The End That Already Happened (and the Kingdom That Remains)

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What if the end times that many Christians are anxiously

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waiting for already happened?

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What if the prophecies of Jesus, Paul and John weren't about our future, but

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about their present and their near future?

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If you've lived with fear, confusion, or dread about Revelation and the end.

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This episode might change everything.

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The purpose of this I'll be upfront, it's to reveal how understanding

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the historical fulfillment of New Testament prophecy shifts our posture

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from fear to confidence, and allows us to live fully in the kingdom.

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Now welcome to Seat Go Create.

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This is Tim Winders, your host.

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This is episode five of the season.

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Why The Bible Doesn't Make Sense yet, and we've been rolling along with a

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lot of cool topics and we are going to put maybe not a finish on it, but at

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least an exclamation point on what we've been talking about in this episode.

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And I'll go ahead and if I had the red light and could start, you know, swirling

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around with all types of things, this is something that in Christian world, in

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church world is extremely controversial.

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Probably more controversial than just about.

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Anything.

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I found out about a year or so back when I interviewed someone that talked

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about end times, antichrist, rapture and those kind of things, and I just

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thought we were having a conversation.

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Well, if you go back and read those comments, some of the comments from I.

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Well, we'll call 'em Christians are some of the most vile, ugly, hate-filled

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comments that you will ever see.

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Don't mess with people's rapture and don't mess with.

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Somebody's gonna come and take me away from all this mess.

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But I'm guessing that if some folks are gonna be listening to this and you feel

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really strongly that we're gonna be raptured outta here and there's gonna

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be an escape hatch to break away pre tribulation and avoid the antichrist and

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Israel's being reestablished and all that, we're about to, kind of shake that up.

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But hang with me.

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Because we could walk through it with scripture and talk about how it

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fits with the Bible, and that's one of the reasons we've been talking

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about how the Bible, the story of the Bible, the narrative, if so important.

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Because if you pull out some of these scriptures and try to make it fit with

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news items or headlines that we see today, you know, you can start trying

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to convince people that maybe, maybe.

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The end times that Jesus prophesied what happened within a, within a

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generation 40 years of, of his death, maybe you could start convincing people.

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If you twist the scriptures around that it still.

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Fulfilling or about to happen 2000 years later.

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That's not the case though.

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Let's talk about it.

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Let's break it down and let's look at the story of the Bible that we've been

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looking at for the last four episodes.

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There is, in modern Christianity, and maybe it's mostly in our country of

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America, but probably in the first world I've noticed it in other countries,

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there's this lingering anxiety in modern Christianity about the end of the world.

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Many believers live in fear that there's gonna be this thing of rapture and what

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if I'm raptured out, or what if I'm not?

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And there's a tribulation, there's antichrist, all of those things.

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Those things that we've been discussing that many people have been saying,

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and I believed a lot of this up until recently, those things are

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actually not scriptural and they're not part of the biblical story.

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They were part of a story that occurred 2000 years ago, and they

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may still have some relevance, but they are not part of some future.

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I am more convinced of that than I ever have been, and for many years.

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I just wanted to avoid the topic and I'll talk more about that in just a moment.

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This has been fueled by sensationalism movies.

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I. And out of context teaching.

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I still remember, I've mentioned this before in some episodes that on my

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parents' shelf when I was growing up, and we didn't go to church that much.

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We were not real church going people.

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We grew up in the deep south, so we had a lot of religion around us, but not a lot

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of, I guess, spiritual depth necessarily.

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But we had the book.

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The late Great Planet Earth, that was one of the biggest sellers around, and

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it basically predicted that the world would end in 19 88, 40 years after the

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Nation of Israel was established in 1948.

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Well, here we are in 2025 and he wrote an updated book.

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That said, it was actually a few years later and then a few years

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later and a few years later.

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Bottom line is he has sold a boatload of books predicting that the end is

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near and none of them have come true.

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In the nineties.

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I read a bunch of fiction books.

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That were the left behind series that were written as fiction, but they were written

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with scriptural foundation air quotes for those that might be listening in.

