LAUDZERMM's video: Sabbath School Lesson 11 in Brief - Bible as Prophecy

Three important concepts: Historicism: regard historical development as the most basic aspect of human existence. Testimonies vol 8, p. 307 Prophecy can only be rightly interpreted when you see it as a continuous fulfilment of history (historicist method), just as seen by the early reformers The SDA Church regard the “sure word of prophecy” as a guide in their life in this world. They believe and have an assurance that God does not lie & His Word is accurate when Bible prophecy gets fulfilled. History & Prophecy: Amos 3 verse 7. Jesus explains in John 14 verse 29, "And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe. Link after link, we can trace down the “great lines of prophecy”. Thus, prophecy “follows an unbroken linear flow of history”. Dan. 2:27-45 The sequence of the king’s dream & how it was fulfilled depicts that there are no gaps in prophecy. The same succession is seen when the image in the dream is depicted as beasts Daniel 7 & 8. Typology: study and interpretation of types and symbols, originally especially in the Bible. Real-Time/Events in Symbols: In mathematics, if X+7=10 then X is a numerical symbol for 3. In the same way, the Bible talks of, a day in symbolism or prophecy to stand for a year (Num. 14:34; Ezek. 4:6). When this principle is applied, we reach an accurate illustration of dates/times for all the symbolic prophecies in the Bible (Dan. 7:25, 8:14; Rev. 11:2, 3; 12:6, 14; 13:5). Here symbols of beasts & horns are being used to represent characters, meaning that in the bible time is not always applied in a literary sense also symbolic. Time as a Symbol. The Bible talks about “Investigative Judgement”, which spans from 457 B.C. when king Artaxerxes decreed for Jerusalem to be rebuilt began on 1844. The 70-week prophecy 490 years Dan. 7:9-14, 26 & the 2,300 (2,300 years) day prophecy of Daniel 8 verse14 are two parts of one prophecy. 490 years “cut off” from 2,300 years leaves us with 1,810 years which ends on 1844, after 1798 look into history you will the papacy’s deadly wound inflicted by pope Pius’s imprisonment by the Napoleon Bonaparte during the French Revolutionary siege of Rome. Little Horn as a Symbol: HORN – symbolise a king who leads a kingdom Daniel 7 verse 24 There are distinct features of the “little horn” in Daniel 7 & 8. The protestant reformers and today’s bible scholars identify it as Roman Catholicism; 1. Daniel 7 & 8 call it little horn. 2. is a persecutor 3. pompous 4. target the Christians/saints 5. it received a deadly wound 6. it extends to the end of time & 7. would be destroyed by a supernatural power. The first is Babylon, then Media-Persia, then Greece & 2 phases of Rome Apocalypse: The final destruction of this world at the second coming of Jesus Christ. The prophecies in Daniel & Revelation are apocalyptic - symbolic & their ultimate fulfilment is 2nd coming: e.g. Dan. 8:21. Typology in prophecy means focusing on real persons/events/institutions which are a type/model that the OT points to as reality in the future (antitype). Paul refers to events in the Exodus, the types, as our examples to depict the antitype, see 1 Cor. 10:6: Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Jesus Matt. 12:40 & NT writers like Paul in Rom. 5:14 used the same analogy when he said Adam was a type of the coming Jesus Christ. Conclusion: Daniel 8 follows the exact sequence of the events in Daniel 7. While Daniel 7 starts with Babylon, Daniel 8 starts with Media-Persia because Babylon was fading out. In both chapters we have; Media-Persia representing the bear & the ram. Greece as a leopard in 7 & he-goat in 8. Rome in two phases Pagan Rome & Papal Rome, and the investigative judgement or cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary (after 1798). All these are historical – apocalyptic - typological events that we know and believe to have/will truly come to pass. Now the question is where do we miss the application of this Bible illustration of the second coming of Christ?