Point of View February 19, 2025 – Hour 2 : The Chronological Guide to Bible Prophecy

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Our topic this hour is prophecy and we're going to be looking at this book The Chronological Guide to Bible Prophecy.

[00:00:26] And it is written by Todd Hempson and one of the things I love so much about his works, and we've had him on talking about the Non-Prophet's Guide to the End Times. There's also Non-Prophet's Guide to Heaven, Non-Prophet's Guide to Daniel, and a variety of others is that he brings a graphical presentation that I think makes it so easy to learn. Now if you're a visual learner, and I certainly am, you will benefit from the fact that not only is he an author, an illustrator, but an animator,

[00:00:54] individual that has worked in animation and really has thought about how to take some of these concepts that maybe are a little difficult to understand, maybe some abstract concepts or some very theological concepts, and find ways to illustrate them. So of course you will appreciate the book, and we have information about him and the book on the website. So Todd, welcome back to Point of View. Hey Kirby, it's great to be with you again. It's been a while and I've really been looking forward to it.

[00:01:23] It has been a while, and it's actually been a while since you've written the book. So in some respects we encourage people to either contact you or to find our link. I would have no doubt that it still might be easy to find in a local bookstore, but we've made it possible for people to get it in paperback or Kindle, so certainly that is the case. But the question that you ask in the first chapter is why now? And I think your argument is simple. That is, we've heard so much about prophecy.

[00:01:52] We've heard so much about the Bible. We, in some respects, are almost a little bit immune to it. And the other part of that is I really want to reach a younger audience, and they're an audience that maybe hasn't heard some of the prophetic messages, haven't maybe even had pastors go into some of the details, and that's why you felt it was important to write this book. Yeah, that's so true. You know, our generation in, you know, I'd say the past 20 or 30 years,

[00:02:22] there's been, you know, sensationalism on one side and scoffing on the other side, and familiarity breeds contempt. So even your everyday Christian is kind of not awed by the feature of fulfilled Bible prophecy or yet future prophecy in Scripture. So I wanted to kind of highlight that fact. And as you mentioned as well, I do think it's our mandate. If the Lord doesn't return in our lifetime, we need to pass this baton to the next generation. And by the way, on that front, we've seen some amazing things lately.

[00:02:52] Real quick, one example, we did a youth-only prophecy conference on the West Coast in November, and we had almost 1,000 students come out and about 1,000 more watching online. And they were riveted. It was all new content for them. They didn't have the baggage that a lot of people our age have with the content. And they ate it up, and they had, after every message, we had Q&A,

[00:03:17] two mics with about 50 students deep on either side asking the most deep theological raw questions you could imagine because it was all new content to them. So good. Let me just, before we get into prophecy, point out that as you go through this book, you're also teaching a fair amount about what I call Bible exposition and Bible overview. When we get into the book of Genesis, you point out, for example, that the gospel is revealed in the names in Genesis 5.

[00:03:44] I don't think I've ever said that on the air, although I've seen that before, because Adam is man, Seth is appointed, Enosh is mortal, Kenan is sorrow, all the way down to death, despairing, and comfort and rest. And so from Adam to Noah, you sort of have the gospel, as you said, hidden in plain sight, don't you? You really do. And it makes sense when you consider the fact that God is the author of all 66 books and that he superintended how they came together.

[00:04:14] And there are several things like that. Of course, there's more overt, clear prophecy, which I'm sure we'll get into. But there's also a lot of this almost second layer of hidden prophecy that was there all along. But you wouldn't recognize it until you understand the full scope of the gospel. Well, let's talk about prophecy then, because that's obviously the title of the book. But I just want people to know that as you're going through this, you'll learn some things that will help you in apologetics. You'll learn some things that will help you in biblical exegesis or biblical interpretation and the rest.

[00:04:42] But first of all, I've said this before. You and I have talked about this before. When you look at the Bible, at least 26%, some people say 27% of the Bible, when written, was prophetic in nature. There's certainly a number of verses that have yet to be fulfilled, which would be called end times prophecy. But I do find it interesting, Todd, that we still are hearing of pastors who say, you know, I'm just not going to teach on any of this prophecy thing.

