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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Chester Clark

Time No Longer

Father in Heaven, thank you for this time we can spend to dig a little deeper, to study a little more about 1844.

I just want to pray that you'll be with us as we go through these next few minutes, that you'll help our minds to be awakened, to be stirred, to a deeper understanding of your truth, especially as it relates to us.

And the message we need to be living and giving at this time, we pray in Jesus' name.

As I circulate among Adventism, I find that there is a little bit of a, maybe a bit of a discontentment with the traditional interpretation of prophecy that we as Adventists have held.

And it doesn't come so much from the challenges to the sanctuary message, because there's a certain segment of Adventism, maybe, that questions those aspects.

But there's, even in more conservative Adventism, there's a little bit of discontent at times with the prophecies of the Bible.

And so I'm going to just review with you a few things today as we look at the major prophecies that have been fulfilled.

We remember that there was a set of prophecies that Jesus predicted would precede the second coming, right?

And if you read in Matthew chapter 24, you find the great tribulation being described here in about, what is it?

Verse 20 or 21, something like that, the 1260 years persecution.

And the Bible says immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened the moon should not give her light and the stars shall fall from from heaven right and that same set of prophecies that same set of events is predicted again in Mark again in Luke and once again in Revelation the same order sun be darkened moon not give her light stars fall from heaven and so we see these these events that took place.

There was a major earthquake, that's only found in Revelation, but 1755, the Lisbon earthquake, then May, 1917, 80, the dark day, that night the moon came up red as blood, and then November 13, 1833, the stars falling from heaven.

And as we look at Millerite history, as we look at Adventist history, we see that these events gave great impetus, they gave credibility, they stirred the minds of men and women into a deeper study of the prophecies, which by the way, was exactly what God wanted people to do, because this was at the time as the 1260 years of persecution were coming to an end, in fact they ended a little bit before 1798.

Napoleon's general Berthier captured the Pope and effectively officially ended the papacy for a period of time, the deadly wound which would later be healed, right?

But even before 1798, even before Berthier marched on Rome, There was an effective end of persecution in Europe because there were places now that people could go.

The Americas opened up as an escape alternative.

England began to shelter at times those who were persecuted for their religion.

And so Jesus said, except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved.

We see that even before 1798, effectively persecution came to an end.

And about that same time, the great earthquake takes place.

Now, some people have asked the question, well, you know, it wasn't a global earthquake.

Lisbon earthquake may have been felt on the east coast of the United States, but it still wasn't a global earthquake.

How could people in some other parts of the world, in, you know, Pakistan or somewhere else, how would they have a sign that the second coming was near?

Well, the reality is, and I think this is how our pioneers saw it as well, the reality is that in most places where the book of Daniel was being studied, or people were aware of the prophecies of Jesus, they were aware also of these events taking place.

So even though not everyone saw the stars fall from heaven, it was mostly a New England phenomenon, although, you know, throughout the Americas it was seen a fair bit, but in some parts of the world it couldn't be seen.

In essence, by 1833, when the stars fell from heaven, those who were studying the prophecies, and especially the Book of Daniel, were in constant communication with each other.

If you just begin researching about the Millerite history and who they were writing and discussing, the books that were published on both sides of the Atlantic, you discover very quickly that these authors were riding back and forth.

They were in discussion around the world as people were coming to these same conclusions, they would somehow be led to find each other.

And so those who were looking forward to the end of time, and they were studying the book of Daniel, they were aware of these signs.

But some people today are going to say, but that was a long time ago.

I mean, 1833, we're pushing 200 years, you know, I mean, what about us?

And they become a little bit narcissistic, perhaps, in their understanding of prophecy, in that They think that we need to have something for our day, something that's maybe more sensational or maybe more exciting.

And so they begin looking in the prophecies and they begin trying to understand, well maybe I can apply this prophecy or reinterpret this prophecy or reapply this prophecy and there's going to be another set of trumpets or another set of seals, or there's gonna be another 1, 260, or there's gonna be another 2, 300 days.

And I imagine if you're like me, you've heard a lot of these theories being advanced, right?

And so today we're going to look just briefly at Revelation chapter 10.

And we're gonna try to find here an understanding of this concept of time no longer.

Revelation chapter 10, briefly, let me just, let me just, Let me just articulate the historicist understanding of prophecy.

The historicist understanding of prophecy says that the prophet saw a vision which began at his time and extended down to the time of the end." Are you with me?

And so, when the prophets...by the way, how do we know this?

How do we begin to learn the interpretation principles and how prophecy works?

There's an awful lot of that today, and I think there is somewhat of a watching prophecy with 1 eye and history with the other, but the preferred method that I'd like to suggest, at least for understanding the basic principles of biblical interpretation, is that we begin looking at the the first eschatological, in-time prophecies that God specifically gave.

And it wasn't Daniel's prophecy, actually, it was Nebuchadnezzar's dream, but this begins the book of Daniel, and this is the first prophecy specifically, primarily for the time of the end, right?

Does the book of Daniel read just like the book of Revelation?

You read half of the chapter is the vision and the other half is the interpretation.

Daniel and Revelation are very different, particularly the first few chapters of Daniel.

I mean, why doesn't Daniel just read like Revelation?

7 churches, 7 seals, no real interpretation of what they mean.

Because God is giving us our ABCs of Bible prophecy.

It's the primer for understanding how to interpret prophecy.

And so here you have the book of Daniel, And Daniel says, thou art this head of gold.

Does that give us much wiggle room for what the symbol meant?

The 3, well the 2, the ram, the he-goat, and the little horn.

And in each case there are specific interpretations given.

In other words, half of the chapter is the vision, the other half is the interpretation.

But that interpretation becomes less and less as we go on in Bible prophecy.

Because we're supposed to have already been learning the principles how to interpret them, okay?

So I'm going to make a statement here that some people don't like.

But there's only 1 model for how to interpret symbolic end-time prophecy, and that's historicism.

It's the vision beginning at the prophet's time and extending down to the time of the end.

And any attempt To take a vision and apply it to some beginning date in the future with some new interpretive principles is simply twisting the scriptures.

In my estimation, there is no biblical precedent for doing that in our primer of how to interpret Bible prophecy.

You don't find Daniel chapter 2 saying, well yeah, Babel is this head of gold, but you know, later on, maybe it's Saddam Hussein, he's gonna be the next head of gold, and there's gonna be another reinterpretation, and it's going to be, no, Not at all.

We call it historicism because at any time after the time of the prophet, we can find through comparing scripture where we are in the stream of the prophecy.

And Daniel chapter, Daniel teaches us another principle, it's called repeat and enlarge.

And that principle says that the prophecies don't, they're not consecutive.

You don't pick up where the last prophecy laid off.

You don't have Daniel 2 and then Daniel chapter 7 picks up with where Daniel 2 left off.

No, in fact they go back and they cover the same territory.

It's so that you can nail down where you are in the history of time, right?

It begins with the time of the prophet, it ends at the end of time, you can find yourself in that stream of time, but always the additional information that comes, the extra data from the additional prophecy is always more data of what's going to take place at the end of time.

And so Daniel 2, How much details do you have?

Well, you have the divided kingdom, right?

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Time No Longer

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