Participants: Chris Holland
Series Code: IIWC
Program Code: IIWC201624A
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00:00 IIW-2016-24 --- THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK #3
00:04 IIW-2016-24 --- THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK #3 00:10 IIW-2016-24 --- THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK #3 00:15 IIW-2016-24 --- THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK #3 00:20 IIW-2016-24 --- THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK #3 00:24 IIW-2016-24 --- THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK #3 00:29 IIW-2016-24 --- THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK #3 00:33 IIW-2016-24 --- THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK #3 00:37 IIW-2016-24 --- THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK #3 00:42 IIW-2016-24 --- THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK #3 00:47 IIW-2016-24 --- THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK #3 01:31 >>Announcer: It has stood the test of time. 01:35 God's book, The Bible 01:38 Still relevant in today's complex world 01:44 It Is Written 01:46 Sharing messages of hope around the world! 01:58 CHRIS: Foundations are such an essential part of the building component. In places like San 02:05 Francisco, for example, where there are frequent earthquakes, they have developed foundation 02:11 systems that are able to withstand the pressures of an earthquake so buildings still 02:18 stay upright, because they've been founded on a strong foundation that will not wither 02:25 under pressure. In the Christian life, in the spiritual life, how can we be built in 02:32 such a way that we won't wither under the pressure and the attacks of the devil? You know, 02:40 the Bible says we're living in the end of time. The Bible also says that the devil is roaming 02:45 about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. So it should be with utmost importance that 02:53 we establish a solid foundation so we can withstand the attacks of the enemy. As we've been 03:02 talking about foundations, I've had with me guest Pastor Karl Tsatalbasidis. Pastor Karl, I 03:09 want to welcome you back to It Is Written Canada. So happy that you're here with us. PASTOR 03:13 KARL: Thank you, Chris. CHRIS: Now, for those of you who are watching for the first time 03:18 with Pastor Karl, Pastor Karl's been a pastor 18 years; the last 5 years, he's taught at the 03:24 collegiate level, and about to complete a Ph.D. dissertation. So pretty soon, we'll be calling 03:31 you Dr. Karl. I don't know that many of your students are ready to call you Dr. Tsatalbasidis. 03:36 PASTOR KARL: They're definitely not ready, no. CHRIS: Now, where we left off at the last show is, 03:40 we were asking the question fundamentally, "Why don't we hear more people teaching, more 03:47 people preaching about the sanctuary?" And in particular - we're going to talk about 03:53 history in just a moment - but in particular, are there any Bible verses that help us 04:00 understand why it is we simply just don't hear much about the sanctuary? PASTOR KARL: Yes, 04:08 Chris, there are. We're going to go to a text in Daniel 8 and then we'll go later to 04:12 Revelation 13. You know, the devil isn't very wise, but he's smart, and he knows where to 04:18 attack, and he recognizes that the sanctuary is the framework. It provides the system and 04:24 guidance in order to help us to understand God, to understand how we're saved, to understand 04:29 how we worship, to understand how we should get along with one another and ethical decisions 04:34 that we have to make, and even the process toward unity, or what some may refer to as 04:39 ecumenism. And in the Old Testament sanctuary, everything revolved around that. All 04:45 Israelite life was gathered around that. And just to review, we've been discovering 04:50 that even in the Old Testament sanctuary, everything was oriented and geared toward the 04:55 heavenly. And then we discussed Hebrews chapter 12 and Revelation chapter 1 and 2, and 05:00 Revelation 4 and 5 and others where you have all this rich imagery about the sanctuary and 05:05 heaven. And so that view of the heavenly sanctuary has been really eclipsed. And there are 05:12 real reasons that the Bible points as to how this went about happening. So just to pick it 05:19 up. CHRIS: We'll go right here to Daniel 8, but something I think, you and I were talking 05:23 before