Fulfillment of Scripture – The Latter Days

Richard Pratt | Saturday, April 29, 2000
Copyright © 2000, Richard Pratt

 

Edited transcript from a lecture given at Grace Valley Christian Center Saturday afternoon, April 29, 2000

One of the wonderful things about the Old Testament prophecies is that they do speak to us and have relevance for us today. What we need to figure out, though, is what that relevance is. We’re going to do that by looking at the topic of eschatology. Any time I say the word eschatology , just think latter days or last days. That’s all I mean-what is the view of the Bible about the last days? And when we understand how the Bible talks about the last days, then we’ll understand how Old Testament prophecy applies to us.

The Bible’s idea of the last days grew and developed. It wasn’t contradicting itself; it was just that they understood a little bit, then they understood a little bit more, and a little bit later they understood a little bit more, then a little bit later they understood a little bit more. And that kind of development is what we’re going to look at right now.

Moses: Sin Brings Punishment

As strange as it may sound, the teaching of the Bible on the latter days started with Moses in the books of the Pentateuch. In fact, we could even go back to the book of Genesis and find it. But probably a better place to start would be in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 4. First I want to remind you that life in covenant with God is a series of receiving blessings from God and judgments from God. Especially in the Old Testament you can see that this was a cycle that the people of God would go through-when they were faithful to the Lord they would be blessed, and when they were unfaithful they would be judged by God. This is what Moses told them. This was well illustrated during the period of the judges. They’d have good times and bad times, good times and bad times. But Moses warned that that cycle of judgment and blessing would eventually slow down when the people of God became so terribly corrupt, and if they really continued to rebel against God the wheel would stop and the worst judgment of all would come-the exile.

That’s what Deuteronomy 4 teaches. This is where Moses lays down this basic principle that there’s going to be an expectation of how history is going to work out. Verse 25 says, “After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time- if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and provoking him to anger, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you. There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.”

Basically what God tells Israel is that if they continue to be evil, eventually God will become so disgusted with them that he will take them out of the land that he has given to them. God put Israel in the land of Canaan so that from that starting point the kingdom of God could spread over the world. Canaan was the starting point for the kingdom of God to spread over the earth. But if the people in that starting point, in that wonderful land flowing with milk and honey, were to rebel seriously and flagrantly against God, he said, “You’re out. I’ll send you out and I’ll scatter you out.”

Leviticus 26 says that God would be very patient and give them opportunity to repent. But if they did not, then what we just read in Deuteronomy 4 would happen to them-they would be thrown out. Now, what this meant was that Israel would experience a corruption of the land of Canaan; the curse would come in the form of nature being cursed. They would also be cursed in warfare; they would lose battles, and enemies would come and destroy them. These were always the kinds of blessings and curses that you would receive in the Bible-a curse in nature and a curse in war. The worst curse of all was the devastation of nature and then the exclusion from the land that came with exile.

Restoration After Punishment

But Moses said something else in Deuteronomy 4 that is ever so important, and it really is the cry of the whole Bible: What happens next? Is it going to be this way forever? I mean, does God just give up on his kingdom expanding to all the world? Or does he start over someplace else? The answer is “No!” The answer is is that God says that he’ll go back to Canaan and he’ll start the kingdom over again.

That’s what is said in Deuteronomy 4:29-30: “But if from there [from the place of the exile] you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers which he confirmed to them by oath.”

Basically, Moses is saying there’s going to be a restoration, that the nation will be restored. And he actually says in Deuteronomy 30 that when they come back from exile, the blessings they will receive will be even greater than they had in the first place. That’s amazing, really, when you think about that. It’s why Paul says, “Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.” When judgment came against the people of God, God promised that when they repented, they would be brought back to even greater blessings. When does he say this will happen? The phrase used in verse 30 is “latter days.” This tends to become a technical phrase for Israel, and it’s a phrase that appears in the prophets and in the New Testament also-the latter days, the last days. The Hebrew is achariyth yome ; in Greek the word is eskaton , and that’s where we get our word “eschatology.”

