe this is the case with the rapture. It does matter if the rapture comes before or after the Tribulation, because the New Testament is full of warnings urging the reader to prepare for the Tribulation so that when it happens you will be able to persevere to the end. If you believe the rapture happens before the Tribulation, then none of those warnings apply to you.
 Partial “Fulfillments” 
Sometimes a prophet will announce something that is way off in the future, but to establish his credibility, God will cause something to happen that is close enough to what was prophesied to make it clear that the prophet is credible, but different enough to make it clear that the ultimate fulfillment is still future. When Daniel spoke of the abomination of desolation, he was referring to the end times. But Antiochus came so close to what was described that it verified that Daniel’s prophecy was from God.
Another example is Jesus’ prophecy in Matthew 24. It was a prophecy about the Tribulation, but what happened in 70 AD was so close to some of the things He described it’s clear that He’s a true prophet.
Last week there was a question about John the Baptist. The very last thing that is said in the Old Testament…
 
Malachi 4:5-6 "See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse." 

So the Jews were expecting a forerunner who would come before the Messiah. And that forerunner would be Elijah. And he will have a ministry of restoration that will save the people from God’s judgment. Many Jews seemed to expect a literal reincarnation of Elijah – the actual man himself returning from the dead. But that idea is dispelled by the angel in Luke 1.

Luke 1:13-17 13 Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John…17 And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous-to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." 

So when John the Baptist came along and began to point people to Christ, they came and asked him if he was Elijah.
John 1:21 They asked him, "Then who are you? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." 

But then later on Jesus said 

Matthew 11:13-14`all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. 14 And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.

Then six chapters later the disciples asked:

Matthew 17:10-13``10 "Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?"`11 Jesus replied, "To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. 12 But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands."  13 Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.

So what are we to make of all that? First John is coming in the spirit and power of Elijah, then he’s clearly not Elijah, then he may or may not be Elijah depending upon whether they accept him, then they reject him and he is for sure Elijah. At first it seems like figuring all that out is like unscrambling an egg. But really it’s not as bad as it sounds. John was the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy. But since the Pharisees had some wrong ideas about that prophecy, when they asked John, “Are you Elijah?” he had to say “no” because He knew what they meant. If you read the context in John 1 it sounds like they thought the “Elijah” who was to come was a messianic figure. So if John had said, “yes,” he would have been telling them he was the Messiah. As for the question of why Jesus says that he is the Elijah only if the people accept it, that’s talking about John’s role of restoring the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous and to prepare people spiritually for the Lord. They probably figured the Elijah would come and prepare everyone. But Jesus says, “He only fulfills that role for you if you listen to him.” John called the people to repentance. For those who listened and repented, he fulfilled that role of restoring and preparing the people’s hearts. So to answer Adam’s question, yes, I think there is a sense in which the prophecy in Malachi about John has a sequential fulfillment, because he says I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes which kind of sounds like it would be right before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. You can’t tell from the original prophecy that in between John’s coming and the final Judgment Day is the Church Age.

Apocalyptic Literature 
There is a certain kind of predictive prophecy known as Apocalyptic Literature. It is characterized by lots of symbolism and vivid, figurative language. You see it a lot in Revelation and Ezekiel, for example. Any time you read something and try to picture it in your mind, and the picture makes absolutely no sense, chances are you are reading apocalyptic literature. Many Christians ignore apocalyptic literature because they don’t know how to interpret the symbols. But if you ignore it you miss out on a wonderful blessing.
The Role of Apocalyptic Literature
Apocalyptic literature is especially important for people who are in difficult or painful circumstances. Apocalyptic prophecy reverses our normal experience by setting a scene where the heavenly mysteries are the real world, and the present crisis is a temporary detail in the background.
Also, another characteristic of apocalyptic prophecy is it tends to emphasize God’s transcendence. Most of the time through Scripture we see God working from within the creation. If He wants your crops to have water, he sends rain through the normal natural process that we observe on a regular basis. If He wants you to have something to eat, He enables a seed to germinate and grow in the soil and produce fruit. That’s one way of looking at how God does things – from within the creation. We call this providence, and it is one of the most comforting doctrines of Scripture. The natural processes you see all around you are not random, mechanical reactions – it is God doing His perfect work.
But there is another way to think about it. You can think about it from the perspective of God’s transcendence – the view from heaven. God comes from outside and radically intervenes – that’s what happens in apocalyptic literature. God is both immanent and transcendent (close by in creation, above and beyond the creation). Both are precious truths.
Sometimes it’s comforting to realize that God is in this very room – that He is very close. Other times it’s a great encouragement to remember that God is way above all this mess, and He is seated in heaven on His throne. It’s the same with thinking about how God works. There are times, especially when God’s people are in the midst of horrible disaster all around them, to think of God as being above it all, and invading from the outside. Apocalyptic literature shows you the view of God being above and beyond and invading from the outside. It lifts you up into heaven and shows you the view from there. Sometimes the events of human history will plunge God’s people into such despair that it’s hard for them to believe that God is controlling all those events.
For example Daniel, when the world superpower is coming against tiny little Judah, instead of giving the view from providence, he illustrates the great powers of the world as a statue and a giant stone comes from the heavens and crushes the statue. When the greatest world powers are against you that’s a little intimidating. And sometimes the most comforting thing is to be lifted above the creation and see what God is going to do from the heaven’s-eye view. Daniel’s point is that the Messiah is going to come and not just alter things somewhat, but introducing a totally new era.
If you are a first Century Christian, Rome is pretty intimidating. But by the time you finish reading Revelation you realize Rome isn’t even a blip in the face of the awesome firepower of heaven.
Symbolism

