John MacArthur on the how and why of preaching the end of the story (Revelation).
(D. Min lecture delivered on 7/19/16 at TMS):
"My Premillennialist convictions can be summarized in one sentence. Their will be future salvation of national Israel after the unrepentant rebels are purged (Zech. 12-14) and their will be a future reign of Christ upon the earth (Psalm 2; Rom. 9-11; Rev. 20)."
If you reject the literal grammatico-historical method of interpretation the book of Revelation is going to take on a thousand different interpretations. This partially explains why commentaries written by non-Premillennialists interpret Revelation so many different ways.
If you think Christ is glorified in the Old Testament, the gospels, and the epistles you would be absolutely correct.,,But the place Christ's glory shines brightest and fullest is in the book of Revelation.
To ignore this book is unacceptable. It's to have a story without an ending.
MacArthur is convinced the book of Revelation is one of the easiest book to interpret if you maintain a consistent hermeneutic. Dr. Floyd Hamilton himself admitted that if you employ a (consistent) hermeneutic to Revelation that you will be a premillennialist.
A question was posed to John MacArthur, "Why is their such hostility against premillennialism?" Pastor John believes Antisemitism has been the driving factor towards rejecting premillennialism (see Future Israel: Why Christian Anti-Judaism Must Be Challenged). He also admitted that some of the unnecessary baggage has come from the old Scofield study bible. In light of some unnecessary interpretations many people threw the baby out with the bathwater. Wacky Dispensationalism needs to rejected; (such as the errant view that Matthew 5-7 is all about future kingdom living); or "My hope is built on nothing less than Scofield's notes and Moody Press."