Amos and Isaiah: The Ultimate Punishment

That’s basically the picture Moses presents to Israel-they are going to be corrupted in nature and destroyed by war, defeat and exile, but one day there will be abundance in the land of Canaan, and a return to the land and great victory for the people of God. That’s where eschatology begins in the Bible. This lays a background for the prophets. The prophets believed in eschatology, in latter day stuff. They believed in Moses, in other words. And what they were seeing before their eyes was what Moses said was going to happen. They were watching it happen during the Assyrian judgment and during the Babylonian judgment. They were seeing sin, sin, sin, and as a result, judgment in nature and judgment in war, then finally the ultimate judgment-exile.

This is where the prophets got this idea. They weren’t just walking down the street one day, saying to each other, “What do you think is going to happen?” “Oh, I don’t know. What do you think is going to happen?” “Well, let’s tell them there’s going to be a judgment.” That’s not the way it happened! They knew Moses. And they were looking around at themselves, saying, “Look how corrupt we’ve become. What’s going to happen? Judgment. And what’s going to be the worst of judgments? Exile.”

Let’s take a look at what the prophet Amos said in chapter 4:1-3. Amos ministered during the Assyrian period. “Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria,” – this is the city of Samaria in the north; this is New York City – “you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, ‘Bring us some martinis.'” – that’s in the Hebrew – “The sovereign Lord has sworn by his holiness: ‘The time will surely come when you will be taken away with hooks, the last of you with fishhooks. You will each go out through breaks in the wall, and you will be cast out toward Harmon.'” What’s he talking about there? Exile. The northern kingdom is going to be exiled.

Isaiah said something very similar. Isaiah ministered right at the end of the Assyrian judgment. In Isaiah chapter 5, verse 8 and following, we read: “Woe to those who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land. The Lord Almighty has declared in my hearing: ‘Surely the great houses will become desolate, the fine mansions left without occupants. A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine, and a homer of seed only an ephah of grain.’ Woe to those who rise early in the morning to run after their drinks, who stay up late at night till they are inflamed with wine. They have harps and lyres at their banquets, tambourines and flutes and wine, but they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord, no respect for the work of his hands. Therefore my people will go into exile for lack of understanding. . . .”

See what the prophet is doing there? He’s saying the people of God are condemned to exile because of their waywardness, because of their rank and vile apostasy. Keep in mind this does not mean they are going into exile because they forgot to have family worship on Tuesday, OK? They did bad stuff, super bad stuff. We need to be careful not to think that because we forgot to have private devotions or because we slipped up at work and said a bad word or something like that, that we’re going to go off into exile. That’s not what he’s talking about. This is major crime that we’re talking about here. But it had become that bad in Israel.

The Promise of Restoration

But did the prophets give up hope? Did they say that was the end of the story? If the people of the north and the people of the south are going to go into exile, does that mean the show’s over? Well of course not! They knew Moses. They knew Deuteronomy 4 and Deuteronomy 30. And they knew that could not be the end. God would not desert them forever. He was determined to have his kingdom spread all over the world through the multiplication and dominion of his image. And where does that have to begin? Jerusalem, Samaria, Judea, Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Let’s see how the prophets talked about the latter days, that time after the exile. Amos chapter 9 is one of the great passages that does this. Verse 11 talks about great victory that was promised to come in warfare; this is a passage, by the way, that’s quoted in the New Testament. This is the only positive thing Amos says in his whole book. It starts: “In that day…” What day is that? That’s the day of the Lord, the latter days.

“‘In that day I will restore David’s fallen tent. I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be, so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name,’ declares the Lord, who will do these things. ‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills. I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them.'” Do you hear that? That’s just what Moses said in Deuteronomy, chapters 4 and 30.

So Amos knows that they’re going to be sent off into exile, but that’s not the end of the show. At the end of the show they are going to be brought back, and they’re not just going to get that same little piece of land. They are going to possess the nations. There is going to be great prosperity, so much prosperity in nature that in fact you won’t be able to collect all the food out of the fields before the next season for planting comes.

This is a grand picture that the prophet Amos portrays, and it’s the picture that all the prophets portray when they talk about the restoration that’s going to come in the latter days. It’s very much like what Moses said, isn’t it? First you’ve got the bad time, then you end up in exile, and then one day, in the latter days, there’s going to be this great return and the House of David will be established. There will be victory in war, great blessings of nature, and it will be fantastic. That’s what the prophets, early on, portrayed as being the future of the people of God.

