Biblical Timeline: Creation to Christ's Kingdom!

Okay, it's good to have everybody in with us this afternoon. And we always like to let our television people know that we tape our programs on a Wednesday afternoon and that, of course, involves working days. And so most of our folk are those that are either retired or haven't been fortunate enough to get a day off. And again, we always like to warn our audience, we tape four programs in a row. So you're going to see the same crowd and you're going to see me in the same way for four weeks straight or four days, whatever the case may be. But we're glad you're with us and we trust that as we open the Word, you will learn and grow in grace and knowledge, which, of course, is why the Lord has left us here. We have materials available for those of you who like to read or want to watch the videos at home or listen to an audio tape. And if you're interested in any of those things, why you just give us a call or drop us a note. All right, now we get right into the meat of the hour, and that is, of course, the Word of God. And since we are going to be following a format of Through the Bible, as our program title indicates, we're going to start in Genesis. But before we actually start looking at some distinctive Scriptures, which we'll probably do in our next program, for today I just want to give an overview of what some have called, and I like to jive right in with that, a plan of the ages that the Almighty, Triune Creator God precipitated sometime way back in eternity past, when, according to Acts chapter 2, they in counsel and according to the foreknowledge of God set everything in motion. And of course, the beauty of Bible study is to see that God, as sovereign that He is, nevertheless let men and nations exercise a free will, and yet here we are, as near as we can tell, nearly 6 ,000 years from man's beginning, and everything has fallen right in place according to God's timetable. Now, how He does that without making human beings simply robots is beyond our understanding, but it's so factual. We can see it. Everything that was prophesied concerning His first coming were all fulfilled to the last jot and twiddle. Everything that has been more or less prophesied concerning the end time, we can now see is falling into place, and it's all according to His timetable, and yet He has never made men or governments just a robot. And so as we consider the subject matter in this half hour, we want to look at the overall scheme of things as God laid it out from eternity past, beginning, of course, with the creation of man. Now, I usually do not like to get involved with controversy as to the origin of the universe. I always say, so what? What difference does it make? The main thing we have to understand is that at some time in the past, God created it out of nothing, and we'll be covering that in the next half hour. But I'm going to put a timeline, as I have called it for the twenty-some years I've been teaching, I'm going to put a timeline on the blackboard, and again, I always like to explain why I prefer a blackboard and why I put it on as we go rather than using transparencies and overheads and some of the other technologies, is that I learned in my college days that if I had a professor who would write the things on the board as he was teaching, then I could identify with it, I could write it in my notes, and I would remember it. And on the other hand, I could look at something that was pre-prepared and laid out on a note page and I would glance at it and think, yeah, I know that. And then when test time came, I didn't. And so I'm still using that same old format that when I put it on the board, I want you to possibly put it on your own note page, and I think that I have personally led more completely indifferent, ungodly, when I say that I mean they had no sign of God in their life. I think I have led more people from that kind of a background to a knowledge of salvation using this timeline than any other one thing. Because you see, I remember years ago, a gentleman came up to my ranch and it was at the end of a long day. And I got off my tractor and he was waiting for me. And he had a lot of questions. When I took him in the house and set a cup of coffee in front of him and I asked him, I said, well, where are you coming from? What are you thinking? And I'll never forget his question, and I've said many, many times, I wish that more people would ask that same question. Because this is, I think, the biggest problem in Christianity today. And his question was, who in the world is Jesus Christ? And you see, the world doesn't really know who He is. Now, in our studies in Corinthians, for example, we've been showing how that He is above every name. He is above everything that's ever been named or created. And one day He's going to defeat the final enemy of mankind, death itself. But it's the same Jesus Christ that created the universe. And so this timeline, as we lay it out, brings the whole thing into focus. And learn to use it. Because this is something, again, that so many people have shared with me, that this is what got them interested. This is what began to make sense out of what the Bible is saying. So we're going to go back over to the very left-hand end of the line, and we're going to take this timeline as just an unfolding now of human history, which of course is God's term for His story. And we start back here with the creation of Adam and Eve at approximately 4004, naturally, B.C. And we're going to just keep moving on up through time until finally, I like to split this for