[00:05:11] And I'm thinking, could you at least teach on Messianic prophecy or something of that nature? Because you're eliminating so much of the Bible, which when it was written was prophetic in nature. Yeah, you really are. And I think that 27% is probably more accurate. I used a really conservative, super conservative kind of metric to do it. And was glad my percentages were close to what the giants of the faith like Walbert and those other guys came up with. That was a sigh of relief.

[00:05:38] But yeah, if we don't teach the full counsel of God, if we don't teach Bible prophecy, we're lopping off at least a quarter of the Bible. You know, we don't drive a car with three tires or sit on a stool with three legs. But yeah, we'll try to do the same with the Bible. And one of the key things I wanted to show with this book was that it's not just prophecy in the book of Revelation and a little bit in the prophets. What I wanted to demonstrate by doing this book was to show that Bible prophecy is in every single book of the Bible.

[00:06:07] You literally cannot get away from it. So that's right. That was definitely a key purpose of this format of this book. One more thing I thought would be good just for a Bible overview is you early on talk about the covenants because we have the Abrahamic covenant and Abraham in Genesis 12. But then you have the Mosaic covenant, Exodus 19. You have a Davidic covenant, 2 Samuel 7. You have a land covenant, Deuteronomy 29.

[00:06:34] And of course, you have, as we would understand, the new covenant, Jeremiah 31 and of course, Romans 11. So in some respects, you have to understand that in terms of covenant. And that's another element is maybe deeper in terms of prophecy, but it's really going to help you understand which covenant you're under when you're trying to understand a particular verse of scripture. It's so true.

[00:06:56] And the covenants are very important because you and I hold to a view that we let the Bible speak for itself. We call it the literal interpretation method. We let scripture tell us what it means versus kind of reinterpreting the Old Testament with the New Testament or coming up with systems that change the meaning of things. We just take it at faith value.

[00:07:17] And what we find with the covenants is the Abrahamic covenant and the Davidic covenant, those were unconditional covenants to the Jewish people, giving details about the future Messiah and that kind of thing. And but when people talk about new covenant, old covenant, often what they're think what they're trying to say is New Testament, Old Testament. So they kind of lop it all together.

[00:07:39] But when you study these passages and take them at face value and look at them prophetically, Genesis 12 has the Abrahamic covenant. And as you mentioned, we have the Davidic covenant saying that a descendant of David would sit on the throne. But then the Mosaic covenant is conditional. The other two are unconditional. The Mosaic covenant was conditional. Here's how you're supposed to live when you're in the promised land. If you don't do these things, curses will come on you. If you do these things, you'll be blessed.

[00:08:07] And those things prove to be prophetic as well. And the other thing with the covenant that people don't realize is because they often say the new covenant replaces the old covenant. Well, if you read carefully, that new covenant was originally given to Israel and Judah. And that makes sense when we get to the New Testament. And Jesus says things like to the Jew first and then the Greek. And then as you mentioned with Romans chapter 11, Paul talks about how the fact that one day all Israel will be saved. And we're grafted in.

[00:08:36] We're lucky to be part of this thing. All part of the book, The Chronological Guide to Bible Prophecy, an illustrated panorama from Genesis to Revelation. We'll take a break. Continue right after this. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

[00:09:06] In a recent column, he asked, are the schools really politicized? Most of us know the answer to that question is yes. But many progressive writers don't agree. One of those writers is James Traub, who has a book coming out next year on civic education. In an article in The New Republic, he wrote preview in his book, he declared, I visited dozens of civics classrooms. The rights attacks are wrong. Who is right?

[00:09:29] Stanley Kurtz believes that left wing partisanship is a serious problem and has put out model legislation to take partisanship out of civics education. James Traub visited many classrooms and found them to be viewpoint neutral. Both individuals can see that much of the civic curriculum today is written from a liberal viewpoint. Traub, for example, acknowledges that the academic literature on teaching, statements about educational administrators, and social studies standards in blue states are all pervasively leftist.