Let’s see how Isaiah talks about these latter days. Isaiah 2:2-3 says, “In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, ‘Come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.'”

Do you see Isaiah’s vision here? When is this going to happen? In the last days, the latter days. What’s going to happen? Jerusalem is going to rise up. And all the nations will stream to it. It will become the centerpiece, the capital of the whole world. This is the way those early prophets thought, and this is what they taught.

Continued Sin Brings Sevenfold Punishment

By the time you get to the prophets that are ministering during the late exile and during the restoration, a development takes place. It’s a very interesting development, actually. I want you to see this development, because this will help you understand that great book called Daniel.

Take a look at Jeremiah 29:10. This is one of two places where Jeremiah speaks this way. “This is what the Lord says: ‘When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.'” So what is Jeremiah saying? That there’s going to be this exile. And how long is that exile going to last? Seventy years. But in seventy years, God is going to bring you back to this place.

At this point this still looks a whole lot like what Amos and Isaiah said. And if we just had Jeremiah we would think, “Well, that’s exactly what happened. Seventy years, they had to come back.” But that’s not all we have. We have a principle that’s laid out in Leviticus chapter 26. Let me explain to you what’s said there.

In Leviticus chapter 26 this is what God says, in essence: “When you sin, I’ll give you a chance to repent, and if you repent-great! But if you don’t, I’ll punish you. And if you still don’t repent, I’m going to punish you worse-seven times worse! And then if you don’t repent, I’ll punish you seven times worse than that. And then if you don’t repent, I’ll punish you seven times worse than that. And then if you don’t repent, I’ll punish you seven times worse than that. And if you still don’t repent, then I will send you into exile.” That’s Leviticus 26.

God had a covenant principle here, that in his patience and in his kindness he would increase the severity of the punishment. It’s kind of like if you’re grounding your child, you say, “OK, you’re grounded for one day.” If they’re still defiant, what do you do? “Two days.” And they’re still defiant. “All right, how about a week?” And they’re still defiant. “OK, a month!” And if they’re still defiant you ground them for life, right? It’s that kind of a thing that’s going on.

Or if you’re in a court with a judge, and the judge fines you for contempt, and you start protesting, what does he do? “Fifty dollars.” And you protest the fifty dollars. What’s he say? “A hundred and fifty dollars.” And so you keep protesting. “Five hundred dollars.” By the time it gets up to two or three thousand you better realize that you need to be quiet! “OK, I’ll take the five thousand; that sounds pretty good to me. I don’t want to be in it for fifty thousand to this judge for contempt.” That’s the way it is, and that’s what God’s doing in Leviticus 26. There’s a principle here: if you keep on sinning, the judgment will come seven times more.

Now in Daniel chapter 9 we’re told that God takes Jeremiah’s prophecy of seventy years for exile and multiplies it by seven. It’s a great passage. Daniel is living in the year 539. This is the year when things are supposed to be over. The seventy years are up. He says, “In the first year of [Darius’] reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.” Well, he’s looking at his calendar, and the seventy years are up.

“So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed: ‘O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands, we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame-the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far, in all the countries where you have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness to you. O Lord, we and our kings, our princes and our fathers are covered with shame because we have sinned against you. The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him; we have not obeyed the Lord our God or kept his laws he gave us through his servants the prophets. All Israel has transgressed your law and turned away, refusing to obey you'” (vv. 2-11).

Basically what Daniel says in this passage is this: he confesses to God that Israel still has not learned its lesson. They’re in exile, but they still rebel. They still haven’t repented. So what happens? It’s really amazing what happens. At the end of his prayer Daniel says this: “While I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the Lord my God for his holy hill-while I was still in prayer, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice. He instructed me and said to me, ‘Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed. Therefore, consider the message and understand the vision'” (vv. 20-23)

And here is God’s answer to his prayer. Remember Daniel had said, “Lord, we’re still rebelling against you, but please take us back.” But here comes the answer: “Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city…” Seventy ‘sevens’. Can you see Leviticus 26 there? God is saying, “OK, I first said the exile is going to be seventy years long, but now the exile is going to be seven times seventy.” This is because Israel continued to rebel, and as a result of that they continued to be in a situation where they were going to have their exile extended-not seventy years, but to about 500 years.

