Man, the title of my sermon this morning is Dual Fulfillment in Bible Prophecy.
Dual fulfillment in Bible prophecy.
One of the most important things to understand when you're studying the Bible is that things
in the Bible usually don't just have one meaning.
They usually have multiple meanings, at least two, sometimes three, four, or just an innumerable
number of layers to the meanings in the Bible.
And so especially when God prophesies that something is going to happen, there is typically
a dual fulfillment of that just right on the surface, okay?
And I'm gonna give you 10 examples of this this morning, and there are many, many more
examples that we could look at, but I'm gonna give you 10 very clear, powerful examples
of this to help you as you read the Bible to understand Bible prophecy.
Some people don't grasp this, and if you don't grasp this, you're gonna understand
very, very little about Bible prophecy.
You're gonna get a lot of things wrong.
If you don't understand this concept of dual fulfillment, this is like prophecy 101.
This is one of the most basic foundational things that you must understand.
Now, all 10 of these things that I'm gonna show you all follow the same pattern, and
that pattern is that there is an immediate fulfillment, something that happens right away,
and that's the shadow fulfillment, meaning it's not totally literal.
It's more of a symbolic or shadow or maybe it doesn't seem like it quite lives up to
the prophecy.
You know, the prophecy is really dramatic, and then you look at that initial fulfillment,
that shadow fulfillment or the thing that happens right away, and you'd look at that
and say, you know, that prophecy seems a little bit exaggerated, but it actually
wasn't exaggerated.
It's that there's another fulfillment coming later that's going to be literal that's going
to actually fulfill that prophecy completely.
So all 10 of these that I gave you this morning are gonna follow the pattern of having
an immediate shadow fulfillment and then a later, often much later, literal, more dramatic
fulfillment.
Okay.
So let's start out in Genesis Chapter 2, and like I said, I'm gonna show you 10 examples
of this that span throughout the entire Old Testament.
So we're gonna go all over the Old Testament to give a nice cross section on this.
But look at Genesis Chapter 2, verse 17.
This is, of course, where God is giving the prohibition on eating of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil.
Adam and Eve are in the Garden of Eden.
They can eat of all the trees of the garden, but not of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil.
Look at verse 17.
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for
in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.
So here we have a prediction or a prophecy of what's going to happen.
If you eat of this fruit, in the day that you eat of it, you will maybe die...
No, you see, you will surely die.
Now what actually happened?
What actually happened was that in the day that they ate it, they did not fall over
literally dead, did they?
This is still true because they died spiritually.
And that's why the Bible teaches in the New Testament that every unsaved person is dead
in their trespasses and sins, according to Ephesians Chapter 2.
And when we believe on Jesus Christ, our spirit is quickened or brought to life or
resurrected.
So yes, in the day that they ate it, they died, but they didn't die literally
in the sense of just eating it and falling over dead.
But later, this was fulfilled literally because 930 years later, Adam died.
So yes, Adam died, but first there was the immediate fulfillment, hey, today, the day
you eat thereof, you'll die.
Then later, the literal fulfillment when he physically fell over dead.
He would not have fallen over dead at 930 if he hadn't have eaten of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil.
He would have remained in the garden.
He would have continued to eat of the tree of life.
He's kicked out of the garden.
He doesn't have access to the tree of life because of his sin.
So we see the dual fulfillment.
Go to Genesis Chapter 6, Genesis Chapter 6.
And that's a pretty clear example.
I don't think anybody could argue with that point that was just made.
It's pretty obvious.
So God's showing us this right away early on in the Bible.
He's putting this concept in our minds of dual fulfillment of, hey, there's a spiritual
death that takes place immediately, but much later does the literal fulfillment
come to pass.
Look at Genesis Chapter 6, verse 3.
This is when God is angry at the world and grieved because of the sin and violence that
has corrupted the world, and he's going to send the flood.
And so he says in verse 3, and the Lord said, my spirit shall not always strive with
man for that he also is flesh.
And then here's the prophecy.
Yet his days shall be 120 years.
Now the word yet there, it's what we would say in our modern vernacular, still.
We don't really use yet that way as much anymore.
Sometimes we do.
But the word yet means still.
And basically what it's saying is he's got 120 more years until he dies is what it's
saying.
So basically 120 years until he's wiped out.
So the fulfillment that comes right away with this is that God is basically saying,
I'm going to flood the world in 120 years, and that's what gives no other time to build
the ark.
Obviously, the ark that he builds is this gigantic, amazing vessel, and it took 120
years to build the ark, approximately, because that's when the flood's coming, 120 years
from now.
Yet there's another later fulfillment of this, okay?
And if you would, flip over in your Bible to Genesis 9, just a couple pages to the right,
Genesis 9, because here's the thing.
There's a dual meaning here, a dual fulfillment, where he says his days shall be 120 years,
where 120 years from now he's going to wipe out mankind, but he's not going to fully
wipe out mankind because there's an exception made with Noah, where Noah survives with
his family and so forth.
But what this is also saying is that God's going to limit the human lifespan to 120
years.
That's the secondary fulfillment that comes much later, okay?
Now, think about it.
It doesn't matter how healthy you eat.
It doesn't matter what kind of exercise program you're on.
It doesn't matter what kind of medical advances have been made.
And a lot of medical advances have been made over the last few decades.
But yet people don't live past 120 years, do they?
Now before the flood, they did.
Before God gets upset and pronounces this judgment, people are living to be as long
as 969 years old.
Methuselah, the oldest man, lived to be 969 before the flood.
But nowadays, that could never happen.
The upper limit is 120.
Now the Bible says in Psalm 90, you don't have to turn there, but in Psalm 90, it says,
the days of our years are three score years and 10.
That's 70, right?
And if by reason of strength they be four score years, yet is their strength, labor,
and sorrow for it is soon cut off and we fly away.
So the Bible is saying, look, we pretty much live 70 years.
And if we're strong, if we're healthy, we might live to be 80.
And even to this day, the lifespan of human beings is around 70, 80 years old.
That's probably how old you're going to be when you die, all right, unless you die
sooner than that.