[00:09:59] But then we're to suppose that none of that makes its way into the classroom. Stanley Kurtz doubts whether putting a famed reporter in a classroom is the best way to expose politicization. Teachers facing a reporter are bound to be on their best behavior, and highly politicized teachers are unlikely to host such an observer at all. By contrast, Stanley Kurtz provides numerous examples of what he describes as K-12 politicization. It may be difficult to detect because many teachers work to hide it from parents and administrators.

[00:10:29] There surely are teachers who try to be politically neutral in civics classes, but you aren't going to find those who are politically biased by sending in a notable author. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. For a free booklet on a biblical view of Israel, go to viewpoints.info.com. Viewpoints.info.com.

[00:10:57] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again as we talk about the Chronological Guide to Bible Prophecy. And again, we won't cover everything, but Todd, I wanted to pick out some areas which, again, might be really new to our listeners. We recognize, and I think most people would recognize that when God instructed Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, that might have foreshadowed the sacrifice of God's son.

[00:11:25] But I think one of the things that follows up in your book is Joseph as a type of Jesus, in which you look at what happened to Joseph or what Joseph brothers did, similar to what the Jewish leaders did. And then by the time you get into Exodus, you have the ten plagues in Egypt in Exodus,

[00:11:46] and how those foreshadow the various acts in the tribulation and the judgments in the book of Revelation. So in some respects, if you come with a set of maybe prophetic eyeglasses on, you're going to see some things in Scripture that you wouldn't normally see, and that's, I think, one of the reasons you wrote the book. It really is. Those are some fascinating things.

[00:12:13] You know, for example, what you cited with Abraham sacrificing Isaac, when he's about to sacrifice him, Isaac asks him, you know, Father, where is the lamb? And he says, God will provide the lamb. And, of course, we know that God kept him from killing Isaac and provided a ram, R-A-M. And so he didn't provide the lamb at that moment, and nowhere in the Old Testament is that explained until we get to the New Testament,

[00:12:40] and here comes Jesus, and John the Baptist says, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. So there's so many things like that. As I mentioned earlier, there's some overt, crystal clear, detailed, mind-blowing prophecies that have been fulfilled. But there's also this whole second layer of typology and things like that that always point to something. Typology is something that is real and historical, but it always points to something greater related to the work of Jesus Christ.

[00:13:10] So there are some parameters for it, but when you look at it with that lens, it's so clear. I mean, even down to the details of Deuteronomy and the Levitical laws and all that pointed to Jesus in so many ways when you slow down long enough to take a look. I think, again, most people would not realize that as you look at the plagues in Exodus, and I've done teaching through that recently, and, of course, I've also taught about the plagues in the Tribulation,

[00:13:37] and most people would not have recognized that almost one-to-one link there as well, which would only occur to people that are Jewish. But that brings into something else in terms of typology, that is the various feasts, the Lord's Feast, and that relates not only to the spring and summer feasts, but even to the second coming of Jesus. Can you explain that for us? Yeah, absolutely.

[00:14:03] You know, the first several feasts were fulfilled on the day, meaning Jesus was the Passover Lamb, and the New Testament makes a point in the Gospels to point out when these various things happened that they happened on the feast days. So there's a gap, obviously, between the spring and the fall. It's the hot summer, and that's kind of what we're going through right now.

[00:14:25] And then so you would assume that the other feasts also relate to things related to the second coming of Christ. And there's some debate about exactly what they'll correspond with, and we'll have to wait and see. But I think since the first ones were primarily to the Jewish people, I think the second ones are going to be fulfilled related to key events with the Jewish people as well. And I say that because a lot of people try to correlate,

[00:14:51] oh, the rapture is going to happen on the Feast of Trumpets because there's a trumpet mentioned. But you have to look at the context, and the context was very Jewish. But again, I think your point is well taken that as you read through these various chapters, and some people might say, well, where is it in Ruth, and where is it in Esther, and where is it in 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Chronicles? Well, certainly you can find those.

