On the cultic fringe you have people like Mormon founder Joseph Smith, who was propagating that notion that his generation was living in the very shadow of Christ’s return. Joseph Smith alleged that God told him the return of Christ would take place before he—Joseph Smith—was 85 years of age. Of course, that didn’t happen.

In more main stream millennial circles, the gifted Baptist orator William Miller was circulating the conclusion that his generation was living on the very edge of the millennium. In fact, in 1831 he publicly identified the year of Christ’s return as 1843. How did he do it? Well, he used millennial mathematics. He calculated a day in prophetic parlance as equivalent to year in prophetic history, and so according to Daniel 8, exactly 2,300 days after Artaxerxes’ decree the millennium would commence. Does this sound a little bit like Jack Van Impe today?

Nineteenth-century Historic Premillennialists used millennial mathematics not only to date the time of Christ’s descent but to determine details like the time of Anti-Christ’s demise. Then in 1831 you have [John Nelson] Darby, who adds a unique twist to the dating game by introducing the concept of a secret coming, seven years prior to a second coming. He said that one can determine the time of Christ’s Second Coming after the time of Christ’s secret coming.

Later dispensationalists like [Tim] LaHaye found a variety of new rules to ensure that the dating game could be played on and on. He demonstrated this idea of forwarding the notion that the “generation” who heard the Austrian Declaration of World War I in 1914 would not pass away before Christ’s Second Coming. ^[2]

So you have the people in the past content to be spectators to unfolding events and timing the events, but today’s brand bent on ensuring that these events become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The problem is if the evangelical death march toward the end time of Armageddon can be subverted, it’s going to be because believers recommit themselves to faithful illumination.

In other words, what I’m saying is, it will be because believers recommit themselves to faithful exegesis—which is to mine what the Spirit has breathed into Scripture as opposed to reading our own predilections into the text. Look, sudden flashes of intuition or inspiration are poor substitutes for the scrupulous study of the Word of God.

We must pray that the Holy Spirit gives us clear minds and open hearts as we dig into his Word. That means a willingness to sacrifice treasured traditions on the altar of biblical fidelity. It means learning to read the Bible for all its worth. Ultimately, it means turning away from sensationalism and marching undeterred toward reading the Bible, studying the Bible, and being intoxicated with the Word of God again, instead of turning on the television and being titillated by the sensationalists. We are dragging Christ’s name through the mud and we need to get back to the Bible, it is critical.

To learn more about reading the Bible for all it’s worth check out my Legacy Study Bible and The Apocalypse Code at www.equip.org.

In our reading back during the winter in Genesis, we found a poignant and profound picture of the fall of Adam into a life of perpetual sin and his banishment from paradise. He is relegated to restlessness and wandering, separated from intimacy and fellowship with his Creator. Then the very chapter that references the fall, records the divine plan for restoration of fellowship. That plan takes on definition with God’s promise to make Abram a great nation through which all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Abraham’s call therefore is the divine antidote to Adam’s fall.  

God’s promise that Abraham’s children would inherit the Promised Land was but a preliminary step in a progressive plan through which Abram and the heirs of Abraham would inherit a better country—a heavenly country. That plan comes into sharp focus when we see Moses leading Abram’s descendents out of their 400 year bondage in Egypt. Through 40 years of wilderness wanderings, God tabernacled with His people and He prepared them for the land of promise.  

Like Abraham however, Moses only saw the promise from afar; but when you start to read the book of Joshua, you will see God’s plan taking on tangible reality, as Joshua leads the children of Israel into Palestine. The wandering of Adam, Abraham, and Moses finally give way to rest on every side. So Joshua was able to say, “Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to the house of Israel failed: every one was fulfilled.” (Joshua 21:45).

So as Adam would fall in paradise, Abraham’s descents would fall in Palestine. Thus Joshua’s words in his final farewell take on ominous reality, “But just as every good promise of God has come true, so the Lord will bring on you all the evil He threatened, until He has destroyed you from this good land He has given you. If you violate the covenant of the Lord your God… you will quickly perish from the good land He has given you.” (Joshua 23:15-16).

Though the land promises reached their zenith under Solomon, the land eventually vomited out the children of the promise just as it vomited out the Canaanites before them. During the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles the wanderings experience by Adam were once again experienced by the descendants of Abram.

Of course, God’s promises to Abraham were far from exhausted because Palestine was but a preliminary phase in a patriarchal promise. God would make Abram not just the father of a nation but Abram would become Abraham the father of many nations. Abram would be heir of the world. The climax of the promise would not be Palestine regained but something far greater, it would be paradise restored—as God had promised Abraham real estate, so too He has promised him a Royal Seed. Joshua led the children of Israel into the regions of Palestine, but Jesus—the Royal Seed of Abraham—will one day lead his children into the restoration of paradise.

The point here is simply to say as you read through Joshua, remember you are on a continuing journey through the Bible, which is God’s unfolding plan of redemption. It starts with paradise and the loss of paradise and it ends with paradise restored. A New Jerusalem, not the old Jerusalem, but a New Jerusalem that Paul says, “is free and she is our mother.” (Gal. 4:26) Paradise lost becomes Paradise restored, and that is what each and every one who loves Jesus Christ had to look forward too.

For further information please see my Legacy Study Bible and my book The Apocalypse Code.

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