That's the lifespan on average, 70 or 80 years.
But 120 is the upper limit, okay.
Now did this happen right away?
When they got off the ark, did everybody just start living about 70, 80 years with
120 as an absolute upper limit?
No.
Now some people have made theories and said, well, the reason why people lived so long
before the flood is because, you know, there was this canopy of mist above the earth
and it was protecting from those harmful UV rays.
I've heard preachers get up and say, it's the sun that's killing us.
Well, here's the thing, if that were true, you could just put on a bunch of sunscreen
or stay indoors.
You could just stay indoors all the time.
We die of old age because of genetics.
It's in our genes to decay and get old and die.
And here's the proof that that theory is wrong.
Look if you would at Genesis 929 about Noah.
Now by the way, the flood happened when Noah was 600 years old.
But look at Genesis 929 and all the days of Noah were 950 years and he died.
So we see Noah living almost 350 years after the flood, getting baked by UV rays
or whatever, not that that has anything to do with it.
But the point is, we don't see his lifespan shortened at all.
He's living exactly as long as people lived before the flood, right?
Because the oldest guy was 969.
People are living anywhere from 930 or even less than that.
This is a long life that has not been shortened at all, 950 years.
Showing that has nothing to do with the environment after the flood because he did
fine in that environment after the flood.
But it's genetic.
So what happens is his descendants now, God affected the genes to where the
descendants start living shorter and it didn't happen right away.
Because if you look at the next couple of generations right after Noah,
you'll see people living like 400 years or 300 years and then you'll see it
quickly go down to where they're living, you know, 100 and some years.
When you get to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they're living 175 years,
137 years, and they're considered very old men.
Like, wow, these guys are living a long time, okay?
Moses and Aaron are considered very old, you know, when they're living to be
around 120, 123 years old.
But by the time we get to David, he's considered an old man at 70.
When we get to King David, he's 70 years old and he's old.
He's straight, you know, so you're old today if you're 70, sorry.
So the point is, we see that this did not happen immediately.
The immediate thing is 120 years, boom, the flood comes.
But then there's a very literal man's days shall be 120 years,
meaning you don't live past 120 no matter how healthy you are.
And if you look at the people who are alive right now,
there is no one alive on this earth right now that's over 120.
Now, supposedly, there's some woman that lived to be 122 or something.
In my opinion, that's a fraud, you know.
But let's say it's real.
Well, the exception proves the rule, but I don't think it's legit because a lot
of these records get mixed up and it was a long time ago and whatever.
But anyway, let's move on to the next example.
Go to Genesis 13.
So example number one, in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shall surely die.
Shadow fulfillment, later, a more literal dramatic fulfillment, okay?
With Noah, man's days shall be 120 years.
We see the shadow fulfillment of the flood.
Okay, all right, well, that's it.
We got through that, live another 300 years.
Oh, nope, sorry.
Your lifespan has been chopped down dramatically to 120 years,
literally, as the max that you're going to live.
Look at Genesis chapter 13.
Let's look at another example, verse 14.
And the Lord said unto Abram after that lot was separated from him,
lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art,
northward and southward and eastward and westward for all the land
which thou seest to thee will I give it and to thy seed forever.
And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth so that if a man can number
the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.
And then go to chapter 15.
We're going to see something very similar in Genesis 15, verse 5.
It says, and he brought him forth abroad and said, look now toward heaven
and tell the stars.
Tell means count in this context.
Tell the stars if thou be able to number them.
And he said unto him, so shall thy seed be.
And he believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness.
So first of all, we have the shadow fulfillment.
At the time, Abraham, he's not having kids.
He really wants to have a son and he doesn't have a child.
And so God's promising him, look, I'm going to make your seed
like the dust of the earth.
I'm going to make your seed like the stars of heaven.
And he's like, I don't even have one kid.
And he doesn't understand, how can this be?
Then eventually he has Ishmael.
And then God tells him, it's not going to be Ishmael.
And Isaac, shall thy seed be called.
So eventually, he has the one child.
And then of course, Isaac gives birth to Jacob and Esau.
And then you have the 12 patriarchs.
And then you have the nation of Israel.
OK, yeah, it's a big nation.
But did the nation of Israel really ever
get to a point where it was just literally impossible
to count how many people were there physically, literally?
Did it ever really get that huge?
Here's the thing, though.
That's just the shadow fulfillment.
The literal fulfillment, the Bible tells us in Galatians,
is that if you be Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed.
The Bible says that Christ is the seed.
The promises that were made to Abraham and his seed,
the seed is Christ's.
And if you be Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed.
So if you actually take every saved person who has ever
lived or ever will live, that becomes a truly innumerable
multitude, a number that appears in heaven,
for example, of all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people
where he said, no man could number.
There's your literal fulfillment of Christians,
people that are saved, people that are in heaven up there,
and they're of all nations.
And that's why he said to Abraham,
and here's a little bonus one that's not part of my 10,
I've made thee a father of many nations.
Well, what's the shadow fulfillment?
Well, you know, he's also the father of the Ishmaelites.
He's the father of the Moabites,
the father of the Ammonites.
I'm sorry, not the Moabites, the Ammonites, excuse me, wrong.
He's the father of the Midianites.
That's what I meant to say.
He's the father of also the Ishmaelites, the Midianites.
And so you could look at these other names like the Edomites
and say, okay, he's the father of many nations,
not just Israelites.
But what it really means is that they're actually
saved people from every nation under heaven.
So if there are saved people from every single nation
under heaven, then it can truly be said,
he's the father of many nations.
In him, all nations of the earth are blessed
through Christ.
So we see there's the shadow fulfillment
and then a literal fulfillment.
Go to Genesis 22 for the fourth example of this.
Genesis chapter 22.
And this is, of course, the famous story about Abraham
offering Isaac his son on the altar, sacrificing his son,
which is picturing the fact that, of course,
God the father is gonna send the son
to be the savior of the world.
And God gave his only begotten son
and that's being pictured here.
But look at Genesis 22 verse seven.
And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father and said,
my father, and he said, here am I, my son.
And he said, behold, the fire in the wood.