the show started, and I think it's something important that we need to point out, 05:27 because there may be somebody listening who has heard someone say, "You know, the Old 05:31 Testament sanctuary actually is just a copy or looks just like other ancient pagan sanctuaries 05:39 or temples." Now, we have established very clearly, the Bible says, the sanctuary in 05:44 heaven has existed forever, since the beginning of time. And so I asked you the question, 05:51 "Could it be that the Hebrew sanctuary, while maybe coming after some of those pagan 05:57 sanctuaries, the Hebrew sanctuary is actually not a copy of those pagan sanctuaries, but 06:05 rather, those pagan sanctuaries are a counterfeit to the true sanctuary?" What do you think 06:12 about that? PASTOR KARL: You know, just before we go to Daniel, why don't we just go to 06:16 a book over, Ezekiel chapter 28? CHRIS: Sounds good. PASTOR KARL: And in Ezekiel chapter 28, 06:22 it talks about the rise, or it actually explains the rebellion of Lucifer. And in verse 14, it 06:30 says: 06:48 PASTOR KARL: Now, there are two things in verse 14 that point to the heavenly sanctuary: him as 06:51 the anointed cherub, and in the sanctuary of Solomon's temple, you actually have four of them, 06:56 in First Kings 6:23-28. And then he's in the midst of the stones of fire; in Ezekiel 1:4-5 you 07:05 have the living creatures that are in the midst of the stones of fire, reminiscent of 07:09 Revelation 4 and 5 and the living creatures that are there So it's interesting that you 07:13 make the point that these other pagan temples are actually counterfeits, and I think this 07:19 text kind of explains why. It tells us that Satan, Lucifer, was one of these covering 07:25 cherubs. And of course, he would have first-hand knowledge and first-hand experience about the 07:31 realities of the heavenly sanctuary. And one of the best things he can do, then, is to 07:36 make counterfeits to make it look and appear as if all these pagan temples are really, you 07:43 know, resembling the heavenly, but yet, he can't quite do that; he can't make them an exact 07:48 duplicate without ruining his own mission and his own purpose. CHRIS: That's right. PASTOR 07:52 KARL: And so he will go ahead and then modify them. And then some critical scholars that 07:57 don't really believe the Bible is inspired and that we can't use one text in order to 08:02 illuminate another, they'll pick up on that and say, "Hey, the Hebrews really got this idea 08:07 from all the surrounding nations," when in fact, as your question really alludes to, 08:10 there was an arch-enemy, and he knew the plans, and he was able to counterfeit this. 08:15 CHRIS: Absolutely. And now, to our viewer, if you are saying, "Who is this arch-enemy? Who is 08:21 Lucifer? Who is Satan?" you can go to our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/IIWCanada. There, 08:29 you can look up two different series: "Noah: The Real Story" or "Star Wars." In both of 08:37 those, we trace the history of rebellion of this once-angel, now turned arch deceiver; once 08:44 known as Lucifer, now known as Satan. So Pastor Karl, very clear - and I wanted to point 08:50 that out - because what we are seeing is we are seeing counterfeits. And it makes 08:53 sense. The devil was in heaven at one time. He would've known the layout of the sanctuary. And 08:58 in his best attempt to make religions that actually worship him, he lays out this sanctuary 09:05 system that is a false or counterfeit. But we have something else going on here 09:10 that we don't hear about the sanctuary very much: we actually see, in the book of Daniel, that 09:16 the sanctuary is trampled. PASTOR KARL: Yes. CHRIS: Let's talk about that, and then we'll 09:19 jump to Revelation chapter 13. PASTOR KARL: Alright. So let's go back to Daniel chapter 8, and 09:25 we'll pick it up at verse 8, it says: 09:41 PASTOR KARL: So Alexander's empire is broken, 09:43 and it goes to the four winds of heaven. And it says: 09:57 PASTOR KARL: And so out of one of these horns, and out of one of the directions of the compass 10:01 at the same time, this little horn would arise. And there's a book by Edwin de Cock, brilliant 10:09 South African scholar, who traced the close relationship between the Greeks and the 10:14 Romans. He traced it historically, but also prophetically. And I'm not going 10:19 to bombard our audience with a whole bunch of text establishing this, but here in Daniel chapter 10:24 8, this