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And I read them and they were great stories, and they

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had some scripture in 'em.

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But truthfully, they twisted scripture and they told a story that wasn't accurate.

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And a lot of people believe that I did.

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I mean, it was probably baked into my theology.

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It was, I was a fairly new Christian and I was thinking, man,

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this is some kind of stuff here.

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And what that does is it creates kind of a spiritual panic, a doom that

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things are gonna get bad or that they're always getting worse when in actuality.

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Most things are getting better, but we believe spiritually

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that they're getting worse.

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And if we are people of Christian faith and we have this thought that

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we're going through life, that things are really getting worse when they're

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actually in many ways getting better.

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I'm in, I'm sitting here in an office in air conditioning.

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I'm in Georgia.

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It's hot outside, but I'm cool on the inside.

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I've got cameras, lights, all this kind of stuff here.

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Things are getting better.

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Are there some things that don't look great?

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Of course there are.

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I'm not fooling myself.

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there's still good and bad in the world.

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There's evil, there's explanations for that.

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But people are in a spiritual panic and it's rooted in misunderstanding.

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And as we've been talking about in previous episodes of this

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season, not understanding the full narrative and the story of.

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What the Bible is all about.

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The words of Jesus I think are what we really need to go to to understand this.

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They were urgent and they were time sensitive.

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In Matthew 24, Jesus said, this generation will not pass before these events

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occur, and then went on to state some.

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End of times language.

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That was the end of times that would occur 40 years later.

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A generation, by the way, with the events that occurred in 80 70.

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Now, I wanna say this, and I wanna say this strongly.

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If you are one that says, Jesus really didn't mean 40 years, or that he

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really didn't mean a generation, or you start parsing what a generation means.

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Then in my opinion, you're messing with the words of Jesus and you're belittling

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the prophetic nature of what Jesus said.

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You're gonna have to start doing that with a lot of other things he said,

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and that is dangerous territory.

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I truly believe that when Jesus said, this generation will not pass.

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Jesus meant it and it was true and it became true, and Jesus also

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said it was in the same, what some call the vet discourse that some

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standing here will not taste death.

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He was speaking to his apostles.

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And one of those apostles that we believe did not taste death before 80 70 was John.

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and so the others did, they were martyred, but he said that I believe that.

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And historically we can back that up.

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Jesus also said when you see Jerusalem surrounded, and we've tried to take

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that and talk about all these events occurring in the 2010s in the 2020s.

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That occurred in 80 70.

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It is historical.

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It is a fact that the armies of Rome surrounded Jerusalem before

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destroying Jerusalem and the temple.

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And then it said, you will see the son of man coming.

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And that coming was the ending of the old covenant that occurred in 80 70.

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It was the day of the Lord.

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These were real warnings to real people.

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In the first century, not scare tactics for people that are of our

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day that are combing the headlines.

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Trying to find how these things that were written in the first

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century to audiences in the first century, and it applied to them.

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It doesn't apply to us now.

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we can learn things from it.

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They mean things.

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There's, there are things there that we can glean and gain from, but all

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I'm saying is let's don't try to twist it and make it apply to things that

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are going on today and make things up when it actually already happened.

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The New Testament writers outside of Jesus also.

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Echoed this immediacy in Acts two 17, the statement in the last days.

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In fact, if you do a search on, the end or last days, it is all throughout the New

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Testament and in almost every situation, it is specifically being addressed to

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the audience that it was written to.

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So think about this, if someone came to your door.

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And said, by the way, I want to tell you some things about the

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last days or the end or something that's coming and it's coming soon.

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and you found out, it was thousands of years later.

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That would make no sense.

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In fact, I believe it would belittle the messages that were being written

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and sent to the audience of that day.

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So, also in one Corinthians 10 11, the end of the age has come upon us.

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Not 2000 years later, the end of the ages come upon them.

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Those people in Corinth that received this letter in Hebrews in these last

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days, he had spoken to us by his son.

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And then James five three.

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James message.