Where's the lamb for a burnt offering?
And Abraham said, my son,
God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.
So they went both of them together.
So here's the prophecy, here's the prediction.
God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.
Now we see the shadow fulfillment immediately.
Verse 13.
And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked,
and behold, behind him, a ram caught in a thicket
by his horns.
And Abraham went and took the ram
and offered him up for a burnt offering
in the stead of his son.
So just when Abraham is gonna offer Isaac his son,
boom, the angel stops him
and he sees the substitute in the thicket.
But is it a lamb?
Because remember, the prediction was,
God will provide himself a lamb.
What's in the thicket?
A ram, not a lamb, a ram.
So again, to the ignorant or those that don't understand
how this works, they would look at that and say,
well, you know, it seems like Bible prophecy
is a little bit exaggerated sometimes,
or it's a little bit inaccurate,
or it's, you know, it kind of gives a ballpark,
but it's not really right on.
You know, if it says a lamb,
it could be a ram or whatever.
But hold on a second.
The reason why it's a ram is to clue us in.
This is not the final fulfillment.
If it would have been a lamb,
you might be tempted to think
this is just cut and dried.
God's gonna provide a lamb,
and the lamb shows up, boom.
This is the hint, this is the signal.
When we see it's a ram, we say,
hey, wait a minute, God has to fulfill his word.
The word that goes out of his mouth
is not gonna return void, the Bible says.
He will perform the thing that he has said
that he was going to do.
So if God says he's gonna do something,
he's gonna do it.
And so if he says he's gonna provide a lamb,
he's gonna provide a lamb.
Well, guess what?
That's Jesus.
When God provides himself a lamb for the sacrifice,
it's Jesus, the lamb of God,
which taketh away the sin of the world.
That's the more dramatic, more literal exact fulfillment.
This is just the shadow fulfillment.
Go to Hosea chapter 11.
Hosea chapter 11, toward the very end
of the Old Testament, you have the minor prophets.
Look at Hosea chapter number 11.
And while you're turning to Hosea chapter 11,
I'm gonna read for you from Exodus chapter four.
In Exodus 4 22, it says,
Thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord,
Israel is my son, even my firstborn.
And I say unto thee, Let my son go,
that he may serve me, and if thou refuse to let him go,
behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn.
So Moses tells Pharaoh this message from God
that Israel is God's son.
Now Israel's not literally God's son.
And when he says, you know, I'm calling my son
out of Egypt, it's not literal.
Look at Hosea chapter 11 verse one.
When Israel was a child, then I loved him
and called my son out of Egypt, right?
So this is not literal because it's not a literal son.
It's a nation.
And when he says Israel was a child,
he's just referring to the fact
that the nation of Israel was in its infancy.
The nation of Israel was a pretty new nation at this time.
So they were a child in that sense.
And he called his son out of Egypt.
He told Pharaoh, hey, Israel's my son, let my son go.
But what about the literal fulfillment?
In Matthew chapter two verse 15,
you don't have to turn there,
and was there until the death of Herod
that it might be fulfilled,
which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet,
saying, out of Egypt have I called my son.
So Hosea 11 is talking about the nation of Israel
and how they came out of Egypt
and God called his son out of Egypt.
But that was just the shadow fulfillment
of God calling his son out of Egypt.
The literal fulfillment is when he's gonna call
the literal son of God, Jesus Christ, out of Egypt.
Now, why was Jesus in Egypt?
If you remember when Jesus Christ was born as a baby,
Herod was threatened by this.
He's the king, right?
You know, I'm King Herod.
I don't want some other king of the Jews coming along.
So he went out and tried to find Jesus, couldn't find him.
The wise men did not tell him.
They beguiled him and went back
into their own country another way.
So Herod sent and killed all of the babies
in Bethlehem from two years old and under.
He slew all the children of Bethlehem, okay?
Now, God warned Joseph that this was going to happen.
So he said, arise, take the young child and his mother
and flee into Egypt and be thou there
until I bring thee word for Herod will seek
the young child to destroy him.
So he rose, he took the young child and his mother
by night and departed into Egypt.
So he takes, Joseph takes Mary and baby Jesus
and flees in the middle of the night into Egypt
before Herod's soldiers come and murder the children.
So he's down in Egypt and he stays down in Egypt
until the death of Herod.
And then when Herod's dead, he calls his son out of Egypt.
He appears in a dream again to Joseph and says,
they are dead, which sought the young child's life.
And he calls his son out of Egypt.
So that is the more important, I mean,
what's more important?
Everything about Jesus is more important.
It's more literal.
Jesus is the literal son of God
versus a nation being figuratively called the son of God.
So we see, again, this pattern over and over again.
The second fulfillment is much later,
hundreds of years later in many cases,
and it's more literal, more dramatic.
It has a greater impact or greater effect.
Here's another one about Jesus.
Go to Isaiah chapter seven, Isaiah chapter number seven.
This is the famous verse about Jesus
being born of a virgin.
You know, we're all familiar with Matthew chapter one,
where the Bible says in Matthew 1 22,
now all this was done that it might be fulfilled,
which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying,
behold, a virgin shall be with child
and shall bring forth a son
and they shall call his name Immanuel,
which being interpreted as God with us.
Now, this verse from Isaiah is applied to Jesus
having no earthly father,
because the Bible tells us that Joseph is told
that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
She's with child, but it's not fornication.
She has not been unfaithful to you.
That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
Just like in Luke where she says, you know,
how shall this be saying I know not a man?
And he says, the thing that's born of you
is gonna be called the son of God
because it's going to be conceived of the Holy Ghost.
So we see here in Isaiah chapter seven,
the verse that's being quoted
about Jesus being born of a virgin.
Look at Isaiah 7 14.
Therefore, the Lord himself shall give you a sign.
Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son
and shall call his name Immanuel.
Now there's nothing really remarkable about that
because it's pretty much the same thing
as what we just read in Matthew.
But let's keep going
because that's not the end of the thought.
Butter and honey shall he eat
that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good
for before the child shall know to refuse the evil
and choose the good,
the land that thou abhorrest
shall be forsaken of both her kings.