is basically a Grecian horn. Alexander's a Grecian king, and his empire splits up 10:32 into four, and so these are four Grecian empires. And then the little horn would grow up out of 10:37 one of those empires. And that happened to actually be the empire of the western Greeks in 10:44 Italy, which was really the cradle of Greek philosophy. You have philosophers like 10:49 Parmenides and like Pythagoras; and the more famous ones, then, who assumed some of their 10:54 teachings, were like Plato and Aristotle. And so there you have the development of Greek 11:00 thinking. And so how did Greek thinking basically affect the sanctuary? Well, just before we 11:05 get to that point, let's look at one of the activities of the little horn in verse 11, 11:20 CHRIS: Mmhmm. PASTOR KARL: Now, we've discussed the fact that there are earthly sanctuaries, 11:23 the earthly tent and the temple structure, but that also, there's a sanctuary in heaven. 11:27 So the question is, well, this casting down, which one does it refer to? Well, in verse 14: 11:37 If we apply the year-a-day principle, which is a principle that has been well-known by 11:40 Biblical scholars, employed with all the reformation fathers as well, if we apply, we're not 11:48 looking for the cleansing of any earthly sanctuary. That will be 2,300 years into the future. 11:53 CHRIS: That's right. PASTOR KARL: So we're talking about the cleansing of a heavenly 11:57 sanctuary. We're talking about the fact that when it says "the place of his sanctuary was cast 12:01 down," what it really means, is the instrumental role that the sanctuary would play would be 12:08 completely eclipsed, so the place of his sanctuary being cast down. In Psalm 97:2, it 12:14 links the place of God's sanctuary with God's throne, and that righteousness and judgement 12:19 are the foundation of His throne. And so this is an attack on the heavenly sanctuary. Well, 12:25 how exactly do they do that? I mean, the little horn can't fly up into heaven and wrench the 12:30 angel, you know, all the angels off their posts and wrestle God Himself. This is obviously 12:35 speaking in metaphorical terms when it talks about casting down His place. So this is a casting 12:41 down of the systematic role and nature of the sanctuary, that it would no longer be the lens 12:47 through which God's people would then understand Who God was, His character, or how to be saved, 12:54 or how to worship, or how to make ethical decisions and so forth and so on. That would be 12:59 completely eclipsed. And they did that through. the Greeks thought that ultimate reality 13:05 was outside of time and space. And what they mean by that - they call it timelessness - and 13:11 in timelessness, there is no past, there is no present, there is no future. There is no 13:15 succession of time, so there's a complete lack and incompatibility of ultimate 13:21 reality with time and space. CHRIS: Okay. Now, let's unpack that just a little bit, because 13:25 there might be somebody watching saying, "Whoa, I kind of feel like the train went going by 13:29 there." PASTOR KARL: Yes. CHRIS: So let us be clear. Now, you used the word "lens." So I'm 13:34 going to use a little analogy. You know, almost all of us have been to the eye doctor at some 13:38 point in our life, and as we go to the eye doctor, the eye doctor puts that little device 13:43 up, and then they're trying to find the right prescription for you, and they'll go, "Number 13:47 one, number two. Number one, number two." And as they're flipping that, one is a little 13:52 out of focus, one is in focus. The sanctuary, if we can take that analogy, is like the lens 14:00 that makes everything crystal clear. The little horn power, the cradle of philosophy, the 14:09 cradle of really modern philosophy, they're in the western Greek empire, which was 14:15 actually in Italy, gives rise to a new system of interpretation, a new lens, using that same 14:22 analogy, that, when you flip the lens, everything is blurred. However, in order to attempt to 14:34 bring some crystallizing of the blurring, the explanation is that, "Oh, things aren't really 14:38 blurry; they may appear blurry, but it's not really blurry." PASTOR KARL: Mmhmm. CHRIS: And 14:44 in that context, let's talk about this timelessness now a little bit to help it really be 14:50 concrete for the viewer, for the listener today. What do you mean by that, the timelessness? How 14:56 is that in opposition to the sanctuary? PASTOR KARL: