Exploring Humility and Complexity in Prophetic Interpretation

it is indeed of the greatest import that we should realize that when the mightiest and the Saint leest Men of God of the past centuries have of times disagreed with one another in matters of interpretation it ill behoves any of us to be dogmatic or certain or G and if these discussions and talks of ours Friday by Friday do nothing else than just cause us all to realize that I attender shall be more than satisfied [00:27:55]

there is nothing it seems to me that is so sad and indeed often times sinful as an extreme dogmatism in this particular realm therefore I say again that I'm not standing here here to give you a scheme or an exposition which I regard as perfect and absolute and which alone must be right I would not dare venture to say such a thing I am simply trying to put before you some of the various schools and ideas and various types of interpretation [00:81:79]

the um matter the books that have been written the ideas that have been propagated with regard to these particular chapters to which I've referred is so voluminous that it is indeed a great test to know how to organize one's matter to know what not to consider what to leave out and what to stress and to emphasize what any man who preaches the gospel likes to do of course is to read a passage and to expound it to explain the meaning of the words and to show the general tenor and the trend and to say well that's the statement of scripture here are the lessons [05:31:12]

there are many who in handling these prophetic questions simply stand up and give their own understanding and interpretation and leave it at that well of course the that's a very simple and a very nice thing to do but to me it isn't sufficient for this reason that there are other ideas and people may have been brought up on these other ideas and they want to know well if if if there's something different why is it different and what is there wrong in their idea it is to me the an essential part of teaching that we really should help one another as far as we can [06:35:47]

a new school of interpretion came into being round about that particular date and it's had a most profound influence it the two leaders that really stand out in this new teaching uh are first and and foremost in a sense the Reverend Edward Irving who was a Scottish Minister a minister of the Church of Scotland who came down to a church here in London having been first of all the assistant of the great and famous Dr Thomas Charmers in Scotland Edward Irving came down to London and he exercised the most amazing ministry here [07:41:96]

the famous DL Moody the Evangelist adopted that teaching and of course because of his popularity because he was such a well-known man and as the result of his Evangelistic campaigns the very fact that he adopted the teaching meant that it was popularized immediately then the formation of the Moody Bible Institute popularized it still more and then of course came the scoffield Bible which I suppose has been the chief agency of all in popularizing this particular view now then it is a view that is quite a scheme it covers most of these chapters which I've mentioned it has its own view of them [10:25:48]

God has determined and decided something with regard to the people 70 weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city the first thing therefore is to understand that God had a plan for these people here determined that certain things should be done to them and should happen to them we needn't stay with that there I think we're all agreed what happens to Israel is not something haphazard or accidental it is all determined by God and here now we have a for view we have a foretelling prophecy includes foretelling it isn't only foretelling but it does include foretelling [14:23:60]

I suggest to you that in Prophecy numbers are symbolical that they're not meant to be exact but that they are meant to convey an idea now I want to was a phrase that was used by a man who was perhaps the greatest Evangelical commentator of the last century at in it he certainly was the greatest in Germany a man called hansenberg and if ever you see a book with the name of henin bber on it buy it and keep it and devour it a great biblical commentator honberg now he said and it's a very wonderful phrase I think that these numbers in scriptures can be described as having concealed definiteness [16:46:92]

God wants us to know that the time is definite in his mind it's going to happen at a definite time but you and I can never say exactly which is the date there are indications which should make us think and be ready but we can never say it must happen on such and such a date the whole history of Prophecy is stwn with a wreckage in a sense of the reputation of men who have forgotten this term about concealed definiteness exact and yet not exact the exactness is concealed from us [18:41:56]

the first thing we notice here is this phrase from the going forth of the Commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the prince what's meant by this going forth of the word well there of course comes in the disagreement and people who are anxious to make this in exact 490 years are bound to dis agree amongst themselves as to the exact way in which they interpret that some of them say that it happened in the first year of Cyrus which means BC 538 others say no it means the 20th year of Ares which means 445 BC [24:77:88]

there is a view I need keep you with this because I suppose that there is nobody here who would want to subscribe to this the view of those who don't believe in the divine inspiration of the scriptures and those who don't believe that prophecy ever means foretelling they say they can easily expound all this by saying that it's something that has long since happened and even happened before the birth of our Lord and savior they say that this is nothing but an account of what was done by men called entius epiphanies and that the anointed one was just one of the priests of Israel who was killed by him [35:16:07]

the Old Testament knows nothing about the church nothing about the Gentiles coming in and be blessed and being saved nothing about the church that is a part of the exposition when the church age will end and the 70th Week begin you see the implication that there is a great Gap at least 2,000 years between the end of the 69th week and the beginning of the 70th week a gap is introduced by this interpretation we are told then that at the end of that time when the church age is finished when the church age will end and the 70th week will begin is nowhere revealed [40:45:44]