That right there in verse 16,
where it says before the child shall know
to refuse the evil and choose the good,
the land that thou abhorrest
shall be forsaken of both their kings.
That's not about Jesus.
You know, that's about stuff that was going on
back then in Isaiah 14.
So what you have is a shadow fulfillment
back in Isaiah's day.
What you have to understand is that the book of Isaiah,
it wasn't just written for us in 2019.
It wasn't just written for people at the time of Christ,
although we definitely get the most out of it
because we have the most knowledge
with the New Testament under our belts.
We can understand better than they could
when they saw through a glass darkly.
But here's the thing, Isaiah was a real person
and he was preaching to people alive at that time.
And he was also preaching about events
that were relevant to them right now,
things that are going on right at that time.
So when he says to them,
a virgin shall conceive and bear a son
and shall call his name Immanuel,
and before that child reaches a certain age,
the land that thou abhorrest
is gonna be forsaken of both their kings,
he's giving a timeline about a geopolitical event
that's gonna happen, you know,
where this land is gonna be forsaken of both kings.
And basically what he's saying is,
look, this is how long it's gonna take.
This is how long it's gonna take.
A woman that's a virgin right now
is, and look, there wasn't some other virgin birth
back in the days of Isaiah.
A woman that's a virgin right now, he's saying,
is going to basically get married,
have intercourse, conceive, have a child,
that child is going to eat butter and honey,
and by the time that child,
by the time it takes a virgin to get married,
have a kid, and the kid to get to this age
where he knows the difference between good and evil,
the land that thou abhorrest
will be forsaken of both their kings.
So on the surface, it just looks like
he's giving a timeline of like,
this is how long it's gonna take
for this prophecy about kings to be fulfilled.
But what's the really important thing here?
It's actually a prophecy of Jesus
being literally born of a virgin.
So you have a shadow fulfillment about some random kid
who happened to be born back then named Immanuel,
and he was actually named Immanuel.
He wasn't named Jesus, right?
It was just some kid was born,
and they named the kid Immanuel,
and basically, that kid got to a certain age
and this prophecy was fulfilled in their lifetime.
But the really important, dramatic, literal fulfillment
is when a virgin actually conceived,
when that literally happened in Matthew chapter one,
and when Jesus Christ is literally born of a virgin.
And here's the thing, Jesus wasn't named Immanuel,
Jesus was Immanuel, okay, that's the difference.
Because Immanuel, I've known some people named Immanuel.
Okay, that's actually a name that people named their kid.
And what that name means is God with us.
But the thing about that is Jesus was named Jesus,
but he was God with us, all right?
So we have a more literal, dramatic fulfillment,
not just somebody who's named Immanuel,
but somebody whose name is called Immanuel
because he's referred to as hey,
this is God in the flesh with us.
That's the more important, literal fulfillment.
Go to Jeremiah chapter 50.
So, so far, we've seen six examples of this.
They've all been very clear.
We saw, first of all, that thou shalt surely die.
Shadow fulfillment, you die spiritually today.
Literal fulfillment, 930 years later,
you physically fall over dead, Adam.
Okay, and then we have man's day shall be 120 years.
Yeah, the flood happens, but then also,
man's lifespan is cut down to that maximum.
So shall thy seed be, Abraham, like the stars of heaven.
Well, he did produce many nations
and he did produce a great multitude,
but even more dramatic is that Abraham's seed
are in every nation and literally,
truly an innumerable multitude of people,
all the saved that have ever existed or ever will exist.
Then we have God will provide himself a lamb
for a burnt offering.
Shadow fulfillment, Aram and the thicket.
Literal fulfillment, Jesus, the lamb of God is provided.
Out of Egypt have I called my son.
Shadow fulfillment, nation of Israel coming out of Egypt.
Literal fulfillment, young child Jesus
coming out of Egypt back into Judea.
All right, the sixth example,
behold, a virgin shall conceive.
That was a virgin that actually conceived by normal means
back in Isaiah's day by actually knowing a man.
Whereas the literal fulfillment
is when a virgin shall conceive
and bring forth literally God with us, Jesus Christ,
the son of God, also God with us, God in the flesh.
And then we see the seventh example,
the destruction of Babylon.
So the main scriptures on the destruction of Babylon
in the Old Testament are Isaiah 13 and Jeremiah 50 and 51.
And if we look at Jeremiah 50 and 51
where the destruction of Babylon is being prophesied
or in Isaiah 13, we will see that if you look at
how Babylon was actually destroyed,
it would seem very exaggerated, very exaggerated.
Why?
Because there's actually another literal fulfillment
coming in the future and what happened back then
was the shadow fulfillment, okay?
Let me show you what I mean.
Look at Jeremiah chapter 50, verse 40.
As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah
and the neighbor cities thereof, saith the Lord,
so shall no man abide there,
neither shall any son of man dwell therein.
That's pretty dramatic.
I mean, when we think about Sodom and Gomorrah,
fire and brimstone rained from the sky
and it was completely wiped out
to where no one was left.
Everybody, everything died.
Every animal died.
I mean, it was just nuked from hellfire and brimstone.
And God's saying, hey, when Babylon's destroyed,
it's gonna be like when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah
and nobody's gonna live there.
But hold on a second.
When we think about the destruction
that actually came to Babylon,
remember Belshazzar and the handwriting on the wall
and that night the Medes and the Persians came in
and they killed Belshazzar.
But did they completely nuke the place and kill everybody?
And was it completely uninhabited thereafter?
No, in fact, it continued to be inhabited
until around, I believe like the sixth century AD.
So people still lived in Babylon hundreds of years
after the time of Christ.
But did it eventually end up uninhabited?
Yeah, today no one lives there.
Today it's completely uninhabited.
And he even said, it's never gonna be inhabited.
And Saddam Hussein tried to rebuild it
and excavate it and refurbish it.
And of course we know
that he didn't get to finish that project.
So the bottom line is that this is not literal
for back then, but it's literal for the future.
Look if you would at chapter 51 verse 37.
Chapter 51 verse 37, it says,
and Babylon shall become heaps.