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You have Hoarded Wealth in the last day speaking to them.

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Then current present, it is the last hour.

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That was something that John said in one John 2 18, 1 Peter four seven.

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The end of all things is at hand.

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Therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers.

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I just think it's really arrogant of us to really believe that all of those

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things that were written to the audiences of those days, it's arrogant of us to

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pluck those things out and try to say that that's what's going on today.

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I just had someone I interact with on Facebook that they were posting that the

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end is near, obviously look at what's going on, and they said something about.

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you, you know, they, something from a headline that was going on.

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and listen, there is a final end that will occur.

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We are moving towards a new Jerusalem.

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That was at the very end of Revelation, but it wasn't all

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of the events of Revelation that were the tribulation events.

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Nope.

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that already occurred.

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That happened.

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The fulfillment of all of those things.

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In fact, I would even say the first 1920 chapters of Revelation occurred.

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In 80, 70 in or around 87 70, the temple was destroyed.

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Jerusalem was judged, and the nation of Israel was devastated,

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just as Moses warned his people.

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That was all in Deuteronomy 28 through 30.

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it said this is what was said in Deuteronomy 28.

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Now it shall come to pass if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord

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your God, to observe carefully all his commandments that the Lord your God

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will set you high above all the nations.

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But it goes on to say.

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That if you do not obey the voice of the Lord, there are cursings that will occur.

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Now, being a guy that came from Prosperity Gospel roots, when I was

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first saved in a first early Christian, I really loved those blessings.

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Boy, I tell you what, I hung out and spent time with those blessings.

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And I think many people in First World Church, we do the same.

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But one, one of the things that you have to look at is what are those curses?

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And if you look at those curses.

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And you compare those with what occurred in the first 19 chapters of Revelation,

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then you'll see that that was the judgment that was warned about in

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Deuteronomy 28, some in 29 and 30, that it occurred all the way in Revelation in

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the, in the early parts of Revelation.

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So it was warned that judgment came, the nation of Israel did not obey.

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They were judged for that, and they were also judged for not honoring

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and recognizing the Messiah.

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When the Messiah came, Jesus was sent for Israel first to call

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them to repentance, then for the Gentiles and to bring judgment.

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That judgment that we hear about in Deuteronomy 28 through 30.

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And to continue drawing all things to him, to God, after that period of time.

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And that was the purpose, not, not to just kind of set the stage for some

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future ending event that they discussed and talked about in Revelation.

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And this was not an episode to go into all the gory details of

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Revelation, but I did want to.

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Talk about kind of revelation as a warning and a warning for the people of that

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day, not necessarily for the future.

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In fact, the chapters that address beyond what happened in 80 70

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are incredibly, incredibly, I, you know, They are optimistic.

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the Revelation 20 and 21 and 22 are extremely optimistic and talks of

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there's no death There will be no chaos.

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There will be no sickness, there will be no tears.

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and that's where we're headed.

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We're not headed towards that first part of Revelation that's already occurred.

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That was just a warning to those people.

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It wasn't a cryptic roadmap for our time where we start trying to take

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all these pieces and make them apply.

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It was pastoral and prophetic, and it was full of symbols that

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were known to first century.

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Jews, and let me give you the perspective here.

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There are Old Testament references in the book of Revelation that the audience

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of that day would have understood.

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Than we would ever understand.

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I mean, it is full of Old Testament references that in, in my opinion, is

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probably written not in a direct format, but in somewhat of a code so that the

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audience that received these letters from John would know what he was talking about.

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And I just think about this for a moment, just put yourself in their shoes.

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Let's just say that we're in the timeframe of 80, 65, 64, 65, 66.

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We believe that the Apostle Paul was beheaded.

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In Rome at around that time, somewhere in that timeframe.

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So think about today, if a prominent figure, a world leader or a ministry

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leader, someone that you knew, you found out that they were beheaded for

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their beliefs around that same time.

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Peter was also, he was also martyred.

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He was crucified.

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He refused to be crucified like Jesus Christ was crucified

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and was crucified upside down.