The meaning conveyed in this cartoon has nothing to do with singing, nothing to do with obesity, nothing to do with the opera.
It’s about Al Gore’s refusal to acknowledge that the election was over

The reason most people tend to ignore Apocalyptic literature is because the rich use of symbolism makes it notoriously difficult to interpret. The more symbolism that is used, the more interpretation becomes necessary. Symbolism is when something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention. All symbols have meaning, and are meant to be understood. They are not given to confuse us. The reason they so often do confuse us is because most people don’t understand how they are meant to be interpreted. They are not intended to give us a photographic picture of something. When you read apocalyptic literature, don’t try to picture the scene in your head – it will be ridiculous. If you want practice interpreting symbolic literature, read the political cartoons in the paper.
Suppose you saw one in which an eagle was extending an olive branch to a crescent moon, what would that mean? [The United States making overtures of peace toward the Islam] If it’s a prediction, and it comes true, there will be no eagle, no moon and no branch. Those are just symbols to represent dialogue between two countries.
A symbol tells us just what we need to know, but leaves everything else hidden. If you are satisfied to know just what God was communicating through the symbol, and you don’t seek to know anything beyond that, that will eliminate ninety percent of the confusion. In order for a symbol to communicate anything, there has to be some knowledge of what it is supposed to represent. There are three kinds of symbols. Symbols that are explained in the context.

Daniel 2:31-47 "You looked, O king, and there before you stood a large statue-an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance. 32 The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, 33 its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay. 34 While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. 35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were broken to pieces at the same time and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.

Is there a time in the future when there will be a rock – some hard chunk of mineral that will smash a statue then become a huge mountain that will fill the earth? No. The rock is a symbol. How do we know what it represents? He tells us.

36"This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king.
38....You are that head of gold.

39"After you, another kingdom will rise, inferior to yours.

Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth.

40 Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron-for iron breaks and smashes everything-and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others.

44"In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people.

It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.

45 This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands-a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.

"The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and the interpretation is trustworthy." What is the purpose? To fill in our history books ahead of time? To tip us off what all the human kingdoms will do? To satisfy Nebuchadnezzar’s curiosity about future politics? NO! The point is about God’s Kingdom. We are always so interested to focus on the human aspect of things. But Nebuchadnezzar got the point …

46 Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel and paid him honor and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him. 47 The king said to Daniel, "Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery." 

John saw a vision of seven stars and seven lampstands. Are there going to be stars and lampstands? No. Those are symbols. What do they represent? 
Revelation 1:20  The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

Never forget that the context is the most important part of determining the meaning of a symbol. Symbols do not have fixed meanings. A lion can represent Judah, Christ or the Devil. Leaven can refer to good influence or bad influence. On the other hand, that’s not to say that we should ignore past use of symbols. There are times when that can be helpful. Symbols that refer to past Scripture. There are 404 verses in the book of Revelation and 278 of them refer to the Old Testament (70%). God has a reason for doing that. If you don’t understand those Old Testament symbols, you won’t be able to interpret Revelation. In the description of Christ in chapter 1 it says His head and hair were white like wool. That has nothing to do with Jesus’ physical appearance in heaven. It’s a reference to Daniel 9, where the son of man, amazingly, is able to approach the great Ancient of Days – Almighty God Himself, who is described as having head and hair that are white like wool. In Revelation 1 John is taking it a step further and saying Jesus, the Son of man, doesn’t just approach the Ancient of Days - He is the Ancient of Days.

Symbols that do not refer to the Old Testament and that are not explained explicitly in the context. 
In this case, we have two possibilities:
* Sometimes it is a cultural issue that is explained by local customs or geography
* Sometimes God simply wants us to contemplate the image, and that, along with the flow of the context, is all that is needed.

Cosmic Language
There is a fair amount of discussion these days about passages that speak of cosmic, cataclysmic judgments, like stars falling out of the sky, the sun going black, the moon turning to blood, etc. Are those literal or figurative? That question is crucial in the debate between Preterists and Futurists. A Preterist is someone who believes a lot of the things the Futurists consider to be future are actually already fulfilled in the past (or present). So when the futurist reads 

Matthew 24:27 For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 

he says, “That’s talking about the Second Coming in the future.” But a Preterist might say, “No, all of Matthew 24 is talking about the judgment on Israel that took place in 70 AD. It was in the future when Jesus said it and when Matthew wrote it, but it is now in the past.” A Futurist reads about the Tribulation in the book of Revelation and says, “That’s in the future.” A Preterist might say, “No, that’s talking about First Century Rome.” The Futurist reads about the Antichrist and assumes it’s a personality who will arise in the future; the Preterist says, “No, it was Nero (or Antiochus Epiphanes).”
All of us are partial Preterists. We all believe some end times prophecies are already fulfilled (for example Jesus’ first coming, or the arrival of the New Covenant). And we are all partial Futurists too. Even the Preterists believe the final Judgment Day and the Second Coming are future. So there is no strict definition I know of.
Anyway, one of the weaknesses of the Preterist position that the Olivet Discourse was all fulfilled in 70 AD is the cosmic language. When there is a reference to the sun going dark and the moon turning to blood and the stars falling out of the sky they say, “That’s just hyperbole. Jesus is using “end of the world” type imagery to underscore how severe the judgment would be in 70 AD.” But if that’s the case – if Jesus is speaking about how severe it’s going to be by using end of the world type imagery, then that means there is such a thing as end of the world imagery. I believe Matthew 24 had both near and far fulfillments. Part of it happened in 70 AD and part will happen at the very end.
Next time – poetry