The following audio messages are a part of our End Times Bible Prophecy Series, taught by Pastor Bob Lawrenz, recorded at Whitestone Christian Fellowship.
God has already written history. God has already written history to its end. All of history is really His story. It is all moving in the direction and toward the objectives that He has already designed and already determined, and scripture is not vague about the end. In fact, scripture reveals much about how the world will end and how redemptive history will come to its final consummation.
What Is Eschatology?
The word eschatology stems from the Greek word eschatos, meaning “last” or “final,” and pertains to the study of the last or the end of things—namely, the end times, or the final judgment and destiny of humanity.
Looking at the end, looking at the doctrines of eschatology, the study of the eschaton in the Greek, meaning the end, we come to the conclusion that the cornerstone of all eschatology is Israel, the foundation of any understanding of end times is an understanding of God’s future promises to the Jews.The history of the world is really the redemption of the world. In fact, history is redemptive at its heart. Man was created in order that God might call to himself a redeemed people, and history goes on until that redeemed are gathered in.
The final element of God’s redemptive history, the culminating element is the salvation of a future generation of ethnic Jews, because that is exactly what God has promised.
The future fascinates everybody, it also frightens most people, and many people seek to understand it. There are also some who seek to predict it, some who tell us the worst about it, and then there are the hopeful folks who try to put the best spin on it. People are fascinated by the future even in a fantastic way, a science fiction way, a very unreal way.
BUT… Scripture tells us the truth about the future. In fact, scripture records the future before it happens. That’s why when God talks about something (in the scriptures) that’s going to happen in the future, He speaks of it in the past tense, “I HAVE REDEEMED ISRAEL” even though it hasn’t yet happened.
To understand Eschatology, to understand the biblical doctrines that relate to the end of redemptive history, and therefore the end of human history, and therefore the end of the age and also the end of the universe as we know it, one must understand the role that Israel plays in this because it is the corner stone.
In the Old Testament, God made promises to Israel. He made unilateral, unconditional, irrevocable promises and covenants with Israel. In those covenants, He included the promise of a great nation, a land defined in boundaries, blessing through Israel, blessing to the world, salvation, the Messiah and a great glorious kingdom in which the Messiah would rule in Jerusalem. Israel would become the center of the whole world, and from His throne in Israel in Jerusalem, Messiah would rule the entire world. Wisdom and knowledge would pervade all the world, and righteousness and peace would dominate.
The book of Revelation tells us this kingdom would last for a thousand years, after which this entire universe, as we know it, is dissolved and God creates a new heaven and a new earth which is the eternal state where the righteous will live in joy forever.
The fulfillment of God’s purposes in the end will come only when a future generation of Jews repents and acknowledges Jesus Christ as Messiah and Lord. Only then will God bring salvation to Israel, the Messiah will come and establish His kingdom. That is the sequence in Zachariah 12 through 14. They look on him whom they pierced, and they mourn in repentance, putting their faith in the very One they pierced. God then opens a fountain of cleansing. They are washed from their sins and the kingdom follows because Messiah returns.
The second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the establishment of His Messianic kingdom then is contingent upon the salvation of a future generation of ethnic Jews who will collectively understand the horrors of the crucifixion of Christ and embrace him as their Lord and Savior.
Those doubting that it will come to pass… It will come to pass! It must come to pass because God promised it would come to pass, and God refers to it as a future promise that He will fulfill.