Heaps are just like piles of rubbish,
just piles of shrapnel or dirt or junk
or bodies or whatever, just piles.
Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons.
These would be like lizards, reptiles.
They live in the desert, right?
We see reptiles thriving in our desert here.
You know, you go out and hike on South Mountain,
you'll see horny toads and you'll see Gila monsters
and things, because it's the desert.
So when he says, hey, it's gonna be an inhabitation
of dragons, he's talking about those type
of like reptile animals.
And he says, an astonishment,
a hissing without an inhabitant.
That did not happen back then.
It happened much later.
And it's going to happen even more dramatically
in the future.
Look at Jeremiah 51 verse 42.
The sea has come up upon Babylon.
She is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.
Now, did a big tidal wave hit Belshazzar and Daniel
in Daniel chapter five, did that happen?
No, there was no giant tidal wave of the sea.
Now there was a figurative wave,
because sometimes the Bible will refer to armies
as being like the sea or being like a wave,
you know, a wave of an attack or something.
So yeah, there's a shadow fulfillment.
There's a symbolic fulfillment.
But was this literally fulfilled?
Did Babylon ever just get doused in seawater?
To this day, that hasn't happened.
OK.
Look at verse 43.
Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness,
a land wherein no man dwelleth,
neither doth any son of man pass thereby.
Nobody even goes through there.
Look at verse 62.
Then shalt thou say, O Lord, thou
has spoken against this place to cut it off,
that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast,
but that it shall be desolate forever.
And it shall be when thou hast made an end of reading
this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it
and cast it into the midst of Euphrates.
And thou shalt say, thus shall Babylon sink
and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring
upon her, and they shall be weary.
Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.
Now flip over to Revelation chapter 18.
Revelation chapter 18, because when we go to Revelation 18,
what we find out is that there's
a future destruction of Babylon coming
that has not happened yet.
So in Jeremiah 50 and 51, a lot of these verses
are pointing to the Revelation 18 event in the future.
But didn't they also have relevance for back then?
Yeah, I mean, when Jeremiah's preaching this stuff,
look, Jeremiah literally sent his messenger to Babylon,
literally, to stand in Babylon like a town crier
and publicly read these curses on Babylon.
So a guy literally, in flesh and blood,
stood in Babylon and read Jeremiah 50 and 51 out loud
for the people that were assembled there to hear.
And when he's done reading it,
he basically takes what he just read, ties it to a rock
and throws it in the river and says,
that's how Babylon's gonna sink and never be found again.
It's like, wait, I wanted to hear that one more time.
You know, he threw it into the river.
That actually happened, so therefore, you know,
it must have had, he's not just blowing smoke at them.
Oh, just kidding.
It's gonna happen thousands of years from now.
He's warning them about their doom.
Saying, you guys are doomed.
You're gonna get destroyed.
Now, when it happened, everybody's thinking to themselves,
hey, Jeremiah was right.
Jeremiah said we were gonna get wiped out.
We got wiped out.
But you know, the thought that could have entered
a lot of people's minds is probably like,
that was a little bit exaggerated though,
because there are still people left.
There are still animals left.
I don't see any lizards running around.
You know, here we are.
No tidal wave, no tsunami.
So it wasn't exaggerated.
It was that there were two things going on.
There's the immediate doom for Babylon.
And then he's also looking farther
and seeing the literal exact fulfillment of this
on a grander scale with the future Babylon.
Does everybody see what I'm saying?
It's very clear.
Now let's look at that future Babylon destruction
in Revelation 18.
Look at verse eight.
Therefore shall her plagues come in one day,
death and mourning and famine,
and she shall be utterly burned with fire.
For strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.
Then in verse 10, when he's talking about
all the ships of the sea,
standing afar off for the fear of her torment,
saying, alas, alas, that great city,
Babylon, that mighty city,
for in one hour has thy judgment come.
Verse 17, for in one hour so great riches
has come to naught.
And every shipmaster and all the company and ships
and sailors and as many as trade by sea
stood afar off.
Verse 21, and a mighty angel
took up a stone like a great millstone,
tell me if this sounds familiar,
and cast it into the sea, saying,
thus with violence shall that great city, Babylon,
be thrown down and shall be found no more at all.
Now if we compare this with Jeremiah 50 and 51,
we will see that it's consistent.
Remember the first thing I showed you in Jeremiah 50 was,
hey, Babylon's gonna get wiped out like Sodom and Gomorrah.
And what does it say in chapter 18?
It's gonna be burned with fire utterly.
Isn't that what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah?
Burned, completely smoked, torched, burned, nuked.
Okay, one hour, nuked.
Okay, not only that, you don't really think
of all the sailors and all the ships of the sea.
Just the world's sailors, you know,
what are they, they're all just on the Euphrates River?
Or does it make more sense
that they're like in a major ocean?
Yeah.
Okay, right?
So what we see is that the future Babylon
that's gonna be destroyed is on the ocean.
So you have all these ships and freighters
and merchants and everything.
And this is why it makes sense also,
the tidal wave that's going to happen
where it's, you know, that was predicted back in Jeremiah.
Oh, it was just figurative.
Yeah, it was figurative back then,
but it's gonna be a literal tidal wave.
The Bible, of course, we don't have time
to go through all the tidal waves that are predicted
in the Gospels and in Revelation
where he talks about these things, you know,
the sea roaring and all these different things.
So what we see here is that, yeah,
there was a figurative or a symbolic application
for a lot of these prophecies.
And yes, Babylon did get destroyed.
So the essence of what he was saying happened.
You're gonna get punished, Babylon's gonna get destroyed.
But it was only a shadow of what he really has planned
for another Babylon down the road.
And the reason we know it's not the literal Babylon
is because of the fact that nobody lives there
and this hasn't happened.
So this is gonna happen to a major city
that's on the ocean in the future.
And so if you wanna know what I believe about this,
watch our film Babylon USA,
which by the way is very relevant
in light of events this week, by the way.
You may wanna revisit Babylon USA this week
lest you get all excited about our government
assassinating that darned Iranian guy.
Maybe you should watch Babylon USA one more time,
get a biblical viewpoint on these things, all right?
