Participants:
Series Code: IIWSS
Program Code: IIWSS025026S
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00:00 [uplifting music]
00:10 [uplifting music] 00:13 >>Eric Flickinger: Welcome to "Sabbath School," 00:15 brought to you by It Is Written. 00:16 Glad that you are joining us today. 00:18 We are now studying lesson number 13 of 13. 00:22 So this is kind of the end of a journey-- 00:25 hopefully, not the end of your journey; 00:27 it's certainly not the end of our journey-- 00:29 but we are taking a look at how to study Bible prophecy, 00:32 and this week we're looking at "Images of the End," 00:35 lesson number 13. Let's begin with prayer. 00:39 Father, thank You for drawing us together again 00:41 and giving us more that we can study 00:43 and we can learn about You. 00:45 We ask that You will bless us with an understanding 00:48 and then also an understanding of how we can apply 00:50 these things to our lives 00:51 so that we can face the future with confidence 00:54 and peace. And we thank You, in Jesus' name, amen. 00:58 We're grateful once again to have with us the author 01:00 of this quarter's "Sabbath School" lesson, 01:03 Pastor Shawn Boonstra. 01:04 Shawn, 13 lessons, 13 episodes, 13 weeks-- 01:09 we're grateful that you have carved this time out 01:11 of your schedule to share these things with us. 01:13 >>Shawn Boonstra: Pretty exciting! After today's program, 01:15 I get to go home. They're going to let me out of the studio. 01:18 Then I finally get to go home. 01:19 Thirteen weeks of sitting on this chair. 01:21 They gave me water and stuff. It's been pretty nice. 01:24 >>Eric: Yeah, we've been as generous as we can-- 01:26 even tea--even gave you some tea. [Shawn laughing] 01:29 This week, we've got an interesting subject: 01:30 "Images of the End." 01:32 We're going to spend some time delving into the book of Jonah, 01:35 the story of Jonah. 01:36 This has been a story that you've been very engaged in, 01:40 very interested in. You've shared some things 01:42 at camp meetings about this. 01:44 Walk us through the story of Jonah 01:45 and why it's important. 01:46 >>Shawn: This one is kind of like--you know 01:48 when you break a tooth in the back of your mouth 01:50 and your tongue just keeps going back to it, 01:51 you can't leave it alone? 01:53 Every so often, a Bible passage will do that to you. 01:56 Like Esther-- couldn't leave it alone. 01:59 Ancient Celtic history-- 02:00 there's definite ties to the Scriptures, 02:02 the church in the wilderness, 02:03 couldn't leave that alone. Jonah's another one. 02:06 I just kept coming back, kept coming back, 02:08 and I had this sense: There's more here. 02:09 Here's this story. It's incomplete. 02:11 It ends terribly. It's only four chapters, 02:15 and there's got to be more to this, 02:16 and I couldn't leave it alone, and I started to drill down, 02:20 and it turns out there's a really strong chance 02:23 that this one has an awful lot of prophetic shadowing-- 02:27 beyond the obvious. 02:28 A prophet goes to a fallen city, preaches the judgment is coming. 02:31 Okay, that's kind of like the three angels' messages-- 02:34 fear God, give glory to Him--there's more. 02:37 I kept drilling, and I think there's a lot more 02:40 in this story, and I'm probably not finished with it yet. 02:43 This might be one of those books that just keeps me busy 02:45 to the day I die. 02:47 >>Eric: It's a powerful story, 02:48 and we're going to draw some things out here 02:49 that are really deep. 02:51 Jonah was reluctant to go to Nineveh, 02:53 and maybe that's an understatement-- 02:55 >>Shawn: Yeah, "reluctant." >>Eric: ..."reluctant." 02:58 What's the message? Is there a message 02:59 for God's church today in his reluctance there? 03:02 >>Shawn: Yeah, absolutely, and I think I can apply this 03:04 personally. Years ago, when I was young 03:07 and I--starting out in media ministry, 03:09 somebody called me and said, 03:10 "You need to write an autobiography." 03:12 And I said, "What would that be about? 03:13 "I'm, like, young. I haven't lived yet. 03:15 Like, maybe we should wait to the end zone." 03:17 Then over the years-- 03:18 and I'm probably never going to write an autobiography. 03:20 What's the point? Like, my story's not that important, 03:23 but I know one thing: If I wrote it, 03:25 the title would be "Reluctant." 