[00:15:15] And I'd say a good half of your book just helps us understand some of the maybe less obvious ways in which prophecies surface in those. But I thought we might just camp out for a while on the book of Isaiah. If for no other reason than we talk about it every year at Christmas, we also see that Jesus, when he was in Nazareth, his hometown,

[00:15:40] reads a passage, and then sits down and interprets it and says, you actually have seen it fulfilled in your hearing. And so in some respects you have, as you call it, the incredible prophecies of Isaiah. And in some respects that's helpful not only in understanding Scripture, but I think it is very powerful as a witnessing tool as well, don't you think? It really is. I mean, there's so many prophecies in there that clearly point to Jesus.

[00:16:09] Isaiah 53 is a great chapter of the suffering servant. I have several Jewish Christian friends who actually use that chapter to witness to their Christian relatives and friends. And they'll challenge them to read Isaiah 53 without letting them know it's from Isaiah 53. And then let's say, who is that describing? And their friends all across the board will always say, oh, obviously that's talking about Jesus. And then he reveals, this is in the Old Testament. This is in the book of Isaiah. So you can't make it up.

[00:16:38] It's pretty powerful and compelling. Well, again, it appears through for our transgressions. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Just a whole series of things like that. And I thought it was also interesting because here's another one of those parallels. The Bible has 66 books, 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament. Isaiah has 66 chapters, and they break down as well into 39 and 27.

[00:17:01] So as you go through this, I think you're going to find that there are just all sorts of opportunities for you to begin to see how, in some respects, some of these prophetic ideas are unfolding. But before we take a break, let's take at least one other very prominent Old Testament prophecy. And that comes from the weeping prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah.

[00:17:23] And that helps us in a number of ways as well because you have the judgments, and then you have the judgments in Revelation. You have the idea of being portrayed. Of course, we'll get to that a little bit later. And, of course, you have Ezekiel and Zephaniah and a variety of others. So you have some of these, if you refer to as major prophets, and every one of them is pointing to Jesus.

[00:17:47] And, again, it's just a great witnessing opportunity for people that are maybe close to the gospel to see that these were written down long before the time of Jesus. We have the Dead Sea Scrolls, which I believe probably predate the life of Jesus. And so we know that they weren't changed later on, not that Jewish people would change it anyway.

[00:18:08] And thus it really is, I think, a very powerful, not only witnessing tool, but a powerful tool to prove the reliability and the prophetic accuracy of the Old Testament. It really is. Isaiah and Daniel in particular have specific prophecies that critics for years said had to be put into the text after the fact because they're so accurate. Until, of course, we discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls that proved that they were already in use 200 B.C.

[00:18:36] When the other latest text, earliest text they had was in 200 A.D., a Masoretic text. And the beautiful thing is there's no changes between those documents and what they went through in 400 years. So it's one-to-one exactly the same. So that kind of blows the critics' argument out of the water and strengthens the faith of believers. I think so. Real quickly, what about the book of Ezekiel?

[00:18:59] Well, I think the big issue is Ezekiel 38 because this talks about these nations come to war against Israel. You've got a picture here of Israel compared to the size of New Jersey or the size of Lake Michigan, although the governor and I wants to call it Lake Illinois, but we'll leave that for another day. And as a result, that prophecy has never taken place. So that prophecy is still coming in the future.

[00:19:26] And it does seem to me that when I look at those nations, Persia being in Iran and certainly some of the things that are happening there, Cush being, of course, the various countries in Africa. Gomer looks, of course, like Turkey. And Beth Togarmah certainly looks like that. Rosh looking like Russia. Only now does it even make sense to even think about these nations coming against Israel.

[00:19:51] Yeah, it really made no sense whatsoever until about 2011 with the Arab Spring when all of a sudden Russia, Turkey, and Iran started forming an alliance in Syria just north of Israel's border. And that's where the battle says it will come from. And, by the way, Ezekiel 38 follows 36 and 37, which shows Israel coming together again as a nation. So chronologically it works. And there's some millennial kingdom components in there as well.

[00:20:19] But obviously Israel has to be in the land again for all future end-time events. And we're seeing – and also Ezekiel 38 says several times it is in the latter days. Is it in the latter days? So everything – there's a lot of details there that show that it's probably somewhere around either the gap period between the rapture and the beginning of the tribulation period or around the time of the signing of the peace covenant that starts the tribulation. But good people disagree. It's not super clear. But you're right.

