All Episodes
Previous Next
Plain Text
Sept. 3, 2020 - Jim Bakker Show
06:57
How Do We Know These Are The Last Days - Rick Renner
|

Time Text
The Last Days Debate 00:06:19
How do we know, Rick, that these are the last of the last days?
And I'm so upset that so many church people aren't ready.
They need preaching of the word.
They're not ready spiritually.
That's right.
So how do we know that these are the last of the last days?
Well, I have my Bible, so I'm the Bible man.
So I want to refer us to 2 Timothy chapter 3.
And in 2 Timothy chapter 3, the Apostle Paul is writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
And it's like he points his finger 2,000 years into the future.
And he begins to prophesy what's going to happen in the very, very end of the age.
And if you really understand the Greek words that are locked inside this verse, it's like mysteries just open up and the whole verse and our times become clear.
For example, Paul says, this know also that in the last days, perilous times shall come.
Well, you know, people say, oh, the last days.
They've been saying it's the last days for 2,000 years.
Well, you know what?
We need to congratulate anybody who says that because the last days have been going on for about 2,000 years.
They started on the day of Pentecost.
Peter said on the day of Pentecost, in the last days, I'll pour out my spirit.
And the spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost, and that triggered a season called the last days.
Some people call it the church age or the age of grace, but the Bible calls it the last days.
And it's this period that we're living in.
But when you come to 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 1, it's describing the very end of that period, not the whole 2,000-year period, but the very, very, very, very end.
And the reason we know that is because of the word last that is used in this verse.
And Brother Jim, you're going to like this.
That word last is the Greek word eschatos.
And of course, it's where we get the word for eschatology, which is the study of end things.
But the word eschatos, here translated last, was a word that always described the very, very, very ultimate end of a thing.
For example, if you use that word last to describe the week, you would only use it to describe the very last day of the week.
Or if you use the word eschatos to describe a year, you would only use it to describe the very last month of the year.
It always points to the very, very end.
And in fact, it was used in a navigational way during the first century when Paul was writing to describe the farthest, farthest ends of the earth.
If you went to that location, you couldn't go any further.
And it was used navigationally to describe the last port for a ship.
So a ship may have stopped at many ports along the way, but when it reached the eschatos port, that was the last port.
There was not another stopping off point.
And that's the word the Holy Spirit uses in this verse.
So he's not just describing a 2,000-year block of time.
He's describing the very, very, very, very end of that time.
And I say you could translate it, when time has sailed to the last port and nearly no more time remains for the journey, perilous times shall come.
Well, I don't think any of us would doubt that we're living in perilous times.
And the word perilous is the Greek word kalopos.
That word is only used two times in the entire New Testament, which means it's really easy to determine what it means.
The word kalopos describes something that is dangerous, treacherous.
It was the very word used to describe ferocious animals that would bite you and injure you.
They were menacing animals.
It could describe words that were harming, traumatic experiences, something filled with risk and danger.
And the only other place that it's used is in Matthew chapter 8 and verse 28.
This is amazing.
And in Matthew 8, 28, the Bible says there were two men in Gadara who had demons.
And the Bible says they were exceedingly fierce.
Exceedingly fierce is the word calipos.
The same word translated perilous in 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 2.
These men were so exceedingly fierce, they presented such a risk.
Now hear this because this is important.
Such a risk to everyone in that territory that verse 28 says people were afraid to pass by that way.
Well, literally, there was a road that ran along that side of the Sea of Galilee.
And people were afraid to take that road because of this great risk in that territory.
So that became an impasse.
Now take all of that over into 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 1, where the Holy Spirit describes perilous times.
And he's literally saying, at the very, very end of the age, life on every side will be filled with so much peril that people will feel they've come to an impasse.
What has happened to us?
We're living in territory that is filled with treachery, harm.
It is menacing.
What has happened to us everywhere we go?
And people will have the sense that they don't know how to get around it, that they've come to something that they don't know how to circumvent because it's everywhere.
And in fact, when you go to the end of that verse, it says, perilous times shall come.
And here's the big sign.
In Greek, the word shall come is the word anistomy.
The word en means to be in the very middle of something.
The word istome means to stand.
When you compound the two words together, in King James, you could almost just skip it.
It says shall come.
But the Greek word anistomy really means you're in the very middle of something.
Feeling Surrounded 00:00:52
And in fact, you're so stuck in the middle of it that you feel it's standing all around you.
It is inescapable.
You are encumbered on every side.
It doesn't matter where you look, whether it's here or here or here or here.
Everywhere you look, you feel like you're surrounded by peril, by crazy nuttiness, nonsense.
And in this verse, the Holy Spirit is basically saying, hey, if you feel like you are surrounded on every side by things that are spinning out of control and society has become dangerous, if it's become a menacing place, then tag, you're it.
You're living in the very, very end of the age.
You've sailed to the last port and nearly no time remains for the rest of the journey.
Export Selection