sake of a teaching method, I'm going to split it in the middle. That between Adam and Christ's first advent, which is 2000 B.C., we have the appearance of the man Abram or Abraham. I might as well finish the whole word. And that's at 2000 B.C. But we want to back up 400 years. Now I do this in round numbers strictly for sake of memory. Now to be specific, there are probably little difference in years here, but they're not enough of any consequence. So for sake of memory, to remember these things, I like to back up a 400 year gap of time to Noah's flood. And then I guess we can put the name in here of Noah. And that takes place at about 2400 B .C. In other words, the 400 years before Abraham came about, we have the flood of Noah. So from Adam until the flood is a period of about 1600 years, during which time the whole human race had opportunity to have a knowledge of God after the format that He gave to Cain and Abel, that if they would bring a blood sacrifice when they sinned, God would accept them on the basis of their faith. But for the most part, the human race then was no different than it is now. And so they walked it all underfoot until finally God had to destroy them. All right, now then halfway between the flood and the call of Abraham, I'm going to have to mark this down here, we have the Tower of Babel. Now the one thing I always like to emphasize when we teach the Tower of Babel, and we'll be coming to it as we come on up through the Scriptures. But for us today, it's so good to know, it's for our own good, that every false religion, every pagan religion that you can name or think of, every cult, every idolatrous mythological religion, I don't care what it is, every false religion has its roots at the Tower of Babel. Never forget that, because it was at the Tower of Babel that mankind who had as yet not scattered and they hadn't grown that great a population number after the flood. But that group of people were determined to find an ulterior or an alternative way to approach God, and that was the whole idea of the Tower of Babel. It was a place of false worship. And so I like to highlight that. Now beginning then with the Tower of Babel, in that next 200 years, the human race just goes deeper and deeper into false religions. So that by the time you get to 2000 B.C. or at the call of Abraham, I maintain that maybe with the exception of Seth, who may still be alive, but other than that, there was not a believer in the true God left on earth. Once again, the whole human race had succumbed to Satan's counterfeit religions, which had begun at Babel. And when we get there in our study, we'll show how that the book of Joshua, chapter 24, verse 2, it says so plainly that Abraham's father, Terah, who lived on the other side of the river, or the Euphrates, and they all served other gods. In other words, they were all idolaters, including Abraham himself. But at 2000 B.C. then, after that debacle of the Tower of Babel, God does something totally different now, because for this 2000 -year period of time, man has had every opportunity of experiencing a salvation as Adam had, as Abel had, as Noah had, and so forth. But for the most part, they rejected it. All right, so God has seen that in 2000 years of human history, man would not succumb to His offer of simply being obedient to what He said, believing what He said. And so now He's going to do something totally different. Here at the midpoint between Adam and Christ, He calls out this man, Abram, and I'm going to make it a little bit more obvious so that our television people can see it. He's going to bring out of this mainstream of humanity, and maybe I can do that this way, here goes the main river of humanity, going all the way out to eternity. And off of that mainstream of humanity, God is going to call this one man, Abraham, He's going to give him a covenant in Genesis chapter 2, and He's going to tell this man that out of him will come a nation of people, the nation of Israel, or as we better know them, the Jew. And so from Genesis chapter 12 all the way up into our New Testament, the Bible is telling almost, I won't say totally, but the Bible is dealing almost totally with the nation of Israel. And He gives them the covenant promises back there in Genesis 12, that out of this one man will come a nation of people. And He's going to put that nation of people in one geographical area of land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, which we call the Holy Land, which the ancients, even before Abraham, the Egyptians for one reason or another referred to that land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan Valley as the Divine Land. And they didn't really know why. But it was just evident that God had His finger on that little piece of real estate. Well, after Abraham had been promised a nation of people in a geographical area of land, the third part of that covenant we always emphasize was the coming of a government and in the person of a king. And so here is the beginning then of God's dealing with the nation of Israel under covenant promises and is setting the stage for the coming of their king who would be the government. Now you know, common sense tells you, you cannot have a nation of people operating as a society if there is no kind of government. Then all you have is anarchy. And of course, that's what happens so often in Israel's history. The book of Judges tells us so plainly. I think it's the last verse of the book of Judges, and everybody did which was right in his own eyes. Well, it's anarchy. But they had that constant promise out there