This is where the four kingdoms come in-the Babylonians, the Medes and Persians, the Greeks, and then the Romans. That’s the five hundred year period that he’s talking about. This is something that the earlier prophets, like Amos and Isaiah, didn’t have a clue about. They didn’t have a clue. They figured, “Hey, there’s going to be an exile and then there’s going to be a return.” Jeremiah said it was going to be seventy years. Now Daniel learns that because they still keep on sinning, it’s going to be seven times seventy!

Jesus Brought the Latter Days

This is where Christianity starts stepping in. What happened about five hundred years after Daniel received this prophecy? Jesus came. This is why we believe that the kingdom of God came with Jesus; we believe that the restoration began to come with Jesus. So this “latter days” that Moses talked about, then the prophets talked about, and then Daniel says is going to be postponed for five hundred years-the New Testament tells us it came in Jesus.

Now, when they first came back in the early period right after the exile, back in 539, they thought maybe things were going to happen. But it was a false start. Instead it gets extended for this five hundred year period.

That brings us, then, to the last development in the latter days theology of the Bible-the New Testament. Moses said, “You’re going to go into exile, then you’re going to return.” Simple. The early prophets said the same thing: “You’re going to go into exile; you’re going to return.” Then Daniel throws a wrench into the works. He says, “Oh yeah, seventy years is what Jeremiah said, but now because we continued to sin, it’s going to be extended for five hundred years.”

Then the New Testament comes, and it starts talking about the latter days, the kingdom of God, the future, the end of all things. The “latter days” are described in terms of Jesus’ first coming, the times now, and Jesus’ second coming. You see, what Moses talked about being the latter days, some of them the New Testament says are referring to the first coming of Christ. But then the New Testament also refers to our day as the latter days. And it also refers to the second coming of Christ as the latter days. So do you want to know if we’re in the latter days? The answer is: We’ve been in the latter days for about 2,000 years!

The New Testament tells us that the latter days began when Jesus first came to this earth, because what is the latter days? It’s the time when the people of God are going to be restored and begin the process of conquering the world. That’s the latter days. And when did that happen, according to Christian belief? It began when Jesus first came to this earth, died and was resurrected. He said to his apostles, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,” – now move it out – “Judea,” – now move it out – “Samaria,” – and move it out – “and the uttermost parts of the earth. And this gospel of the kingdom must be preached to all nations, and then the end will come.”

Blessings in Our Day

You get the picture? The latter days began with the first coming of Jesus, and they extend through our day, and they find their completion in the return of Christ. This is very important for understanding how prophecy refers to Jesus and how it refers to our lives. We don’t need to go back to the Old Testament prophets and start looking for a phrase that looks like Jesus, or some Chernobyl, or some wormwood somewhere, or some tail light or something like that in order to prove Jesus is coming back next week.

The reality is, what we need to start doing is looking back at the prophets and asking these kinds of questions: What did they expect to happen in the restoration? Well, two big things. One is blessings in nature. The other one is victory in war. Blessings in nature and victory in war. And as soon as you see those two themes present in the Old Testament prophets and you remember that Daniel said all of that is delayed for five hundred years, but the New Testament says it has begun in Jesus, it continues today, and it will be fulfilled in the second coming, then you begin to realize what it means to be a child of the king today. What it means is we have the blessings now in nature and in war.

You may say, “Wait a minute; I didn’t know we were at war.” But yes we are, aren’t we? “Wait a minute; I didn’t know we were getting blessings in nature.” But we are, aren’t we? Let’s start off with that. How did the blessings of nature come with the first coming of Jesus? He multiplied bread and created wine; he healed people. And when he died, dead people came out of the grave. So in Jesus you have a sort of flash of the restoration beginning. Great miracles, great wonders took place in Jesus’ ministry, and these were the demonstrations that he really was bringing the latter days.