But anyway, the point is, one day Babylon,
which I believe is referring to the United States,
okay, in Bible prophecy is going to be wiped out.
And you say, oh man, what do we do?
Let's get out of here.
Well, folks, if you get the timeline,
Revelation 18 is at the end of God
pouring out his wrath.
We will already have been long gone before this
because the rapture,
yes, the rapture is post-trib, but it's pre-wrath.
And this is deep into the wrath of God here
when we see Babylon getting destroyed.
So this isn't something we need to worry about, okay?
But when we see this happening,
it's gonna be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah.
Man, I wonder why God would ever destroy the US
like he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah
because I'm trying to figure out
what possible similarity there could be
between the US and Sodom and Gomorrah.
We're nothing like Sodom and Gomorrah, right?
We would never have like a drag queen story hour
for kids or anything, right?
We wouldn't expose kids to that kind of filth
and sodomy and, I mean, right?
Yeah, I think it makes sense
why Babylon's gonna get destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah
because Babylon is doing a lot of the same stuff
and is going to continue to do even worse things
like Sodom and Gomorrah.
And you know what happens
when you sin like Sodom and Gomorrah?
You get wiped out like Sodom and Gomorrah.
And by the way,
the individuals who sin like Sodom and Gomorrah,
the sodomites, you know what's gonna happen to them?
They will suffer the vengeance of eternal fire.
Even if they don't get torched on this earth,
they're getting torched in the next world.
What does the Bible say?
I mean, the Bible says even as Sodom and Gomorrah
and the cities about them in like manner,
giving themselves over to fornication
and going after strange flesh are set forth
for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
By God literally physically raining hellfire
on Sodom and Gomorrah,
he's saying, here's a little taste
of what's in store for the sodomites
according to the book of Jude, verse seven.
Let me hurry up and finish here.
Go if you would to Isaiah chapter 13.
Isaiah chapter 13.
And again, this is a scripture
that also ties in with Babylon,
but we don't have time to visit that.
That would be for a whole sermon on Babylon.
And I'm trying to show you 10 different examples of this.
So the eighth example that I wanna give you
is the concept of the day of the Lord.
Now, when we study the New Testament,
we know that the day of the Lord
is something that's coming in the future.
And it's associated with the second coming
of Jesus Christ.
When we have passages
about the second coming of Jesus Christ,
they talk about the day of the Lord
and the sun and moon being darkened.
Whether we're looking at 1 Thessalonians four and five,
Matthew 24, 2 Thessalonians,
all over the New Testament, 2 Peter chapter three,
we read about the day of the Lord as a future event.
And by the way, they knew it was way in the future
because in 2 Peter chapter three,
he says, well, the Lord's not slack
concerning his promise.
He said, hey, a thousand years is like a day
and a day is like a thousand years.
And you know what?
The Bible predicted in the end times,
people would say, well, where is the promise
of his coming?
For since the fathers fell asleep,
all things continue as they were
from the beginning of the creation.
He says, hey, a day is like a thousand years,
a thousand years is like a day.
You know, that implies it's gonna be
more than a thousand years away.
That's implying a really long time is gonna go by.
And here we are, how long has it been so far?
Almost 2000 years.
So we look at that, it's been almost two days.
So you say, oh, it's been so long.
To God, it's might as well have just been like
couple days ago that he said he was gonna do that.
So there's no rush, okay?
In God's timing, it's going to happen.
And we don't know, maybe it will happen in our lifetime.
Maybe it will not happen in our lifetime.
But the second coming of Christ will happen.
We don't know when.
And people who pretend to know when are idiots,
and you should unsubscribe from their stupid
YouTube channels when they're, oh, maybe 2017's the year
and you know, July, June 23rd, 2019 and everything.
Folks, that, you know what they're doing?
They're part of the devil's plan
to get people to say, where is the promise of his coming?
What they're trying to do is fatigue you
with all these false predictions.
And you know, every idiot who gets up and says,
well, maybe 2020, June 23rd, or September 21st, you know,
and they make these predictions.
You know what?
These fools are basically
wearying people of true Bible prophecy,
poisoning the well,
hurting people's faith.
And you know why they're doing it?
Just for a little popularity right now of,
because you know what?
If I made a video tomorrow predicting
the second coming of Christ, I'll get a bazillion views.
Anybody who predicts the second coming of Christ
on a certain date gets a bazillion views.
And you know what?
How wicked do you have to be
to basically just hurt people spiritually,
get their hopes up, fatigue people?
You say, well, but at the end of the video,
I'll give a little disclaimer that we don't know.
Yeah, but you know what?
Most people didn't make it to the end
of your stupid video.
You know what they did?
They saw the title of your video.
They saw the title only, and they said,
oh, another idiot Christian predicting the end,
and then they see 10 of those,
and you know what they say?
Where is the promise of his coming?
Nobody knows the day of the hour.
Jesus said that he didn't even know the day of the hour.
But you're smarter than Jesus.
Well, if you go to the book of Daniel and do the math.
Oh, so Jesus didn't know math,
or did Jesus not know the book of Daniel?
Jesus said the angels don't know.
Only the Father knows.
The Son doesn't even know.
In Mark 13, he said the Son, I don't even know.
The angels don't know.
So the angels don't have access to the book of Daniel?
Angels can't do math?
Jesus can't do math?
Folks, you think you're smarter
than every angel in heaven?
You're smarter than Michael.
You're smarter than Gabriel.
You're smarter than Jesus Christ,
because you looked up and saw some astronomical signs,
and you did math, and you read Daniel.
That is nonsense.
No one knows when Jesus is coming, except God the Father.
So don't sit there and tell me that you figured it out.
And these wicked people, you know,
they ought to be punished by God for making these
videos predicting the second coming of Christ,
because you know what?
That is causing people to be disillusioned with the truth.
And when you see a billboard that said,
and this billboard was all over California.
It said, Jesus will return on such and such the date,
2011, the Bible guarantees it.
It literally said at the bottom of every billboard,
the Bible guarantees it.
Harold Camping's billboards.