03:28 It's like, I did not want to get pushed into a pulpit. 03:31 I did not want to stand up front. 03:32 I did not want to live on airplanes 03:34 and be a public evangelist. I'm an introvert. 03:36 I'm terrified of public speaking. 03:38 I get it. I look at the assignment God gives us, 03:41 and I'm, as a fallen human being, naturally reluctant. 03:44 God says, "Here, take this message"-- 03:46 three angels' messages-- "go preach it to that world." 03:49 And I have trouble connecting those dots. 03:51 It's, like, I'm sorry, 03:52 I'm supposed to share this with those people? 03:55 How is that going to work? 03:57 God says, "Trust me. I didn't get the message wrong." 03:59 And I've learned 30-some years later, 04:01 yeah, it's absolutely the right message 04:03 for every generation, 04:04 and the closer we get to the return of Christ, 04:06 but I was reluctant. I've always been reluctant. 04:09 And we are reluctant as a people. 04:10 There are parallels. 04:12 We are a last-day prophetic movement. 04:15 We sit in the seat that Jonah's in, in this story, 04:19 and we've been told to preach to a wicked city. 04:21 That city is Babylon in Bible prophecy. 04:25 But what I find curious is that prior to the rise 04:28 of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, 04:29 prior to the rise of Nebuchadnezzar, 04:32 Nineveh was the stand-in for Babylon. 04:35 That was the wicked city. 04:37 And there's so much overlap. It's mind-boggling. 04:40 They shared the same religion, 04:41 although the Assyrians had a version of Ishtar 04:44 that was a little more sadistic. 04:46 The Assyrians were a smash-and-grab empire 04:48 that just took, you know, 04:49 they pillaged and took and murdered. 04:52 They--we even have some doubts--some doubts-- 04:55 I'm not the archaeologist, take it up with one of them-- 04:57 some doubts that the Hanging Gardens 04:59 were actually in Babylon. 05:01 There's some thought now they might have-- 05:02 because we've never found the ruins of them. 05:04 Maybe they were in Nineveh. There's that much overlap. 05:08 So we have a wicked city and a prophet that's told 05:11 to go and preach, and in the prophet's brain, 05:13 "That's not possible. 05:15 "Lord, have You seen the Assyrians? 05:16 "You know what they do to people like me? 05:18 "They impale them. They skin them. 05:20 "They hang the skins on the city wall 05:21 "to scare people. 05:23 "And I've got to admit, Lord, it's very effective 05:24 because I'm scared." 05:26 You know, they roasted people alive on a waterwheel, 05:29 turned them around and around. 05:30 And we look and we're that terrified 05:32 of what God's asked us to do. 05:33 So, yeah, I think that Jonah is our guy 05:38 when it comes to describing our prophetic mission 05:40 because his attitudes do show up in our church today. 05:45 >>Eric: So there's the reluctance element, 05:47 but there's also an element of rebellion 05:49 in this as well. 05:51 How do we sense that that's important for us 05:54 to understand today as a church? 05:55 >>Shawn: Yeah, when it says Jonah rebels in the story, 05:59 at the beginning, it doesn't say he ignored God 06:01 and went back to work. It doesn't say he told God no. 06:05 It gets a lot more specific than that. 06:08 It says that he left the presence of the Lord. 06:11 And it says that twice in chapter 1, verse 3: 06:14 Jonah left the presence of the Lord. 06:17 Jonah--here it is. It's Jonah 1, verse 3. 06:19 "Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish." 06:22 Tarshish is in completely the opposite direction. 06:25 It's on the southern tip of modern-day Portugal. 06:27 It was a Phoenician seaport. 06:29 Interesting sidebar-- 06:31 we're going to go way off base here-- 06:32 there's a pretty good chance that the ancient Celts 06:36 came from the ancient Phoenicians 06:37 because we now know they're not from Ireland, 06:39 they ended up there, 06:41 but they started in the south of Portugal. 06:42 Gaul says--any time you see "Gaul" in etymology, 06:46 it means that Celts lived there: 06:48 Portugal; Galicia, Poland; the letter to the Galatians. 06:51 That was a church of Celts living in Turkey. 06:54 So Tarshish was this Phoenician seaport. 