Remember what John the Baptist thought? John the Baptist was thinking a lot like Daniel or Amos or Moses thought. He was thinking that when Messiah came, he would bring judgment and blessings – BOOM! – all at once. So he sees Jesus and says, “Behold the Lamb of God,” and he baptizes him. What does John the Baptist expect? BOOM! Kingdom reign all of a sudden. But what happened? A couple of weeks later John the Baptist is in prison about to get his head chopped off. So he sends his disciples to Jesus and he says, “Uhh…. Are you really the one?” You see, it was unthinkable to John that Messiah, the Great King, could come and yet he, a follower of this Great King, could be in prison about to get his head chopped off. Unthinkable.

How did Jesus respond? Jesus said, “Go tell John this: The lame walk, the blind see, captives are set free.” You see, those are prophecies about the restoration. Now Jesus wasn’t telling John, “Hey John, any fool can see that I’m bringing the restoration. I’ve done it in such dramatic ways, and any idiot could see that that’s the case. Can’t you see that I’ve brought the fullness of the kingdom of God?” That’s not what Jesus is saying to John. Rather, he’s saying, “John, I’ve done enough of this restoration for you to believe I’ll do the rest.”

Future Blessings Promised

That’s what Christian faith is in a nutshell. We believe Jesus has done enough for us to trust that he’ll do the rest. Does that make sense? That’s what it means to walk by faith and not by sight. We believe that when he conquered the devil and conquered death in his death and resurrection, that that’s enough for us to believe that one day he will put Satan under our feet. We believe that when he performed miracles that showed his power over illness and sickness, that that’s enough for us to believe that one day he will make our bodies whole. We believe that because he’s on the throne of his father David in heaven, ruling until all of his enemies are put under his feet right now, that that’s enough for us to believe that one day we will reign with him in glory.

We Christians believe that what the prophets promised about the last days began when Jesus first came to this earth, and it continues now in our lives in this way and in that way-different ways at different times the blessings come-but then that the blessings will come in their fullness when Jesus returns to this earth.

We need to start going back to the prophets and asking questions like this: What did they expect to happen in those latter days? And how do we see that unfolding in the ministry of Jesus and the apostles, and then in our lives today? And how can we expect those things to unfold when he comes back again?

Now, some of you may be wondering: Is this premillennial, amillennial, or postmillennial? The answer from my point of view is: I don’t care! If you’re premillennial, this works for you. All you got to do is stick a little millennium in there. If you’re postmillennial, I think you may be a little too optimistic, but that’s OK; stick it in there before the second coming. If you’re amillennial, then just leave it like it is. This is not a millennial thing. This is an eschatology thing. This is a latter days thing. This is a kingdom thing, because what we believe is that Jesus brought the end when he first came, and he continues to bring the end in our lives right now, and he will bring it in the end.

Applying Latter Days Prophecy Today

We need to go back and see what those prophets said would happen, and see those things unfolding in our lives right now, every single day. If you can begin to get that kind of orientation toward the eschatology of the Bible, then you can begin to read the prophets with a whole lot more interest, I think, and with a whole lot more benefit for your life. Right now you ought to be seeing the blessings of the Holy Spirit in your life, because the Holy Spirit being poured out on all the earth in great fullness like never before was one of the things that the prophets promised would happen at the end of time.

You should be noticing that you’re having victory in your spiritual war. Why? Because victory is something that the prophets promised would come to those who lived in the kingdom of God in the latter days. This is why we live as we do today- we live as people of the latter days-because we look back at the prophets and we see it in the light of Jesus’ first coming, in our lives today, and in his second coming.

When that became clear to me from the Bible, it made all the difference in the world in my understanding of who I am and what I’m supposed to be doing, and what you and I are doing here in this world today. We are in the kingdom of God now. God has made the decisive move. Boom! And for 2,000 years the kingdom of God has been extending all over this world, and we’re in the process of that kingdom extending all over the world. And one day he will return, and it will all be his. That’s worth living for.

I’m hoping you will now be able to say, “Hey, maybe there’s an alternative to what I keep on hearing on that Christian television station. Maybe I need to stop worrying so much about who the antichrist is and start worrying a little bit more about what it means to be living in the kingdom of God today, in victory and in blessing, rather than worrying about when the next economic crash is going to come and bring Y2K on top of us and things like that.” As long as we keep spinning our wheels on those kinds of speculations we will never be able to benefit from the prophets the way God has intended for us to.