in front of them that the time would come when God would provide their government in the person of the king, the Messiah, who would be, of course, the Son of God. And so your whole Old Testament, whether it's history, whether it's the Psalms or whether it's the book of the prophets, everything is preparing the nation of Israel for the coming of their king and their Messiah and, of course, their Redeemer because there had to be salvation before any of the rest of it could come to pass. And so always remember, then, that as you read your Old Testament, I don't care what it is, whether it's history, Psalms or the prophets, everything is in preparation for the nation of Israel to receive her king. All right, now as we come up through, then, the Old Testament and we reach the time of Christ and His three years of earthly ministry, this is going to be the whole vortex of His ministry. The reason for all of His signs and miracles is to prove to this nation of Israel that He was the Messiah. And a lot of people miss this. They think He performed His miracles only out of compassion, only because He felt so sorry for the sick and the blind and so forth. And that was certainly true. But the main thrust of His signs and miracles and wonders was to prove to the nation of Israel who He was. And we emphasize that when we get to our study of the Gospels. For example, in Matthew 16, we won't take time to look at it in this half hour. We'll look at these later. But in Matthew 16, as they have now come nearly to the end of that three years of earthly ministry, and Jesus and the Twelve are clear up there in northern Israel, up at the headwaters of the Jordan River. And Jesus asks them the question, Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And those of you who have been in my classes, you can know the answer without looking it up. Some said, You're Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. Others said, Oh, you're John the Baptist. And others said, He's some other great man. But He says to the Twelve, But whom do you say that I am? And Peter answers, as the spokesman, I guess. And Peter answers, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And when we read those portions, I always point out to people, see, Peter didn't add anything about the cross yet. He didn't know about the cross. Peter doesn't say a word about resurrection. He doesn't know about the resurrection as yet. And yet Peter said everything that needed to be said, because Jesus never said a word against it. But He commended him by saying, Flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, Peter, but my Father which is in heaven. So was Peter right? Absolutely, he was right. And we see this throughout the Gospel account, Martha, at the account of Lazarus' death. And she was a little uptight, you know, that Jesus had been absent when He should have been there to heal him from his sickbed. But Jesus' answer was what? Oh, Lazarus shall rise again. But Martha, thinking He was speaking of the resurrection, said, Oh, I know, at the last day. And then Jesus gave that classic answer, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in Me, yet shall he live. Believest thou this? And what was her answer? Yea, Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Period. See? And you go all the way into Saul's conversion, before the Gospel of Grace has even been whispered. And Saul has that tremendous conversion experience on the road to Damascus. And after his body had been replenished with food and he'd gotten his sight back, he goes straight to the synagogue of the Jews. And what does he preach? That Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Son of God. And so this was the whole thrust of the Old Testament covenant promises, is that their government in the person of the King and the Messiah and the Redeemer would one day come to the nation of Israel. Well, we know now from history as well as from the book that Israel didn't believe who Jesus was, for the most part, only a small percentage believed. And so the majority cried out for His death, crucify Him, crucify Him. And another classic statement, which was word for word from the Old Testament Scriptures, we'll not have this man to rule over us. And so Rome carried it out at Israel's request, and He was crucified. All right, then that takes us in to that area of the timeline beyond the cross, when Israel now, because of their rejection, is funneled back into the mainstream of humanity, which we call the dispersion. And they were sent into every nation under heaven, they were dispersed, and the temple was destroyed, the priesthood was destroyed, and Israel almost loses her national identity, for sure, as they are dispersed into, again, the main line of humanity. And all because they rejected their Messiah and their opportunity for the King. But, you see, even though Satan may have thought that he had won the victory here, he may have thought he was close to destroying everything that was prophesied through the nation of Israel here, yet just shortly before 70 A.D., when the temple is destroyed, but sometime before that, God raises up the other apostle, the apostle Paul, and now through his preaching of the gospel of the grace of God, God pulls out a people for His name, which we call the body of Christ, which is the church. And it's a whole new concept that was never known back here. Nothing in the Old Testament had any idea that God would, without Israel, pull off of the mainstream of Gentile humanity as well as the Jew, and would put them into one body, which we call the church, and it's all