[00:20:47] It has never been fulfilled, so it's yet future. And we're seeing the stage being set for it in our day, and that's pretty exciting. If you'd like to know more about what Todd is doing, I might just mention that we have a link to Prophecy Prose Podcast. And, again, you don't have to type all that out. It's already there. And he and Jeff Kinley, both of whom have been on the program before, actually do this podcast. And I think we're up to what I just see, Season 15.

[00:21:12] So if you find yourself wanting to get more information, we have a link to the podcast. We have a link to the book. And we have a lot to cover, especially when we get to end times prophecy yet to be fulfilled. All that coming up right after this. In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas.

[00:21:39] London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism, and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. London was in many ways the center of the world, economically, militarily, and intellectually. Marx sought to destroy religion, the family, and everything the Bible supports. Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers. Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth.

[00:22:08] It is truth for all of life. Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom to stand against darkness today? Get the light you need on today's most pressing issues delivered to your inbox when you sign up for the Viewpoints commentary at pointofview.net slash sign up. Every weekday in less than two minutes, you'll learn how to be a person of light to stand against darkness in our time.

[00:22:35] It's free, so visit pointofview.net slash sign up right now. Pointofview.net slash sign up. Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View.

[00:23:02] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Back once again as we talk about this book, The Chronological Guide to Bible Prophecy, an illustrated panorama from Genesis to Revelation, and there are 15 chapters, and we've only really kind of made it through the first eight, but we'll certainly get to the end. And it does seem to me that as we're talking about this, Todd,

[00:23:31] there are certainly prophecies that were made in the Old Testament, some fulfilled in the Old Testament. There are the Messianic prophecies made in the Old Testament, fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. But that brings us to the chapter on the book of Daniel, which you talked about just a minute ago. And the book of Daniel, in some respects, gives us a little bit of the history. We have Daniel in captivity. We have Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and the rest. But the most significant parts of this, in terms of prophecies,

[00:24:01] are what you call the panoramic prophecies of Daniel. And here you have the opportunity for Daniel to wonder what the future will be like. And you have these prophecies of this statue that has gold of a head and silver of a body and bronze, iron, and then iron and clay. And these are the successive kingdoms of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome,

[00:24:28] and then the splitting up of the Roman Empire into a future. And it does seem to me that some of those ideas that people have about who the Antichrist is are not only found in 2 Thessalonians in Revelation, but they're even found in the book of Daniel, and they're found in Zechariah. Can you kind of take us through the prophetic images there in Daniel? Yeah, absolutely.

[00:24:56] And he's not called the person of the Antichrist in Daniel, but we find the most information of any book in the Bible about this future person in the book of Daniel. And as you mentioned, it's amazing because the book is half narrative and half prophecy. And the first half is narrative, and then the prophecies are almost like an addendum, what Daniel included in his autobiography, so to speak. But those two sweeping prophecies, the ones found in Chapter 2 and Chapter 7,

[00:25:25] they're kind of mirror prophecies, one of a statue, one of beasts, foretold those four successive empires, that you can go to any reliable history book and see that those four successive empires, indeed, is exactly what took place. And then, as you mentioned, the Roman Empire split into the East and the West, and then there's a yet future component to this, when there's a loosely held nation states of iron and clay, they're kind of having a hard time being held together.

[00:25:54] But those are compelling prophecies. Those are some of the prophecies that personally got my attention before I was a believer, because I couldn't see how anybody could predict that long of a span of history with such accuracy and such clear form without it being divine in nature. So, yeah, there's some amazing prophecies in Daniel that stem from Daniel's time all the way to the end of time. And that's why the book of Daniel has been in the lion's den, if you allow me the pun, for just a minute,

[00:26:22] because the critics have argued no possible way, so they want to come up with a late date for Daniel. It does not work, but never that is the case. And so this is looking to a time in which there is a future kind of reconstructed Roman Empire. And I want to get to that in just a minute, but I'd be remiss, especially since I've mentioned Messianic prophecy a number of times here, to also see that in chapter 9 of the book of Daniel,