06:56 And if you look at the ancient Irish writing, 06:58 the runes, they resemble Phoenician alphabet 07:01 quite a bit. All right, sidebar. 07:02 He tries to go the opposite direction, 07:04 but it says he left the presence of the Lord. 07:06 "Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. 07:09 "He went down to Joppa... found a ship going to Tarshish. 07:12 "So he paid the fare... went down into it, 07:15 "to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence 07:19 of the Lord." 07:20 Now, what does that mean? 07:22 Psalm 139, I have, almost any time 07:24 somebody preaches Jonah, I hear Psalm 139, 07:27 "Whither shall I flee from [Your] presence?" 07:28 You know, you can't run away from God. 07:30 Jonah did not know of a secret place in the earth 07:34 that you could get away from the presence of God. 07:36 He's not stupid. 07:37 He understands that God is omnipresent. 07:40 So what does it mean that he's leaving 07:42 the presence of the Lord? 07:43 Well, a few weeks ago we looked at this rule, 07:46 this principle of first mention in the Bible. 07:48 Any time you see a phrase, ask yourself a few questions: 07:52 "Where have I heard this before? 07:54 And more importantly, where does it show up for the first time?" 07:56 Sometimes that's very important. 07:58 So we looked in another lesson at, where do you find a lamb 08:01 for the first time in the Bible? 08:03 It's Genesis 22. It's a long ways in. 08:05 It's not Adam. 08:07 Some people--"It's got to be Adam, covered in lambskins." 08:09 Probably lambskins, it just doesn't say that. 08:11 The first explicit mention is Isaac: 08:14 "Where is the lamb for the sacrifice?" Right? 08:17 It's anticipating Christ. It establishes that symbol. 08:20 So where do we first find 08:22 leaving the presence of the Lord? 08:26 Well, the first time it's mentioned is 08:28 in Genesis, chapter 4. 08:30 Here's what this says in verse 16: 08:32 "Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord 08:36 and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden." 08:39 Now, does Cain know a secret place 08:42 where the presence of God can't find you? 08:44 No, so what does it mean when it says that Cain 08:47 went away from the presence of the Lord? 08:49 Now, we've already covered this. 08:50 There's a reason I sowed this through all the other lessons 08:53 to get ready for this week. 08:55 In Genesis 3, verse 24, we have already studied-- 08:57 and if you haven't, go back and study it again-- 09:00 in Genesis 3, verse 24, there's a protosanctuary service. 09:04 There are cherubim-- "tabernacled" 09:07 is the literal word, kind of shocking-- 09:10 tabernacled at the gates of Eden with a brilliant presence. 09:13 This is where the patriarchs first worshiped. 09:17 "Patriarchs and Prophets," page 84: 09:19 "At the cherubim-guarded gate of Paradise 09:21 "the glory of God was revealed, 09:23 and hither came the first worshipers." 09:25 It's the first sanctuary service, 09:27 and the glory of God was literally there 09:28 at the gates of Eden. 09:30 Hugh Martin--I mentioned him a while ago-- 09:33 Hugh Martin, in 1866, said this: 09:36 "Most probably, in the days of the first family of our race, 09:38 "the gate of the garden of Eden, 09:40 "where God placed the cherubims and the flaming sword, 09:42 "constituted the seat of sacred worship; 09:44 "occupying the place... served by the tabernacle 09:46 "in the wilderness... ultimately by the temple 09:48 on Mount Moriah." In other words, 09:50 it's not just Adventists who have noticed 09:53 the sanctuary themes in the Bible. 09:55 And Hugh Martin says, first sanctuary? 09:57 Gates of Eden. 09:59 So, if Cain leaves the presence of the Lord at Eden, 10:03 he's literally leaving the spot where the presence of God 10:06 was manifested. 10:08 What does it mean when it tells us twice 10:10 that Jonah left the presence of the Lord? 10:13 Turns out in those days, roughly seven centuries before Christ, 10:18 there was a belief that the gift of prophecy 10:21 worked only in the Promised Land. 10:23 Why? 10:24 That's where the sanctuary was, 10:26 and it only worked if you were in the vicinity 10:28 of the sanctuary. 10:30 And the belief was kind of like this: 10:31 If I step over the national boundary 10:34 into Gentile territory, the gift of prophecy will stop. 10:38 Kind of like losing your cell phone tower, right? 