Okay, very good. And it's a hard 15:01 concept kind of to grasp. You know what my wife tells me? She tells me, "You know what? I have 15:06 to study all this philosophy because it's hard to study systematic theology without 15:10 studying philosophy." And so when we head into all this, she says, "You know, you're not 15:15 living in the real world." And most of the time, she's correct. But I'll tell you what, it has a 15:20 massive impact on Christianity and the real world. And it usually takes me a few sessions 15:26 in class in order to try to break it down, so I'll try to do my best. Socrates was having 15:33 these debates with the sophists. That means the wise ones. And the sophists adhered to this, 15:42 which meant that, you know, they believed it. You could make anything anything you want. You 15:46 know, the truth could be black today and then white tomorrow. And so. CHRIS: Kind of the 15:50 idea, what's true for you is true for you, what's true for me is true for me. PASTOR 15:53 KARL: Yes. CHRIS: Relativism. PASTOR KARL: Correct, relativism. And Socrates, who 15:58 was really working and assuming the insights of Parmenides and Pythagoras, was saying, "No, 16:04 there is a truth that doesn't change." And he based that on the immortality of the soul, 16:11 which was then based on this idea that ultimate reality has no time and no space. 16:18 CHRIS: Okay. PASTOR KARL: That was considered unchangeable. So there's no such thing, in 16:23 ultimate reality, as, there's a past, there's a present, there's a future; that doesn't exist 16:28 anymore. And that ended up being the template from which the early church, the medieval 16:35 church, began to understand Who God was. So when the Bible says God was unchangeable, they 16:40 interpret that to mean that He actually doesn't interact with His creation, because that would 16:46 lessen His perfection. CHRIS: Got it. PASTOR KARL: Okay. So timelessness 16:50 means the incompatibility of time and space with ultimate reality, because there is no 16:56 time and space. CHRIS: And that stands in direct opposition to the sanctuary, because the 17:01 sanctuary is a real place that exists in real time - now, that time has been forever since the 17:08 beginning - but where the sanctuary, actually, the very function of the sanctuary 17:14 itself, as outlined in Exodus 25:8 is, God wants the sanctuary to be there because He wants to 17:21 dwell amongst us. And so you have the rise of philosophy, which is essentially saying, 17:29 God's timelessness is actually His lack of desire or lack of intent to interact personally 17:37 with His beings, because there is no reality, so to speak. PASTOR KARL: It's impossible for 17:44 Him to do that, in other words. CHRIS: Whereas the Biblical framework of the sanctuary, that 17:49 lens that brings everything crystal clear, is that God wants to dwell among us, God wants to 17:55 relate with us, and God wants to save us, and God wants to take us to a real heaven where we 18:04 would have a real home with Him where He sits on the throne in the real sanctuary. PASTOR 18:10 KARL: Yeah. CHRIS: Am I kind of summarizing that to help us out here? PASTOR KARL: Yeah. And 18:15 that we're actually doing real things. CHRIS: Yes. PASTOR KARL: We're not inhibited by the 18:19 same things that inhibit us here now, but we're actually doing real things. And you know, that 18:24 brought me to my conversion experience, actually. And I didn't really have a lot of 18:28 Bible instruction growing up, but the contemporary teaching about heaven is that, well, 18:35 you're just going to be kind of like on puffy clouds playing harps for all the ceaseless ages 18:39 of eternity. And as a young man of 21 and 22 years old, that wasn't very appealing. It's 18:45 like, well, who would want to go there? But when you talk about the fact that in heaven, we're 18:51 not only going to see Christ and see the Father face to face, but have association with angels, to 18:58 see the vastness of God's handiwork, doing real things; and so these ideas are very 19:05 pervasive. We're just kind of touching on the consequences of some of them right here. But 19:11 yes, if the Greek idea is true, it changes everything. It changes how we view God; it 19:17 changes how we view ultimate reality. CHRIS: Mmhmm. PASTOR KARL: It changes how we're 19:21 saved; it changes the methods that we use for worship; and the whole thing just snowballs after 19:27 that. CHRIS: So we're continuing to dwell on this