[00:26:51] there is this sweeping prophecy of Daniel of 70 weeks. And it's 69 sevens of years, plus a final seven of years. And I think that's important for people to understand, because sometimes when people reject the idea of a tribulation, more and more rejecting the idea of a rapture and all that, they have to deal with a lot more than just what they might find in the New Testament, because some of this,

[00:27:19] does it not go back to the book of Daniel? It really does. As a matter of fact, the last few verses of Daniel chapter 9 are some of the most dense prophetic material in the Bible. Daniel 9, 25 through 27 lays out that those 70 sets of seven or 70 sets of seven years. And it says that there'll be, from the command to rebuild Jerusalem to the coming of the Messiah, so that's all about Jesus,

[00:27:48] would be 483 years. And by the way, that prophecy was fulfilled, many people believe, to the very day. Yes. But definitely to the exact time frame when he came on Palm Sunday. And then, so he's the only one that fit the bill for the Messiah to come at the time frame that was stated. And that's why in Luke 2, we see Simeon and Anna waiting at the temple to witness the birth of the baby Messiah, because they knew he would be coming sometime around then.

[00:28:16] And it's also why the whole city was waiting for the Messiah, why Palm Sunday happened. They knew it was the right time frame. So pretty powerful verse. And then, like you said, there's this mysterious gap between the destruction of one temple, and this is still all in those little three verses, between the destruction of one temple and the defilement of a future temple. But there's no explanation of what happens in between. Well, now we know that's where the church age fits in. The temple was destroyed in 70 AD. And right now,

[00:28:44] Jewish people are wanting to rebuild the temple on the Temple Mount. So that's going to be part of what takes place in the end times. And then there's this final set of seven years. Many people wonder, where do we get the idea of a seven-year tribulation? It comes directly here from Daniel 9, 27, when the Antichrist will confirm a covenant between Israel and others for a seven-year period, and he'll betray them at the midpoint. So that's where we get the seven-year context for the future tribulation period.

[00:29:15] Well, again, there are some individuals that might say, well, this can't happen because we don't have a temple. But I think you have probably been to Israel and gone to the Temple Institute. We've oftentimes taken people there when we've had point-of-view trips to Israel. And you can see that these Orthodox Jews are, in a sense, ready to go, aren't they, to actually rebuild the temple, to have all of the elements necessary for temple worship sometime in the future? Is that fair? Yeah,

[00:29:45] it is. They're sitting on go. All they need is the green light to do it. And there's some language in Daniel 9, 27, that says, that indicates he will, the Antichrist will strengthen a agreement that's already on the table and push it over the finish line and maybe even add some things to it. The word there is strengthen or push it over the finish line. Many people conclude that that means he's probably also in that agreement is when they get the permission to rebuild the temple. And as you mentioned, the very fact that there's a large segment

[00:30:14] that are trained as priests that have all the utensils, that have the menorah built, many people, they have the plans for the temple. Many people suspect they already have it prefabricated somewhere, so it could go up fairly quickly. The fact that there's that mindset that want to, to reinstitute the temple, alone is mind-blowing and shows that prophecy is in the midst of being fulfilled right before our eyes. You know, we've given some attention to what are called the major prophets, and you have a chapter

[00:30:43] on the not-so-minor prophets because they are only minor in the sense that they're smaller, but they certainly have some of that. But I thought just in the interest of time, I'd move on because then you focus on the Gospels and the Book of Acts because it does seem to me that if we really want to understand the future, the best person to really help us understand that would be the message that Jesus gives, for example, in Matthew 24 and other passages.

[00:31:13] But kind of take us through that as well because it seems to me that anybody that wants to make a disconnect between the Old and New Testament has to contend with one of the sections in your chapter where you talk about 15 direct quotes in Matthew that are from the Old Testament. And so there is a deliberate attempt by Matthew recording, of course, what was happening and also the message that Jesus gives to connect it back to the Old Testament, isn't there? There really is.