10:41 It won't reach him anymore. 10:43 So what in the world is Jonah trying to do? 10:47 You know, if you look at a map, 10:49 Nineveh is over to the northeast, 10:52 Tarshish completely the opposite direction. 10:54 It tells us in the Bible that he paid the fare 10:56 for the ship, and in the original-- 10:58 I'm no Hebrew scholar-- 10:59 but in the original it implicates-- 11:01 and a lot of medieval rabbis said this, too-- 11:03 you know, he didn't just buy a seat on a Greyhound bus; 11:07 he bought the whole thing; he chartered the entire ship. 11:11 If he's a poor farmer-prophet, or, you know-- 11:14 how in the world did he afford that? 11:15 It would be like chartering a Princess cruise ship 11:18 to yourself--or Air Force 1. "Just for me, please." 11:22 How expensive is that? How much did he have to cash in? 11:25 Did he have to sell his inheritance 11:26 in the land, saying, "I'm never coming back," 11:29 to afford that fare? 11:31 "And I'm leaving the presence of the Lord." 11:32 What's he fleeing? 11:34 Let's think about this as Seventh-day Adventists 11:35 very carefully. 11:37 If he's convinced that the gift of prophecy-- 11:40 which seems to be the case in those days-- 11:42 works because of your proximity to the sanctuary, 11:48 he's really running away from two things, 11:49 and he's cashing in his inheritance, 11:51 his very inheritance in the Promised Land, 11:54 to get away from the gift of prophecy 11:57 and from the sanctuary. 11:59 Now, that ought to raise up some real alarm bells 12:02 for Seventh-day Adventists. 12:04 What are some of the unique contributions 12:05 we bring to the table as Adventist believers? 12:08 The way we interpret the heavenly sanctuary 12:11 and the way that we believe the gift of prophecy 12:14 is still active. 12:15 It's some of the things that make us unique. 12:17 I'll just say this because I know we've got to take a break, 12:20 and we'll pick this up again. 12:21 Take those two things away, 12:23 and we're no longer Seventh-day Adventists. 12:24 We can't exist. Our theology falls apart. 12:27 And I'll leave it there until after the break. 12:28 >>Eric: That's very true. 12:30 And if that's not reason enough 12:31 for you to come back after the break, 12:32 I'm not sure how we could tease it any better. 12:34 But before we go, one last opportunity, Shawn-- 12:37 somebody might be thinking, 12:39 "Should I pick up this companion book 12:41 to this quarter's lesson or not?" 12:43 How would you encourage them? 12:45 "Pick it up now. Don't let this pass you by." 12:47 >>Shawn: Pick it up. 12:48 I can't possibly squeeze everything into 350 words. 12:51 And so some of the material that didn't make it 12:53 into the quarterly ended up in that book. 12:55 Some of it you're going to hear here. 12:57 You can watch these shows a few times. 12:58 But the companion book will give you additional materials, 13:01 maybe some illustrations that aren't in the book, 13:03 and maybe help enliven 13:05 your Sabbath school class a little bit. 13:06 >>Eric: So you'll be blessed if you pick that up. 13:08 It's easy to find. Just go to itiswritten.shop. 13:11 Again, itiswritten.shop. 13:13 You'll find the companion book 13:15 to this quarter's "Sabbath School" lesson. 13:16 And also a reminder, if you happen to have missed 13:19 any episodes of this 13-week odyssey 13:23 through "How to Study Bible Prophecy," 13:25 you can still watch them. 13:27 You can find them at itiswritten.tv. 13:29 They are archived there. 13:31 They are also archived on the It Is Written channel 13:34 on YouTube. So, go back and watch any of them 13:37 that you may have missed, 13:38 re-cover some of them that you'd like to delve more deeply into, 13:41 and please let others know that they are available 13:44 to watch as well. 13:45 We're going to be right back as we look a little bit more 13:48 at the sanctuary and the gift of prophecy 13:51 and the significance that they hold 13:53 for some of the things that are happening in our day. 13:55 We'll be right back. 13:57 [uplifting music] 14:01 >>John Bradshaw: He could be one of the most 14:03 perplexing characters in the entire Bible. 