And you know what?
When people see that, and they've never read the Bible,
you know what they're gonna say?
Well, if the Bible guaranteed that,
and it didn't happen, then the Bible's not true.
Well, you know what?
Harold Camping's burning in hell right now,
lying false prophet.
And you know what?
He's trying to take as many people with him as possible
while he was on this earth.
And I think he pushed that 120 limit.
He looked like he was 120 when I was a kid.
So he must have maxed that out.
But you know what?
It doesn't matter whether you live to be 70 or 120,
because eternity is a long time.
And so don't you dare get sucked into these predictions
of when Christ's coming is going to happen.
Don't even fall for it for one second.
It's garbage.
Anybody who's predicting that stuff.
Now, if somebody says, hey, we can see the sign
of the times that it's getting close,
there's nothing wrong with saying, hey, man, we're excited.
Even so, come Lord Jesus.
We're seeing the signs of the times.
We're seeing the technology.
We're seeing the politics.
I'm talking about people who say 2020, June 21st,
or when they start doing math.
Anybody who starts doing math
to tell you about the second coming,
you know what they're basically saying right there
is that they know better math than Jesus, Gabriel,
Michael, and all the other millions of,
one of them's got to be a mathematician.
You know, all these millions of angels.
And these angels have been around for a long time.
And they're pretty articulate when they show up
and start talking to people.
And what about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob?
What are they doing up there?
They've never read Daniel?
What about Daniel himself?
Is he up there studying his own scriptures?
Folks, it's madness to think
that you can read Daniel
and tell me when Christ is going to return.
That is garbage.
Nobody knows.
Anyway, I kind of went off on a tangent there.
So now I got to make up for lost time.
The point that I wanted to make
about the day of the Lord though,
is that the day of the Lord is a future event.
There's no question about that.
When we read the New Testament,
he talks about it in the future,
2 Peter 3, 1 Thessalonians, et cetera.
But what we see in the Old Testament
are lots of prophecies about the day of the Lord
that were going to happen immediately in their generation.
Look down at your Bible in verse six of chapter 13 there
of Isaiah.
How will ye for the day of the Lord is at hand?
Now, what does it mean to be at hand?
It means like, boo, this is about to happen.
I mean, if I said, hey, such and such is at hand,
it means it's about to happen.
It's going to happen soon.
Now, obviously, this is way before even the first coming
of Christ.
This is around, what, 700 and some BC
that this is written saying, the day of the Lord's at hand.
And then what do we have?
Ezekiel saying, the day of the Lord's near.
Joel saying, the day of the Lord's at hand.
Obadiah saying, the day of the Lord
is near upon all the heathens.
Zephaniah, the day of the Lord's at hand.
So all these prophets are prophesying
like this is about to happen.
And then a lot of times, they describe
things that actually were about to happen.
You know, armies and fights and wars and captivity
that happened back then.
But if we study all those passages,
they also point us to the big day of the Lord.
So what we have is a bunch of little day of the Lord's.
And then we got the big day of the Lord that's
coming in the future that the New Testament tells us
about that's going to be way more dramatic and shocking.
And it'll show that those Old Testament day of the Lord's
weren't exaggerated, because you think like, man,
that's a little exaggerated.
Well, you know, for example,
and I'm just kind of doing this off the cuff
on this part.
But you know, you'll read these really dramatic accounts
in the Minor Prophets about the soldiers
being able to like run up walls and stuff.
And you're thinking to yourself like,
okay, you know, it's poetic, it's dramatic.
Running up the walls, climbing in through the windows.
And I'm not even going to do the, you know,
they're climbing in your windows.
Okay, all right.
But anyway, so they're, you know,
they're running up the walls,
they're doing all this stuff.
But here's the thing,
that's a lot of that stuff gets literally fulfilled
in Revelation when you have these locusts from hell
that really are climbing up the walls,
climbing in your windows, doing all this stuff.
So basically, there's the Old Testament day of the Lord
minor events, and then there's the real big
day of the Lord, okay?
So it's the same pattern, shadow fulfillment,
literal fulfillment.
Go to Ezekiel 37, the ninth one,
I'm not even going to talk about this for sake of time,
but the abomination of desolation.
You had a shadow fulfillment in what, 167 BC, I believe,
Antiochus Epiphanes, then you have another
shadow fulfillment in AD 70 with the Romans
destroying the temple, and then you have the future
abomination of desolation that's still coming,
that Jesus points to, that Revelation points to.
Et cetera, and then the last example I want to give you
is the valley of the dry bones, okay?
And this is a really neat story in Ezekiel,
Ezekiel 37, where Ezekiel's taken to this valley
of dry bones, and he's just basically just shown
a bunch of corpses that have been dead
for a very long time.
So the reason that they're dry bones
is all the flesh is gone, you know,
it's been eaten up by animals, worms, whatever,
the sun has just dried it out,
and so these bones that were once moist
with bone marrow and on the outside
they had sinew and flesh and moisture,
they've just been out in the sun
and they've just gotten totally just bleached
and dried out in the sun, so it's not like
they died recently, okay?
So he's shown these really dry bones,
and the Lord says to him, you know,
son of man, can these bones live?
And you know, the obvious answer to that question
would be no, they can't.
But because he's dealing with God,
you know, he knows that with God all things,
so he says, well, you know, thou knowest,
you tell me, I don't know, you know?
He doesn't really understand why he's being brought there.
And of course, this dramatic vision
is where the dry bones start assembling into skeletons.
So there's all these dry bones,
and all of a sudden, you know,
the leg bone connected to the hip bone, you know,
and that's where that song is about that story,
by the way, who knows that song?
All right, so that's actually about,
you know, them bones, them bones, them dry bones,
so they're all connecting,
so all these bones start connecting into skeletons,
which would be a pretty weird thing to see, right?
So then you just have like this whole host of skeletons,
and then all of a sudden they start having like sinews
and tendons and muscles and skin and flesh,
and they basically become living human beings once again.
Now what does this mean?
What is this prophecy about?
Look at verse 11 of chapter 37.
Then he said unto me,
son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel.
