The End of the Church Age...and After

    We learned in Chapter 3 that immediately following the first Gospel season that produced Christ as the first of the firstfruits harvest, there would be three and a half years of spiritual famine. Remember that season was the season of the early righteous rain that would bring in the harvest of the first of the firstfruits, Jesus Christ Himself. God called that first Gospel season "early righteous rain" (Joel 2:23). It was the entire Old Testament period, and more particularly, the period that began with Abraham. It ended with the announcement of Jesus as the Lamb of God in A.D. 29. That announcement together with the ceremonial washing of Jesus in the Jordan River signaled that the sacrifice was ready and the high priest (also the Lord Jesus) was prepared to offer the sacrifice. It also signaled that the first of the times that identify with the term "times and seasons" had begun.

He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

    In continues in Luke 4:16-30. Early on, after He preached in the synagogue of Nazareth, where He grew up, the townspeople's reaction is recorded in Luke 4:28-29:

And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.

    It is emphasized in the statement of Jesus in Luke 9:22:

Saying, The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day.

And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.

    Capernaum was a village on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus spent much time preaching and healing there. But in this revealing passage, He is indicating that the inhabitants of Capernaum were far more rebellious against God than the people of Sodom. And remember, only Lot and his two daughters escaped the judgment of God on Sodom. How sinful and spiritually blind the people of Capernaum must have been if they were even more blind than the people of Sodom.

Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

    Serpents are a reference to Satan. This verse echoes Jesus' awful judgment upon the Jews as He was teaching in the temple. We read in John Chapter 8, verse 44:

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

    If the Jews in the temple, which would include the religious teachers, are spiritually of their father the devil, it means that Satan in some sense is ruling in the temple and synagogues. And since virtually no one is being saved at this time, it means that the Holy Spirit is not present.

    Therefore, as we will learn later in this study, the spiritual condition in the temple and synagogues when Jesus was ministering is virtually identical to the situation in the churches during the Great Tribulation that comes just before the end of the world. No wonder Jesus said in Matthew 23:37-38:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

    Moreover, we read in John 6, verse 2, that a great multitude followed Him. This is when Jesus fed the 5,000 men plus women and children (verse 10), so we know that a very large crowd was following Him. But when He began to speak about the spiritual implications of a relationship with Him, we read in John 6, verses 66 and 67:

From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?

    Although these two verses do not specifically say that only the twelve apostles remained, they give the strong impression that not many more than the twelve remained. Basically, all the rest had left.

A Famine of Hearing the Word of God

    The reason for this blindness in Israel at the time Jesus ministered is given in Matthew 13:13-15:

Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

    The problem was that there was a famine of hearing the Word of God. True, with their physical ears they heard the finest preaching possible. After all, Jesus is God Himself. No one could preach as accurately and wisely as Jesus. Surely, we would expect a great number of believers as a result of people hearing the perfect preacher.

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

    The preaching was perfect. The physical hearing was quite adequate. What was wrong? What was the problem? The problem was that there was a famine of hearing the Word of God. God was not giving the hearers spiritual ears to hear the Word of God. They could receive spiritual ears so that they could hear the Word and become saved only if God the Holy Spirit applied the spoken Word to their hearts, and He does that only for those who are to become saved. When Jesus was preaching, the Holy Spirit was not doing this. Jesus told His disciples in John 14:17:

Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

Three Requirements for Salvation

    There are three requirements that must be met before someone becomes saved. The first requirement is that Jesus must have paid for the sins of that individual. Since Jesus paid for the sins of only the elect, that individual would necessarily have been chosen by God from before the foundation of the world.

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. 

    The third requirement is the action of God the Holy Spirit who must apply the Word of God to the heart of that person, and when He does that, God saves that individual. The only reason anyone becomes saved is because God applies the Word of God to the heart and the life of those He has elected to salvation. In John 14:17, Jesus effectively is instructing us that while Jesus was preaching the perfect Word of God, the Holy Spirit was not in them, that is, He was not in their midst to apply the spoken Word to anyone's heart so they would become saved.

Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?

For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?

    Israel again fell in their rebellion against God in that they bound Jesus and had Him crucified. But this was absolutely necessary in order for salvation to be possible for all of God's elect throughout the world. Thus, this time of spiritual famine was a time of judgment. That judgment focused on the Lord Jesus Christ who is the first of the firstfruits harvest of the first season, the early righteous rain. This harvest resulted in Jesus being announced as the Lamb of God. This announcement, which signified that the first season (the early righteous rain), had come to an end, was immediately followed by a three and a half year period of spiritual famine during which Jesus was under judgment.

Satan was Conquered

    There was another judgment that identifies with this same time of spiritual famine, and that was the judgment that came upon Satan. Throughout the season of the early righteous rain, Satan was relatively free to bind the hearts of people. He was even allowed to be in heaven and make accusations concerning God's relationship with the believers (Job Chapter 1).

And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon: and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him 

Michael is the Lord Jesus Christ. He defeated Satan by shedding His blood.

    Michael is the Lord Jesus Christ. He defeated Satan by shedding His blood, that is, by giving His life in the atonement experience. By going to the cross, Jesus not only paid for the sins of the elect, He also brought judgment on Satan. Revelation 20:2-3 declares:

And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.

    Revelation 13:3 informs us that one of the seven heads of the beast (Satan) was wounded to death.

    All of this language indicates that at the time of the cross, Satan was sentenced to eternal damnation, and since the time of the cross, he has been and will be under the wrath of God till the end of time. Fact is, at the end of time, Satan will be immediately cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10). No statement is made anywhere in the Bible that Satan will be judged on the last day. This is because effectively, he was judged at the cross. However, all of mankind who have not become saved will be destroyed by fire on the last day (Revelation 20: 15).

And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. 

    Christ is the one who confirmed the covenant. Officially, He was declared the Messiah, that is, He had come to confirm the covenant, when John the Baptist baptized Him. In the middle of the week that followed, that is, three and a half years later, sacrifice and offering ceased. Sacrifice and offering ceased when Jesus was crucified. He was the sacrifice to which all previous sacrifices were pointing. Thus, this time that followed the early righteous rain season was precisely three and a half years. The time was identical in length to the three and a half years of famine of Elijah's day. We might recall that it was very near the end of that famine that fire came down from heaven and destroyed the sacrificial bullock and the altar. That event was pointing to the judgment that was to fall on Christ when He was crucified. The parallelism between that event and the time of Jesus' ministry ending with His crucifixion is very exact.