14:07 Called by God, commissioned by God, directed by God, 14:13 but instead of following God's leading, 14:15 he ran away from God and went in the opposite direction 14:19 to where God called him. 14:21 While fleeing from God, he was apprehended by God, 14:26 swallowed by a giant sea creature, 14:28 and given another opportunity to allow God's will to be done 14:32 in his life. 14:34 Don't miss "Great Characters of the Bible: Jonah." 14:38 We'll meet the reluctant prophet 14:40 who fled from the presence of God 14:42 and didn't want to see a city full of people saved. 14:46 What does the story of Jonah teach us about Jonah, about God, 14:51 and about you and me? 14:52 Don't miss "Great Characters of the Bible," 14:55 the story of Jonah. 14:57 Watch now on It Is Written TV. 15:01 [uplifting music] 15:05 >>Eric: Welcome back to "Sabbath School," 15:07 brought to you by It Is Written. 15:09 We're taking a look at some images of the end, 15:11 especially lessons that we can learn 15:14 from the book of Jonah. 15:16 Shawn, we left off, just a moment ago, 15:18 looking at two significant elements 15:21 that are important for us to grasp 15:22 and hold on to when it comes 15:24 to a right understanding of prophecy 15:25 and end-time events. 15:27 And those two things are the spirit of prophecy 15:29 and the sanctuary. 15:30 And these are some things that Jonah was running away from, 15:33 some things that he was abandoning 15:34 or attempting to abandon. 15:36 What are some lessons that we can draw from this 15:38 that will help keep us heading in the right direction? 15:40 >>Shawn: You know, I've wondered for a while, 15:41 "Is this really the right track?" 15:42 Is it really true that they believed, in Jonah's day, 15:46 that the sanctuary was an important facilitator 15:51 for the gift of prophecy 15:52 and that's why he's running away? He cashes in everything. 15:54 He buys the whole boat out. I mean, he pays 15:56 whatever price it takes to run away from this. 15:59 And then when he repents in Jonah, chapter 2, 16:00 you'll notice, you know, twice it says in chapter 1, 16:03 "I'm going to flee the presence of the Lord." 16:05 He's going to flee the presence of the Lord. 16:07 But when he returns, he says specifically, 16:08 "I'm going to return to Your temple. 16:10 I'm going to return to the sanctuary." 16:11 It's clearly in the text. 16:13 It is there. And I find it curious. 16:16 You know, as somebody who came in from outside 16:18 this movement to the inside, 16:19 the things that I found most fascinating-- 16:23 the most fascinating thing was just the sanctuary message 16:26 and the way that it pulls all of Scripture together. 16:29 It permeates every moment of it. 16:30 It's just the most powerful illustration 16:32 of who Jesus is, what He does for us, 16:34 what His ongoing ministry for us is, and so on. 16:38 And so when I see this prophet-- and it's remarkable to me-- 16:43 there's no ending to the story. 16:44 It ends with a bitter, reluctant prophet under a tree, 16:47 and it's not a satisfactory ending. 16:49 It's just, like, "Lord, I knew this was going to happen. 16:51 "I knew You were going to forgive them. 16:53 I knew evangelism was going to work, and that's why I didn't"-- 16:55 it's a really weird ending to the story, 16:57 and he's under a tree, and it's unfinished. 17:01 And the question that occurs to me is, 17:04 why would God publish an unfinished story 17:07 unless it really isn't finished and we finish it? 17:13 What if it's foreshadowing the work 17:14 that we've been asked to do?: 17:16 Preach the three angels' messages. 17:18 That includes the sanctuary. 17:20 It says they're the ones that have the faith of Jesus. 17:22 It includes the gift of prophecy. 17:24 And historically speaking, 17:26 whenever we have internal conflict 17:28 in the church, it always seems to boil down 17:31 to those two issues in particular. 17:33 It always seems to boil down to the sanctuary 17:37 and the spirit of prophecy. 17:38 And what does this movement lose 17:40 if we let go of those biblical doctrines? 17:43 We cease to be. There's no reason for us to exist. 17:46 There are other churches that teach the Sabbath. 17:48 There are other churches that understand 17:50 the state of the dead the way we do. There really are. 17:54 But our understanding of the sanctuary theme in Scripture 17:58 and the role of the prophetic gift 18:00 in the last days, that's pretty unique. 