[00:31:43] I mean, there's at least 109 specific prophecies that were fulfilled in the first coming and there's many more that have yet to be fulfilled. So those 109 proved that Jesus was the Messiah and it also proves that God's clear language can be taken at face value that when he says something's going to happen and gives details and then is fulfilled exactly as foretold, then that gives us confidence that what God says about the future prophecies is also going to happen

[00:32:11] literally as foretold. It's not allegorical. It's not just fluffy language. It's literal things that are going to happen. But Jesus proved who he was, you know, through prophecy and of course the resurrection which was a prophesied event as well, proved he was the Messiah. So that played out in history. So that's another thing I think prophecy does is it validates who Jesus was and it validates the foundation of our faith, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And let's not forget the moment when after the resurrection when he's walking

[00:32:41] with two of the disciples and they don't recognize him and he rebukes them for not understanding the time or that he was standing right there and then it says he used the law and the prophets to show them how he was all prophesied throughout the entire Old Testament and how it all pointed to him. So it really does all point to Jesus. He's the single point perspective of the painting of scripture. We're going to take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about Paul's prophetically

[00:33:10] pivotable epistles and then also, of course, John and the book of Revelation. And so we have an opportunity to use a little bit more as we spend some time talking about the Chronological Guide to Bible Prophecy, an illustrated panorama from Genesis to Revelations written by Todd Hampson. And again, don't forget, we also have a link to the non-profit guide book series and the Prophecy Prose Podcast also being done by him and Jeff Kinley.

[00:33:40] We'll take a break, come back with more right after this. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Continuing our conversation today with Todd Hampson as we talk about the Chronological Guide to Bible Prophecy. When we come to Paul, of course, there are many places where we can see

[00:34:09] some prophetic implications, but 1st and 2nd Thessalonians are certainly rich with various verses giving us a prediction of the future. And Todd, one of the things I oftentimes point out is that you hear pastors sometimes will say, well, we don't need to get into prophecy right now because that's for later. But think about this. The Apostle Paul makes his way to Thessalonica. He's only there a few weeks because almost every time first there's a revival,

[00:34:39] then there's a riot. And he's pushed out of town. And so he's maybe there two Sabbaths, maybe three at most. And then in 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, he's reminding them of things he's taught them. And the things he's taught them are about the return of Christ. So if that's what he taught to young and new believers, I think it tells us the importance of prophecy, doesn't it? It really does. I mean, God wants us to know

[00:35:08] the entire narrative of Scripture. He wants us to know where this story is going, that all this is going to make sense at some point and all the evils are going to be made, you know, taken care of and that kind of thing. And as you mentioned, he was only there with them for a brief time and part of their New Believers 101 class was all about eschatology. And when you read both books, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, you see how in-depth he taught them about every aspect from the rapture to the tribulation period to the coming kingdom and the person

[00:35:37] of the Antichrist, he unpacked all of that in a short time and it's something he wanted them to know. So yeah, that's a great point. And I love your little diagram here. New Believers 101. Eschatology. That's not something we normally teach when we have new believers, but that's the case. And again, this is a connection now because in 2nd Thessalonians 2, you talk about when the restraint of the Holy Spirit is removed and that I think brings us to issues like the rapture and the rest. Then you have the man of lawlessness and that's the same individual

[00:36:07] that we read about in Daniel and the book of Revelation. So we have to make those connections even if the words or the particular monikers or names are different, right? We really do. I mean, if we approach Scripture assuming that God is the divine author behind all 66 books and superintended that and it's all inspired, it's all God-breathed, then it would make sense that he's not referring to different people every time he mentions

[00:36:36] an evil end-time ruler who's going to try to rule the world. So it just, the details are so clear that it's talking about the person of the Antichrist and one important detail in that passage is it's very clear that he cannot be revealed to the world until after the restrainer is removed. Like you said, the Holy Spirit indwelled church I believe is the restrainer. So the church began at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came down and indwells each believer and the church age is going to end when the Holy Spirit through the church

[00:37:05] leaves. Not to say he's not omnipresent and he's not still active but his unique role working through the church as salt and light is going to be taken out of the way so that evil can crash in on the world for that last seven year period. Let me step out of the way for just a minute and let you kind of give us an overview of the book of Revelation. First three chapters deal with the churches at the time. Chapters four and five you could say well those at least illustrate the church now in heaven. And then from chapters six