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What if you got word that that was going on?

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What if you were one of these small groups, this, these groups

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or ecclesias, these small churches that were sort of huddled together?

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You had the Jewish structure that was coming against you because they believed

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you were heretics and did not understand this Messiah that you believed in, and

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they were fairly violent themselves.

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They're the ones that actually, Martyred.

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James threw him off the temple, in fact.

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and they were also the ones that sent Paul to Rome.

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And, that actually was how Paul was beheaded, was while

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he was in Rome, but just.

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Think about, put yourself in their shoes.

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You're sitting there and you believe this Messiah, this Jesus, and maybe

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you are of a Jewish background.

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Maybe you are a Gentile, but you believe this and you've got the Roman Empire.

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That's coming against that belief system and you've got the Nation of Israel, the

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Jewish people that are coming against it.

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You've got two forces squeezing you and you've got a letter or

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something that comes from John.

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I don't think that John's going to be clear and say, by the way.

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The Roman government is going to attack Jerusalem, and Jerusalem

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is going to be destroyed.

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I just don't see him saying it that way.

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I believe he has to write in code.

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He has to use numbers like 6, 6, 6 that they understood what it meant and he has

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to write in a way that isn't exactly.

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Understood by all it's understood by people that knew the Old Testament, that

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knew how to read some of those things and then apply it to what was going on Then.

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So when you receive that letter from John, I. In AD 66 or 67, it gave you a

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warning of what was about to happen over the next three and a half years leading up

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to a 70 in the destruction of the temple.

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It was pastoral, it was prophetic, it was a warning, and it was full of symbols

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that they knew in the first century.

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It's one of the reasons why we don't know it well, because

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we haven't studied all that.

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And we try to make a lot of things up to try to make it fit our

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world and it just doesn't fit.

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It described persecution of Rome, Rome's corruption.

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That's another reason why he wouldn't put it in a letter necessarily

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and sign the bottom of it.

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He needed to kind write it in, code it.

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It described the coming end of the old Covenant SE system.

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The old covenant system would end when the temple was destroyed.

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The temple is where sacrifices occurred.

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Sacrifice was required in the old covenant, was also required

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in the new covenant, but that.

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Occurred with Jesus.

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It was a one-time sacrifice that was all that needed to be done.

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But in the old covenant, they needed to do sacrifices constantly and systemically.

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When the temple was destroyed, there was no more sacrifice.

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With no more sacrifice, no more covenant.

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The old covenant ended.

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The only covenant remaining is the new covenant, the Messiah

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covenant, the covenant that we live and operate under today.

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John wrote to warn and he wrote it in Old Testament code for a reason.

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It was really about victory.

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Not doom.

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That was the point.

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Those who overcome.

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Now what does that mean for us now?

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Because some of you might be going now, hold on a second.

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I've been operating and living as if we're doomed.

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The end is near and I am just hopeful that I've made the right

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decision so that when people get plucked out of here and raptured

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away before things get really bad.

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I'll be okay, and I'm just looking to punch my ticket to heaven.

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That's not the story of the Bible by the way.

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That's not our goal, is to punch our ticket to heaven.

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So what does that mean for me?

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You might be asking yourself the question.

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That's what I did, is I was going through this process Of clearing this paradigm

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out, of getting this junk that I had believed for so long that I realized

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it was just baked into my mindset.

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I was baked into the way I thought it was baked, into the way I read the Bible.

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It was one of the reasons that I read it wrong.

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It's why we've been talking about that over the last few episodes.

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I just read it wrong.

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I understood things differently when I was reading about what.

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Peter said what Paul said about what John said.

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I was trying to totally apply it to me instead of understanding the

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audience that they wrote it to.

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If the judgment that Jesus foretold already happened, we are not

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waiting for that judgment anymore.

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There will be a final judgment.

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I'm not saying that all things are the way they are going to be.

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Final judgment, but it doesn't have all of that other junk we've

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been trying to incorporate into it.

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we are, we are moving towards another Eden.