18:03 And we're gone. Our mission ceases. 18:05 The three--the loud cry doesn't happen. 18:08 The voice does not go through the world if we abandon those. 18:11 It happened--Albion Ballenger, one of the earliest--well, 18:14 Canright, one of the earliest heretics, 18:16 he was backstage one time and he said, "You know what? 18:19 "If it wasn't for this message, 18:20 I could be a really popular preacher." 18:22 It's like, ugh, do I have to preach this? 18:24 He never understood that it wasn't his oratory gifts 18:27 that made him great. It was the message that made him great. 18:30 And what I find interesting is when he finally resigned 18:32 from the Adventist church in 1877--Oswego, New York? 18:36 I can't remember where this happened-- 18:37 he said, "I no longer believe in the law or the Sabbath"-- 18:40 okay, and then he underlined this-- 18:42 "the sanctuary or the testimonies." 18:45 That's his public statement. Why those two things? 18:48 John Harvey Kellogg--what do we remember him for? 18:50 Sanitarium was never going to be as opulent 18:52 as he wanted it to be. 18:54 He didn't understand what our role was 18:55 in the health message, I think. 18:57 And what do we remember him for? He becomes a pantheist. 19:00 "Everything around us is actually God." 19:02 And what is his book called, 19:04 the one that ends up in a fire, that God says, "You know what, 19:06 if that's what we're publishing, we're done here"? 19:09 "The Living Temple." I'm the sanctuary? 19:11 It's a compromise of the sanctuary. 19:13 Albion Ballenger, "Holy Flesh Movement," 19:15 and that one teaches, like, 19:16 "If you're sinless, you won't even turn gray." 19:18 I'm done for. Look, I got a little--you're done for, too. 19:21 >>Eric: By a long shot. >>Shawn: Yeah, 19:22 but he started to teach that Jesus 19:25 went straight to the most holy place 19:27 when He returned to heaven, 19:28 not to minister in the heavenly sanctuary 19:30 in the holy place until the last phase, 19:33 but right to the most holy place. 19:35 So, Sister White tried to steer him right, 19:37 and so he starts attacking the spirit of prophecy. 19:39 What's he attacking? 19:40 He ends up just attacking the spirit of prophecy 19:42 and the sanctuary, again and again. 19:43 Ronald Numbers in our own generation, 19:45 1976, says, "Nah, Ellen White plagiarized 19:48 the health message from other people." 19:50 It always ends up sanctuary or spirit of prophecy. 19:52 Ford repeats what Ballenger said: 19:54 Jesus went straight to the most holy place. 19:57 It's always the sanctuary, always the spirit of prophecy. 19:59 Walter Rea-- "Ellen White's a plagiarist." 20:01 Again, it's the spirit of prophecy. 20:03 By the way, if she's a plagiarist, 20:05 she's the worst plagiarist who ever lived 20:07 because, at one point, she mentions the books 20:10 that people say, "Oh, she plagiarized from those." 20:13 And she said, "Everybody should buy these books 20:15 and put them in their library." 20:16 What kind of plagiarist gives their source material 20:18 and sells it to everybody? It's just not true. 20:21 There's a reason that every time there's a conflict, 20:24 every time there's a threat to the mission of the church, 20:26 it seems to focus on these two doctrines. 20:29 I believe it's prefigured in the book of Jonah 20:31 and that there are warnings for us there. 20:33 The story's unfinished. 20:35 A reluctant prophet is still reluctant at the end. 20:38 The only righteous people in that story, by the end, 20:40 are the Phoenician sailors who repent. [Eric chuckles] 20:43 It's only the nations, it's only the Gentiles that-- 20:46 that's a warning to us. 20:48 I don't want to be the people inside the church 20:49 that are found unfaithful and bitter at the end. 20:52 I want to be on board with what's going on. 20:54 They have to wake up the prophet. 20:56 >>Eric: So this maybe can give us some foreshadowing, 20:59 or should give us some foreshadowing, of movements 21:03 to come, or individuals to come, who downplay 21:05 those things again, and we'll see them again. 21:07 >>Shawn: It's going to come again. 21:09 And I find it interesting. 