[00:37:35] really to 19 you have that whole tribulation period but really the focus is on Israel. Chapter 20 the millennial kingdom and of course we've mentioned David Jeremiah's book the golden kingdom and things like that. And then chapters 21 and 22 the new heaven the new earth and the new Jerusalem and that lays out pretty well and early on of course in your book you talk about the fact there are different ways people have tried to interpret that but if you just assume

[00:38:04] that each chapter follows the other chapter in terms of chronology then you kind of come to what you and I refer to as kind of a literal interpretation of the book of Revelation. And it really simplifies it. That's the thing is I think the enemy's done a good job on making people think that Revelation is unknowable or so complex that you need a PhD to figure it out but really as you mentioned Kirby it's written chronologically the outline of the book is even given us in the first

[00:38:34] chapter and throughout the book John uses words like next then I saw then this happened and even the 21 judgments in 6 through 19 are all chronological they're numbered so there's a lot of indicators that it is to be taken chronologically I mean obviously there's some parts some chapters that kind of take a step back and show a broader view and unpack things a little bit but they're all connected to the midpoint so generally speaking

[00:39:04] you can understand Revelation chronologically and it makes a whole lot of sense and also the other argument I hear is well it's full of symbols so we don't know what the symbols mean well half of the symbols the meaning is given to you in the text so if you just read a little bit further it's right there and the other half of the symbols the meaning it's a direct allusion to the Old Testament so the book of Revelation assumes you have a working knowledge of the prophets as well so it really forces you back into the Old Testament forces you into Bible

[00:39:33] study to make sense of these verses trying to put our own meaning into those symbols so that's where people get into trouble well again I might just mention that if people get the book and they want to know a little bit more of course we have the prophecy pros podcast and you have so much material that it would take a long time to work through all the great material that you and Jeff have put together but I thought as we're coming near the end you have a chapter here that made me smile the 800 pound end times gorilla in the room

[00:40:03] and it does seem to me that there are some logical implications of all of this because prophecy isn't there just for entertainment it isn't it really isn't it's to give us hope for the future it's to give us clarity for what we see in the world right now and it is the 800 pound gorilla in the room because everyone knows that the world is unstable and things are heading to a closing time at some point we don't know the day or the hour and we work hard and plan for the future

[00:40:33] and keep moving forward as we wait but the Lord's return could happen at any moment and this used to be talked about openly in evangelical churches but it's been kind of sidelined or benched in the past couple of decades in many circles because of the different views and the infighting and because honestly people are scared to touch it so it's the grill in the room we need to talk about it is there in front of everybody and it's good for the church to wrestle with these concepts and unpack

[00:41:02] the entire narrative of scripture from Genesis to Revelation I often say Kirby that people in our generation are good at looking back to an empty tomb which is great but we also often forget to look up to an occupied throne and forward to a promised guaranteed beautiful future where God ties up all the loose ends well said let me again mention that we have a couple of resources first of all you can go back to hear some of the interviews we did in the past on the

[00:41:32] non-prophet's guide to the end times Bible prophecy for everyone so that's on end times this one I think gives you a complete view the chronological guide to Bible prophecy and so those are a couple of resources that exist in book form and also of course you can listen to this interview again or listen to some of those past interviews in all of that regard but I think Todd all sorts of people would love to be able to contact you and learn a little bit more that's why we have a link to prophecy

[00:42:02] pros podcast dot com couldn't be any easier than that and if nothing else you guys are in the 15th season so congratulations for your tenacity and your dedication to biblical

[00:42:42] interpretation and Todd of course is such a gifted animator you will find all sorts of diagrams and animations and cartoons and other things that will make it so much easier for you to understand the Bible we want you to understand the Bible we want you to understand prophecy and that's why we do these programs from time to time and you've been listening to Point of View

[00:43:17] being attacked and strangled in many places and some of us wondered if this was the end but now many feel a new sense of hope a chance for a fresh dawn let me caution you now is not the time to relax it's a time to press forward to use this fresh opportunity to proclaim and learn how to apply truth to current issues by the fact you're here listening right now that tells me that you recognize the vital

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