question, "Why don't we hear much about it?" 19:32 Karl, are there any other texts that might help us in this understanding of how the 19:35 sanctuary has been cast down? Something in the book of Revelation that might give us a 19:39 little clue-in as to what has happened? PASTOR KARL: Yes, let's turn to Revelation chapter 19:44 13. You know, those books fit together like a hand in a glove. And often, the themes that 19:50 Daniel raises, John the revelator goes and picks up on. And so we're in Revelation 19:56 chapter 13. And in verse 5, it talks about this beast that comes up out of the sea, having 20:04 seven heads and ten horns. And in verse 2, it says: 20:16 PASTOR KARL: And this brings us back to Daniel chapter 7, and that leopard represents Greece. 20:29 And it says: PASTOR KARL: Now, notice very closely in verse 2, that the frame of this animal is 20:33 the leopard, which means that, although this is a Roman beast here that we're talking about, 20:40 and again, there's a close association, not only historically, but prophetically, 20:44 between Greece and Rome. When the Romans took over, they were the superiors of the Greeks as 20:49 far as militarily, as far as administratively, but yet, there's one place where they 20:54 didn't conquer, and that was in the area of philosophy. And they ended up incorporating the Greek 20:59 philosophical structure into their system. And in verse 5, we see here, it says: 21:25 PASTOR KARL: So here is, stated a little differently than Daniel chapter 8, but this beast that 21:29 rises up out of the sea would blaspheme the tabernacle. And he would eclipse it from our view. 21:37 He would completely reinterpret it. He would set up his own earthly priestly system and 21:43 duplicate that which is in heaven here on earth, and at the same time, eclipse our view from 21:49 what's going on there in heaven. CHRIS: Now, you mentioned this in our last show together, so we 21:53 have this. The Bible actually says there would come a time where the temple, the sanctuary 21:59 - and now we have another word here introduced, the tabernacle - all of those are synonymous 22:03 words - would be cast down, would be trampled underfoot. And you keep using this word 22:09 "eclipsed." I love that, because the sun is pervasive, the sun shines, unless there is an 22:18 eclipse. And so, the Greek philosophy which actually found its home in the church, the 22:25 medieval church, essentially crowds out the light of the sanctuary. And something you 22:33 mentioned in the last show was that in the Church Fathers, 37 volumes of the Church Fathers, 22:38 we find very little, if any mention of the sanctuary at all. PASTOR KARL: No, hardly anything 22:44 at all. You can punch up those terms in the search engine, and you find absolutely nothing. And 22:49 Revelation was the last book that was written. You're talking, what, 80, 90 A.D. or 22:55 later. And then, you know, you have some of these writings that are not too far from that, on 23:00 into the 5th, 6th, 7th century, and there's nothing, absolutely nothing. CHRIS: Wow. Now, in 23:06 these last five minutes that we have together, Pastor Karl, what else do we see happening 23:12 historically where the sanctuary is just falling off the scene? PASTOR KARL: yeah. You know, I 23:18 teach a class called History of Christianity, and so I take my students through a little more 23:22 involved process of explaining Greek philosophy, how Daniel and Revelation foresee the rise of 23:27 all this. And because philosophy is sometimes so oblivious and so broad and so, you know, "What 23:39 does this have to do with anything?" and so people kind of have a hard time, and so they 23:45 don't study it. But what we usually find is that even church fathers like, let's say, 23:50 Tertullian, for example, he was kind of, well, not in competition, but one of his 23:55 contemporaries was Clement from Alexandria. And Alexandria was a hotbed of Greek thinking. And 24:01 Clement found no problem in amalgamating Greek philosophy and the Bible. Tertullian, on 24:07 the other hand, despised that approach, completely despised it. But, when it came to the 24:12 issue of the Sabbath, he ended up using Greek philosophy in order to debunk the Sabbath by 24:19 claiming that there is somehow a heavenly eternal Sabbath, and then a temporal Sabbath, and 24:25 that Jesus kept the heavenly timeless Sabbath, but He didn't keep the seventh-day earthly 24:30 Sabbath. And so you can put your head in the sand and say