21:12 The other thing that I draw from Jonah-- 21:13 and I know we spent a lot of time on Jonah, 21:15 but I'm hoping you find this a fruitful study-- 21:18 it's this fact: 21:19 He's asleep in the bottom of the boat in a storm. 21:21 Now, on the one hand, that's a lot like Jesus, 21:23 but on the other hand, he's completely unlike Jesus 21:25 because he shouldn't be asleep at this moment. 21:28 And the Gentile sailors, these Phoenicians-- 21:30 I think they're Phoenicians; 21:31 that makes the most sense. They have to wake him up. 21:33 "Who do you worship? Who do you worship?" 21:35 And what does he say at that moment? 21:38 "Well, I am a Hebrew. 21:39 I worship the God who made the heavens and the earth." 21:43 It's like, there's the first angel's message, 21:46 but he has to be forced into it by desperate people. 21:50 And I look at that sometimes, and I think, my neighbors, 21:53 people who made fun of me when I became a believer, 21:57 are returning to me now saying, 21:58 "All right, what's going on in the world?" 22:00 They're panicking. 22:01 The world around us knows something is up, 22:05 and we cannot possibly afford to be caught sleeping 22:07 in the bottom of the boat when the rest of the world 22:10 is desperate for what God gave us 22:12 to share with them. >>Eric: Very powerful. 22:15 You bring out this idea in the lesson also 22:18 of the fall of Babylon in Daniel, chapter 5. 22:21 There's some pretty clear parallels 22:23 to the fall of Babylon at end time. 22:25 Bring those ideas together. 22:26 >>Shawn: Right, and this one is important. 22:27 I put this in the lesson because even sometimes 22:30 among our own people there's confusion 22:31 about what is Armageddon. 22:33 And everybody's looking for a literal, physical 22:35 last-day battle somewhere in the Middle East. 22:37 I can promise you: In that tiny little valley 22:39 about 20 miles long in the Middle East, 22:41 that you're not going to get 200 million troops in there. 22:44 It's just--it's not going to happen. 22:46 And, again, the only way you come to Armageddon 22:49 as a physical battle that involves Russia and Israel 22:51 and, you know, all these players is to follow 22:54 this dispensational scheme where you pick and choose verses 22:57 and try and make them match the news every day. 23:00 And it's anchored very deeply in another story. 23:02 If you look at Revelation 16, 23:04 where you find the battle of Armageddon: 23:06 "The sixth angel [pours] out his bowl 23:07 on the great river Euphrates." 23:10 It's very specific. 23:11 "Its water was dried up, to prepare the way for kings 23:14 from the east," all right? 23:17 Then it talks about the battle of the great day 23:19 of God Almighty. Verse 15 of Revelation 16: 23:22 "I am coming like a thief!" What's that a reference to? 23:25 Well, that's clearly a reference to the Second Coming. 23:27 That's a pretty popular metaphor for it. 23:30 "They assembled...[into] the place that...is called 23:31 [in Hebrew] Armageddon." 23:34 He switches to Hebrew at this point. 23:36 He's just like, "Okay, I'm writing in Greek, 23:38 but for this one word, we're going to switch to Hebrew." 23:40 There's got to be a reason for that. 23:42 What does "Har Megiddon" mean? 23:44 It means "the Mountain of Megiddo." 23:46 All right, there's three mountains on that valley. 23:49 This is fascinating. 23:50 Mount Carmel, that's where Elijah confronts 23:54 the false prophets of Baal. 23:55 There's Mount Gilboa, where Saul consults a spirit medium. 24:00 There's spiritualism. We know that's a last-day issue. 24:02 We got Mount Tabor. 24:03 That's where the Transfiguration takes place. 24:05 There's a glimpse of the Second Coming. 24:06 We have a resurrected believer and a raptured believer-- 24:10 using that word carefully, "raptured"-- 24:13 and those are all last-day events. Why that battle? 24:16 It was the crossroads of the ancient world. 24:18 They had literal battles. 24:20 They had spiritual battles that were there. 24:21 Saul lost his at Mount Gilboa. 24:25 And if you start to piece it all together 24:27 and you go back to Belshazzar-- 24:29 I mean, one of the things that happens in Revelation 24:31 is Babylon collapses. That's an overarching theme. 24:35 This is referring to the collapse of literal Babylon. 24:39 Kings come from the east. It's the Medes and the Persians 24:41 led by Cyrus, the Persian general. 