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We're moving towards a new Jerusalem.

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We are operating currently in the kingdom of God that Jesus brought,

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and we're moving toward the.

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Final time of being new Jerusalem people, the sons and daughters of

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God, not awaiting or hoping for some escape because things are so bad.

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But we are here expanding and building the kingdom of God

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while we are here on this earth.

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God's presence is here.

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His kingdom has come.

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We have the authority to operate in that.

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All we do is live it and share it and experience it with others.

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We don't have to scare people with something bad that's gonna happen.

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If something on this earth happens to remove us from the earth or remove us

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from this realm before the new Jerusalem occurs, We're good because we are still

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in a realm that's moving towards new Jerusalem, the new heaven and earth,

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the resurrected bodies that we will be in that are, that is what is told in

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the last few chapters of Revelation.

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The mission is not survival.

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It's restoration.

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It's being restored into God's kingdom, into his family, and

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being sons and daughters of God.

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The Bible ends where it began, presence, peace, and a garden city.

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It.

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It really is.

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The Eden that we see in Revelation is the new Jerusalem description

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that we're moving towards.

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It's the marriage that we hear about, the marriage of the lamb, the restoration.

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We live as kingdom citizens, co-laboring with Christ, as his

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ambassadors here on this earth.

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We have seen so many scriptures.

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I mean, I've already mentioned Matthew 24 34.

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This generation will not pass.

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When you see Jerusalem surrounded, you will see the son of man coming.

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The dwelling place of God is with man.

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He is with us.

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He is in us.

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The Bible.

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Listen, let me just wrap up with this.

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The Bible's not about fear.

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It's about.

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Fulfillment.

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Is there a lot of scary stuff in the Bible?

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Yeah, there absolutely is.

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But the story, the narrative, the thing that I've been talking about

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is the good news, the gospel, the fulfillment of living in God's kingdom.

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Those of us that have accepted Christ and are operating in living with Christ

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and in Christ, we are fulfilling.

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We are fulfilling.

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The, the living in God's kingdom, it's not a countdown to destruction.

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It's an invitation to live.

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It's an invitation to life.

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It's an invitation to expand his kingdom.

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While we are here, the whole season, this whole episode, all these five

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episodes has been about helping you.

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Move from confusion to context.

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It's all about the journey that I've been on moving from, you know,

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what, what is, what is this bible?

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What is this all about?

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What are these scriptures?

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And I mean, listen, I had some stuff baked in.

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I hung out in Bible school with a lot of people that were good folks.

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They were trying their best, but didn't really understand

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the story, and I didn't either.

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For whatever reason, the Lord's led me on a journey the last few

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years to understand it better.

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Do I understand everything?

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No, I don't.

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There's still things I'm trying to understand, but I will tell you that

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that paradigm shift, that click when it has occurred, I now read these

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scriptures, especially in the New Testament with a whole new light, with

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a whole new hope, with an excitement of.

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Wow, I understand how these things fit together.

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Instead of trying to read them and pull things forward into the news stories

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of today, trying to make it fit with the politics and the events of our day.

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I do think things apply, but we are just expanding God's kingdom.

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We don't have fear, we have faith.

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We've gone from striving.

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And trying and trying and trying and being fearful to that

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is what the real message is.

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We are abiding.

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The kingdom is here.

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The new covenant is real, and the invitation as it has been for 2000 years.

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Has always been open, and it's open right now.

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And if you're hearing this and you're going, wow, you know, you

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might be listening, going, you know, I, I disagree with a lot of that.

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That's fine.

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I'd love to hear your comments.

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I'd love to engage with you.

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But if you're hearing this and going, that's what I've needed to

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hear, that's the message that I've needed to hear about that is actual.

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Good news then.

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Hallelujah.

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Welcome in.

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That's the kingdom of God.

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You're welcome to join in and you can now with the proper

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mindset, start reading scripture and expanding the kingdom of God.

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I wanna remind us back to episode one.

