I want to post MacArthur’s series of sermons following his lecture at the 2007 Shepherd’s Conference that sparked so much response. Following the controversial message entitled “Why Every Self-Respecting Calvinist Should be a Premillennialist” at MacArthur’s Shepherd’s Conference he presented a series on lectures at his church based on that message. This is Part 1.
Now I’ve been telling you for a number of months that we were going to get in to the subject of eschatology, the doctrine of last things. We’ve been working our way through doctrinal emphases in Scripture, doctrinal themes. And we have covered a lot of ground, but we now come to the doctrines that relate to the end times. And in line with that, I want to try at least in the next couple of Sunday nights to establish a foundation for our understanding.
Now talking about eschatology is not without controversy. There are a number of viewpoints of what the Bible means when it speaks of future events. We understand that when you have a prophecy in the Bible that has not yet come to pass, not everything will be clear. In 1 Peter chapter 1 you remember Peter says that the prophets who wrote concerning Christ, concerning the things to come wondered what person and what time. That is to say that while they understood that someone would come, they understood whatever it was that had been revealed to them, the timing was not clear and the precise personages were not clear. We can take prophetic Scripture at face value. We can interpret it the way we interpret any other passage of Scripture with the same use of the normal, natural means of interpreting language. And we should. And it will yield for us as clear an understanding of the future as the Lord wants us to have. It’s not nearly as difficult as some people make it if you just take Scripture at face value.
Now to affix our thinking to one great future event which seems to be the most controversial, I want you to think with me about the coming Kingdom of Christ, known as the Millennial Kingdom because in the twentieth chapter of Revelation, the opening of that chapter, there is reference to the reign and rule of Jesus Christ on the earth which lasts one thousand years. In fact, one thousand is repeated six times in that brief text. That leaves me with the impression that God wants us not to question the length of its duration.
See the rest of this sermon at Why Every Calvinists Should be a Premillennialist, Part 1