you don't want to study 24:36 philosophy, but you will be doomed to be affected by it. And this has been traced not only 24:41 just in the early church fathers, but even in some of the protestant reformists as well, 24:44 who, like Martin Luther, who called philosophy "like the harlot," but even still, ended 24:51 up using some of their systems in order to explain things that really have no basis in the 24:56 Bible. And so really, some of the top thinkers have been affected by these Greek views: 25:01 Philo of Alexandria, a contemporary of Jesus, who thought, again, you could 25:06 amalgamate the Bible and Greek thinking. When it came to the sanctuary, he basically 25:10 allegorized it away. He completely spiritualized it away. When it came to even 25:18 Augustine in the 5th century, same thing happened. When it came to Aquinas, a prominent 25:26 Roman Catholic theologian in the 13th century, again, they basically just spiritualized it 25:30 away. Why? Because their concept of ultimate reality has no room for this kind of spatio-temporal 25:37 structure in which God actually moves from place to place. There's absolutely no room for 25:41 it. CHRIS: So Pastor Karl, we have about two minutes left. So I'm just going to simply ask you 25:49 this question - we're going to pick this up more in our next show - is there any hope? Do we 25:54 see any hope for a restoration of our own thinking? Because the Bible is quite clear: God exists 26:03 in time, God exists in space. The sanctuary is the sanctuary. It's real. What hope do we have? 26:12 PASTOR KARL: Psalm 11:3: If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? PASTOR 26:17 KARL: The psalmist says in verse 4 that: The Lord's throne is in heaven. PASTOR KARL: Even 26:22 historically, Chris, as God's people were scattered from Jerusalem to Babylon and other 26:27 lands because of their sins, there came a time when they would return. And when they 26:32 returned, what did they begin to do? They began immediately to rebuild the sanctuary again. And 26:39 so as they came out of Babylon, God had called them out of Babylon in order to rebuild the 26:44 sanctuary. You mentioned something earlier also, in Revelation 11:1, and that is, 26:49 after this great Babylonian. I'm sorry, after this great disappointment with the 26:56 Babylonian exile, so to speak, spiritually, the very next thing, this rise and mesh of the 27:01 temple of God. And that's what people began to do. And there are more and more and more 27:05 people doing it today and discovering the sanctuary is the system that helps explain 27:09 everything. CHRIS: And so, as we conclude, we have hope by spending time studying the 27:15 sanctuary. And just like we're in the doctor's office and he flips the little switch and 27:20 says, "Number one or number two," we can take this opportunity to choose number one 27:26 - and number one being, building our foundation upon the sanctuary. Let's have prayer, 27:33 Pastor Karl, and ask God to show us and point us in that right direction. Let's pray. Heavenly 27:40 Father, we are so thankful that we could turn our eyes toward heaven and know that there is a 27:47 God in heaven Who sits on the throne in the sanctuary Who wants to have a relationship 27:53 with us and Who is sending His Son soon to take us home. Please, help us to embrace that 27:59 hope today, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. PASTOR KARL: Amen. 28:07 CHRIS: Dear friends, the God of heaven, the Creator of the universe, desires to have a 28:13 personal relationship with you. He has set a framework, a foundation called the sanctuary 28:20 to teach us about how we can have relationship with Him. I want to offer you the book Where 28:26 God and I Meet: The Sanctuary. This book looks closely at the sanctuary, its components, and 28:35 what it means for each of us as individuals. Here's the information you need to receive 28:41 today's offer. 29:23 CHRIS: The sanctuary is a real place that provides a real foundation for the troublest 29:28 times in which we live. Dear friends, God is calling upon you to place your foundation on that 29:36 rock. Pastor Karl, thank you so much for being here and helping us to see this more 29:42 clearly. PASTOR KARL: It's been great. CHRIS: My dear friends, I hope you enjoyed the program 29:46 this week. I invite you to join us again next week. Until then, remember, it is written: "Man 29:53 shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." |
Revised 2017-04-11