24:45 He gets there and he notices, "Okay, pretty secure, 24:47 "these walls are so high we can't scale them, 24:49 so thick we're not going to dig through them. We can't get in." 24:53 There's just one weak point: The Euphrates River flows 24:55 under the city about two-thirds of the way across the city. 24:57 It doesn't quite bisect it. 24:59 He goes upstream, and he finds an ancient lake bed. 25:03 An ancient Babylonian queen known as Nitocris, 25:06 she loved sailing, had nowhere to sail, 25:08 so she drained the Euphrates into this basin 25:10 so she could go sailing. He goes upstream and thinks, 25:12 "You know what else we could do? 25:14 Let's do this again." He drains the Euphrates in. 25:17 It gets to be about thigh deep, and he goes under the walls, 25:19 takes the city. 25:21 A king from the east dries up the river and takes Babylon. 25:25 This is a reference to an Old Testament story. 25:29 This happens the night that Babylon falls. 25:33 Belshazzar's having a drunken feast. 25:35 "Let's get the temple vessels. 25:37 "I know what Granddad Nebuchadnezzar said: 25:39 "that Babylon's going to fall, 25:40 "that the Medes and the Persians are coming, 25:42 "and they're outside the city. 25:43 "But one thing we know is that our gods clearly-- 25:46 "Marduk clearly conquered Yahweh, 25:48 "and so bring out the temple vessels 25:49 and let's just drink out of them." 25:51 He's trying to restore some courage, 25:53 but it's that night that the city falls because, 25:57 well, the river runs through the city, 25:59 and there are walls along the river, 26:01 and they usually lock those every night. 26:03 It's how you got access to cross the bridge and so on. 26:06 But they're so drunk they don't bother 26:08 locking the gates. 26:09 And when you look at Isaiah 44 and 45, 26:11 it actually predicts more than a hundred years in advance 26:12 Cyrus would come, find the gates unlocked, 26:15 and that Belshazzar's knees would knock together, 26:17 he'd faint from fear. That's exactly what happened. 26:20 What it's telling us is that Babylon falls. 26:23 And what it's telling us in Revelation 16 is like, 26:25 "No, this isn't really about tanks and airplanes. 26:28 This is about you. Where do you stand?" 26:30 The night that Babylon falls, there's only two camps. 26:33 There's the camp of Belshazzar: 26:36 You know the prophecies. You choose not to believe. 26:39 There's a camp of Cyrus who identifies himself 26:41 eventually as a servant of God. 26:44 That's Jesus returning to liberate His people. 26:46 Cyrus liberates them to return to the Promised Land. 26:48 Jesus comes to liberate us. 26:51 >>Eric: Shawn, we've taken quite a journey this quarter. 26:53 There might be somebody who's watching here 26:55 who needs just a little encouragement. 26:58 They're concerned about the things going on in the world. 27:00 They need a little bit of hope. What would you tell them? 27:03 >>Shawn: I'd say get back in the Word, 27:05 but focus on those promises. 27:06 Start making lists of promises as you read the Bible. 27:08 "Fear not" shows up all the time. 27:11 God's love shows up all the time. 27:13 I make a list of it because God paints 27:15 a real picture that makes me trust the document more. 27:19 And then He says, "But I got your back." 27:21 And you'll find that same courage 27:22 by spending time in the Word. 27:24 Forget what you've read. 27:25 Forget what you've been told about it. 27:26 Go read it for yourself. 27:28 Because I think you're going to find 27:29 that God didn't send this message to terrify us, 27:31 but to give us something to hang on to. 27:33 It's a life preserver, and you got something substantial 27:36 you can hang on to and look forward to a very bright future. 27:39 >>Eric: Amen, thank you, Shawn, for joining us for this journey. 27:41 We appreciate your time. 27:43 >>Shawn: Oh, thanks for having me here. 27:44 >>Eric: Appreciate you leading us along the way. 27:47 And he's led us to God's Word, 27:48 and we trust that you will be blessed 27:49 as you continue to study it. 27:51 We'll see you again next week here on "Sabbath School," 27:54 brought to you by It Is Written. 27:56 [uplifting music] 28:24 [uplifting music] 28:26 [Captions provided by Aberdeen Captioning www.aberdeen.io] |
Revised 2025-06-18