• You can’t walk through a place like this and not feel the presence of God.
• I’d like to present for you an alternative to End Time alarmism.
• Fueling much of this despair throughout the 1990s was fictional series called "The Left-Behind" series.
• But does such an end-time scenario really reflect what the Bible teaches?

Segment 2: Our Understanding of the Last Days

• Rather than the end time facing our generation, we have discovered that it was a time unique to Jesus and his generation.
• This period extended from the Cross to A.D. 70—the destruction of Jerusalem and Israel’s Old covenant.
• In contrast to the Premillennial view, Max King put forth the Transmillennial® view.

Segment 3: Interpreting Our Past

• Understanding the story of the Bible presents us with many of the same challenges as interpreting ancient civilizations.
• The New Testament was written without punctuation or even spaces between words. It is as difficult as interpreting the phrase "GODISNOWHERE."
• The King James Bible interpreted Matthew 24:3 as the disciples asking about the "end of the world." But in actuality they asked Jesus, "What is the sign of the end of the age?" that is, the Mosaic age.

Segment 4: Too Much Tension

• In the New Testament period, there is a bridge that expands between the Law of Moses and the New Covenant of Christ.
• Scholars refer to as the "already but the not yet." Many people think we still live in the "not yet." But if we say there is more to come, this is where the tension of the bridge becomes too much and collapses.
• According to Matthew 16:27-28, Matthew 24, Jesus saw his return occurring within the time frame of his generation.
• Peter, James, Paul, and John also felt the coming of the Lord was at hand. See      1 Peter 4:7, James 5:8, 1 Corinthians 7, 1 John 2:18.
• Hebrews 10:37 says this coming will not delay, and the book of Revelation begins and ends with this same sense of nearness (1:1; 22:7, 10).
• C.S. Lewis calls Matthew 24:34 "the most embarrassing verse in the Bible. For clearly Jesus expected to return in that generation but He did not." The question is, "who are you going to believe?

Segment 5: The Process of the Changing Covenants

• Israel was set free at the Red Sea and yet didn’t enter the Promised Land for 40 years.
• In 1 Corinthians 10:11, Paul compares this wilderness journey of Israel to first-century believers, "upon whom the ends of the ages had come."
• This was not the end of world history, but the end of redemptive history, the time of ushering in salvation.
• The believers in Christ were freed from their bondage at the Cross but, like Israel before, they would not enter their rest for another 40 years.
• This period of time did not extend past the destruction of Jerusalem and the Old covenant world in A.D. 70.
• Jesus foresaw this 40-year period, when this Old covenant world would pass away.
• In Matthew 24:29, 30, Jesus used the same language that Isaiah used against Babylon in Isaiah 13:10, 13, to describe the downfall of the Jewish temple-state.
• Year’s earlier Joel prophesized what would take place in the Last Days. And on the day of Pentecost, Peter claimed this was happening.
• What were they the Last Days of? It can’t be the Last Days of the New covenant for that is everlasting, "a world without end" (Ephesians 3:21).
• But Hebrews 8:13 and 2 Corinthians 3:7, speaks of the Old covenant system on its way out.

Segment 6: Our New Covenant

• Jesus is the living water, the fountain that flows from within.
• Many people proclaim the end when it’s just the beginning.
• We are here to build the civilizations of tomorrow that bring glory to God.
• But we need to understand the presence and the fullness of God if we are to engage our world constructively.

Segment 7: Continue the Journey

• William Blake said, "We’re caught between two worlds, one that is dead and another that is powerless to be born."
• And as long as we’re living in some Last Day’s countdown, then this new world will be powerless to be born.
• The Bible began in a garden but it ends in a new city, a New covenant reality best viewed through a fulfilled perspective of Scripture.
• I’d like to invite you to study these things further, and join me in a 12-part "Spirit of Prophecy" series.
• Call us, toll free, at 1-877-757-2703 and we will rush deliver "The Spirit of Prophecy" book and DVD study series. Or go online at http://www.presence.tv/books and order this 2-part DVD set.