by grace. And so I like to call this the Age of Grace, the calling out of a people by His name. Now when the church is complete and filled up, then God has to take it out, and so I am a strong proponent of the rapture of the church just shortly before the beginning of that final seven years, which the Old Testament, of course, prophesied and always split three and a half and three and a half. So as we come to the end of the church age, and it's taken out of the way, then God can finish where He had left off with Israel back here. And again, you know, the Scripture is so meticulous, all the way through prophecy. And I guess I could take you back at least mentally to Daniel chapter 2. And you remember that great dream of Nebuchadnezzar, and how Nebuchadnezzar lost it, couldn't remember it, but Daniel was brought out of his place, and because of this interpretation, of course, he was elevated to the second man in the kingdom. But nevertheless, Daniel recovered the dream and interpreted it. And the dream, you remember, was a great image of a human man. And he had a head, and his head was made of gold. The chest area was made of silver. The belly area of brass. The legs of iron. And then the five toes, or the ten toes rather, were made of a mixture of iron and clay. Now, you want to remember that as you come down the line of these metals, we go from the most valuable, gold, all the way down to the least valuable, iron, and then that which isn't even good for anything, it's the iron and the clay. But the Scripture says that Babylon was that first empire. It was the greatest empire that the world up to that time had ever seen. But the amazing thing it says is that an inferior empire would destroy it. Now, I can remember 25, 30 years ago, that's the word that made me dig a little deeper. How could he call an empire that would defeat another empire inferior? Well, when you come down these metals, as I've already mentioned, you go from gold to silver to brass to iron, which are a decreasing in value, but they are increasing in their hardness or their ability to be used for manufacture. In other words, I always give the example, you certainly wouldn't make a plow with gold, even if it was cheap as dirt, because it has no strength. But iron, of course, is the metal then of choice. So what we have is a descending value which shows the descending ability of governments to govern from an absolute dictator such as Nebuchadnezzar down to the Medes and Persians who now had to have the consensus of two, to the Greek empire, which was divided before four generals, you had to have a consensus of four. And then you come down to the Roman empire, which was the first republic in human history. Yes, the Romans had a senate. If you'll remember correctly, it was a senator who assassinated Julius Caesar. And then we come down to even a weaker consortium of material, and that's the iron and clay, which we feel is the revived Roman empire, which is coming upon Western Europe even tonight. Now then, what is the opposite? Well, as they ascended in military power, they descended in political power. And that's the quickest way I can explain it. And so everything through human history is an increase in military power of one kingdom over the next. But as the next empire came along and divided the authority, it weakened their political structure. And I can remember more than once, I have taught we love democracy. Absolutely we do. But when it comes to getting things done, it's the most inefficient government that man ever dreamed of. And yet we can see that prophetically, prophetically the world had to come to the place where we are tonight. And that is that every little nation from here to Timbuktu tonight wants a democratic form of government. Who would have ever dreamed 50 years ago that the world in general would come under democratic forms of government? Well, it's prophetic, see? And now when you get down to the ten toes then, Nebuchadnezzar's vision, all of our democratic governments are as weak as cotton thread. And if you don't believe that, all you have to do is look what happened in Albania here just a few months ago. Just over the fact of losing their investments, the little nation went into total anarchy. Well, that would have never happened under a strong armed dictator. But under a republic form of government or a democratic form of government, the people can topple a government just by simply marching down the street. And this, of course, is what causes the instability. Well, of course, by the time the church is raptured out and the last seven years come on, when that ends, then we come to the second coming of Christ, which I've got already set here with the arrow. And Christ will return a second time, and then He will be ready to set up the kingdom that has been promised to Israel ever since Genesis chapter 12. And so there we have, in just sort of an overall nutshell, the whole picture of human history from Adam to the cross to the calling out of the body of Christ, the church, whereupon the tribulation will come in under the rule of the Antichrist, another world ruler. And then at the end of that, Christ returns victoriously, and the earth will revert back as it was in the Garden of Eden. And then we go into those final thousand years when He will rule and reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like more information about the Les Feldick Ministries, a Bible study in your area, or about this program, write to Les Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. That's Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.