Behold, they say, our bones are dried,
and our hope is lost.
We are cut off for our parts.
Therefore prophesy and say unto them,
thus saith the Lord God, behold, O my people,
I will open your graves
and cause you to come up out of your graves
and bring you into the land of Israel,
and you shall know that I'm the Lord
when I have opened your graves, O my people,
and brought, oh, by the way,
did I mention I'm gonna bring you up out of your graves?
Now, how many times did he just say that?
That was a little redundant there,
wasn't it, a little repetitive.
Hey, when God repeats something over and over,
it means it's very important.
So four times in a row, I'm bringing you out of the grave.
You're coming out of the graves.
You're coming up out of the grave,
and by the way, you're coming up out of the graves.
All right?
And I shall put my spirit in you, and you shall live,
and I shall place you in your own land,
and you shall know that I the Lord
have spoken it and performed it, saith the Lord.
Now look, there was an immediate fulfillment of this.
Why?
You gotta get the context of Ezekiel.
Ezekiel is an exile prophet.
When does Ezekiel preach?
If you start at the beginning of Ezekiel,
it'll tell you that they're a few years
into the captivity.
They're in the Babylonian captivity,
and Ezekiel is preaching to the captives
by the river of Kibar.
So you can see how this would be relevant
to the people he's preaching to at the time.
Hey, here we are, we're in captivity.
We've been judged by God.
Our bones are dried.
Our hope is lost.
We are dead as a nation.
Now, are they literally dead?
No, they wouldn't be talking about it if they were dead.
They're not literally dead, but they're saying,
man, our nation is dead.
Now, did they literally just have dried up bones?
No, but they're saying figuratively,
man, our bones are dried, we're dead,
and God's saying, no, you know what?
Your nation's dead,
but your nation's gonna be resurrected.
And what he's telling them is going to be fulfilled
after 70 years.
What happened after 70 years?
After 70 years, the nation of Israel was resurrected.
They came out of captivity in the days
of Ezra and Nehemiah.
That's what's going on back then.
That's the literal fulfillment.
Ezekiel, or not the literal fulfillment,
the shadow fulfillment, the immediate fulfillment
of him saying, hey, these bones
are the whole house of Israel,
and I'm gonna take you up out of your graves,
quote, unquote, and bring you into the land.
Okay, makes sense, right?
Exile, profit, what's the issue?
Okay, but there's a literal fulfillment of this
that's still coming in the future.
The shadow fulfillment happened.
There's gonna be a literal fulfillment
where the Israelites literally come up out of their graves.
Dry bones literally will come to life.
I mean, we're talking about the Israelites,
the Old Testament saints, okay,
that were around before the time of Christ,
during the time of Christ,
just the house of Israel from all time,
from all history at the second coming of Christ
is gonna what?
Be resurrected.
So it won't be a shadow fulfillment.
It won't be like, yeah, we're figuratively dead,
we're figuratively dried out,
and boom, we're back in business.
No, actually, it's gonna be literal dead bodies
coming out of the grave.
There's no question about the fact
that there's a literal bodily resurrection,
and it's not just a bodily resurrection for Christians.
It's also a bodily resurrection
for the Old Testament saints
from before the time of Christ.
You know, they need to be resurrected as well.
They're gonna physically come out,
and guess what they're gonna do?
They're gonna be in the millennium with us.
You know, in that millennium reign of Christ,
it's gonna be Old Testament and New Testament saints
come up out of the graves,
rule and reign with Christ a thousand years,
so they're gonna, what does it say is gonna happen?
They're gonna go into their land.
Hey, they're gonna literally come up out of the grave
and go into that land,
so this is going to be fulfilled
in the most literal way imaginable,
but yet, didn't it have a shadow fulfillment
back then as well in their generation?
So I hope I've helped illustrate to you this morning
how important this concept is
and how many things are gonna go over your head
if you don't understand this.
If you don't understand what I'm saying here,
you're gonna make the mistake
that so many Bible teachers make
and so many students of the Bible make
where they basically pick a one or the other.
It's not this, it's only this.
It's always not that.
You know what the truth is?
It's both, it's both.
So don't get this one or the other attitude
with some of these scriptures.
Well, that can't be the abomination of desolation
because the abomination of desolation is still coming.
That can't be the fulfillment
because it wasn't fulfilled perfectly.
Folks, it's both.
The shadow fulfillment in the short term,
the literal fulfillment in the long term.
I'll give you 10 very clear examples.
I'm sure as you read your Bible,
you're gonna think of way more,
you're gonna find way more,
more are gonna be popping into your mind.
So understand this concept
and how I would apply this to you
is to say that Jesus Christ is coming.
Okay, and there are people out there
that have these weird end times views
of preterism where they base,
it's like, oh, it all happened.
What, did they think we're just gonna just coast forever?
Well, get Greta on the phone
so that we can figure out how to make this place last
if we gotta just coast forever.
Let's get her in here to school us all.
Folks, let me tell you something.
Christ is going to come back.
Literally, bodily, there is a lot of prophecy
that has not been fulfilled.
And the end of the Bible is, I come quickly,
even so come Lord Jesus.
That's how the Bible ends.
It's what we're looking for.
It's going to happen.
It's literal, it's bodily, the second coming of Christ.
And so don't let some preterists come along
and tell you, well, you know,
this actually happened back then, did you?
Okay, great, of course it happened back then.
It's gonna happen again.
Because back then was only a shadow.
The literal is to come.
Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord,
and how deep it is,
how we can spend our whole lives studying it
and we can keep learning new things
and it speaks to us in a new way every day.
Lord, we just pray that you would cause us
to walk worthy of the vocation that we're called
and Lord give us boldness, Lord,
in these days in America to go soul winning,
to win people to Christ, to stand up for the truth, Lord
so that we're not ashamed before you at your coming.
Lord, help us to occupy until you come
and help us to look for that glorious appearing
that is yet future and has not already happened.
And Lord God, I just pray that we would study
to show ourselves approved so we can understand
the times that we live in and be able to live our lives
in a way that would please you, honor and glorify you
leading up to your second coming
which may or may not happen in our lifetime.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.