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When we talked about the new man from CS Lewis, the real transformation

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that happens is when we stop striving, stop living in fear, and we start

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abiding and living as that new man that CS Lewis spoke about and that

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we talked about in episode one.

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Of this season.

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This wasn't just personal, it was prophetic.

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The old system is gone.

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The new man lives in the new covenant, and the kingdom is here, and those

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of us that have accepted Christ live and operate in the kingdom of God.

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I hope this has been good for you.

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This may be the end of the series, but it's just the beginning of the journey.

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Many of you are going to be really perplexed by this.

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All I ask you to do is go back and read the New Testament with some of

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the things I've talked about in mind.

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Read it, thinking about what.

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The audience was thinking, what were they going through?

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Instead of read reading Revelation as if it's some kind of future thing, read it

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as if it was a message to those that were being warned about a destruction that was

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about to happen just a few years later.

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Part of my journey of learning more has been to meditate on what it was like in

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the first century, what was going on in Galatia when Paul's first letter, his

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scroll arrived, and what I've done, I just wanna give you a little glimpse into

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some projects that I've been working on.

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I think many of you know that I've written some fiction.

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I guess over my right shoulder here is my book, my novel that I wrote, which

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was a modern day story, A modern day parable, but the Lord has really led me

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over the last few years into spending time in the first century thinking

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about the audience and the writers.

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What was going on during those 40 years, between 80 30 and 80 70?

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And so one of the things that I've been doing is immersing

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myself in that timeframe.

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And what it's led to are some ideas and some stories that are

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fictional, but they're based on truth.

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They're based on scriptural things, they're based on actual historical events.

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And I have been working on some of those.

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So there's actually going to be some novels, I'll call 'em mini novels

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and stories about that timeframe.

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I've actually written the first one that occurs right around that

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timeframe of 80, 70, and, um.

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Got some work to do on it, but I'm really liking the way it's coming together.

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And then another project I'm working on, and this one actually might be sooner

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and I think it'll be valuable if you have interest in really going deeper into this.

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And what I've done is, is I've taken each book of the New Testament, and I'm

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going through it in order historically, we believe the book of James was written

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first around 15 years after the cross in AD 45, and I started with James

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and I took a look at what James was doing when he wrote the book of James,

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the audience that he was directing it to and what was going on with that.

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Audience and what I've done, I've already kind of created

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my first few drafts of this.

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I created the scenario to kind of put us, to put me in the place that James wrote

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it with, the audience that he wrote it to, and then I write, it's fictional,

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but it's based on those truths and those historical things that we know, and

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it's about a one to two pager short.

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Short story or short synopsis that prepares us to then read the book of

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James and then, and so I've written that and I've also written one for Galatians,

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which was written just a few years later.

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It was Paul's first letter that he wrote to the church in Galatia,

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and I've actually written that so.

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I plan to do that for all 27 books of the New Testament.

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Put it together in a Bible study that will look like a 90 day reading plan

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for the New Testament, and it will be in the order that the books were written.

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So it starts with James then goes to Galacia.

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Thessalonians, I believe are next and et cetera, and it has those stories

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in the background for you to read.

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I'm excited about it.

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I hope people are too.

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I'll probably put some up on my social media.

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I'll probably make some initial downloads available, and I may put it together

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in some form of a Bible study or book.

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But anyway, I believe it will be helpful to immerse ourselves more into that first.

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Century because here's what I believe.

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I believe if we understand who the New Testament was written

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to more, then we also understand the message of the New Testament.

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And if we understand the message of the New Testament, we understand

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more how it applies to us.

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And if we understand more how it applies to us, we can fully walk out.

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Our call to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness that Jesus stated in

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the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 33.

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I hope that this has been helpful for you.

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It has been helpful for me to put it together.

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I've learned a lot just trying to focus this into five episodes

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to kinda share the journey that I've been on, and so I am hopeful.

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Full that this will help you live out the kingdom of God that we are called to

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be living in and expanding here and now.

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Thank you for joining us here on Seek Go Create.

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Until next time, keep becoming and living what you were created to be.