God commands Moses to lift up this symbol and if anyone would simply look to the symbol, then they would live. And this was not lost on Jesus. In John 3:14 and 15 (the setup to John 3:16), He says, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” He understood that this was a shadow that was pointing to Himself.

He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it (it was called Nehushtan).
2 Kings 18:4
Did you know that it’s easy to make idols. Really anything will do. Money, status, jobs, etc… God’s word tells us that presumption and covetousness are like idolatry (Col 3:5, 1 Sam 15:23), and that we should, “flee from idolatry” (1 Cor 10:4). God expressly forbids idolatry in all its forms in the Ten Commandments. The Heidelberg Catechism defines idolatry as “having or inventing something in which one trusts in place of or alongside of the only true God, who has revealed himself in the Word.” John Calvin said that our hearts are idol factories, and I can believe it. We are often tempted to push God to the side in order to trust and be satisfied in something else.
But something about the verse at the top of this page strikes me in a different way about idolatry. Something that might not be obvious at first glance. Idols can be overtly evil, but did you know that even good things can become idols? Did you know that even things that are meant to be pictures of Christ can be turned into idols? This is where Nehushtan comes in.
Nehushtan was the name that the people of Israel had given to the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness.
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The years between Jesus’ crucifixion and the downfall of Jerusalem witnessed a marked increase in earthquakes both by number and by volume. The same is true for famines that attacked the residents of Rome and threatened to evaporate the people of Judah. But these events are not random. They were prophesied by Jesus and they happened in the lifetime of the disciples just like He said. 

If the Glove Don’t Fit…
Perhaps the most explosive and prolific trial of our lifetime was the OJ Simpson murder trial in the early 1990s. As an eleven-year-old boy at the time, I still remember watching the primetime aerial coverage of a white bronco lazily loafing down the LA freeway with as much agility as a soppy wet sponge. After that, I recall the media frenzy as millions all over the country tuned in with popcorn and rapt attention to watch a kangaroo court deliberating the case with all the panache and showmanship of a Ringling Brothers Circus. But, what stands out as the most memorable moment in the trial, at least in my memory, is when Juice’s dream team head attorney quipped: “If the glove don’t fit, then you must acquit”. Ultimately, the jury did acquit as successive civil cases raged in court for the years to come.
Now, without getting into the weeds of that trial, the point was simple. If the evidence in the case cannot be reconciled to the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt, then he must be acquitted of the charges. But, if the glove used in the murder did fit, then getting to a guilty verdict would have been all the more reasonable of a conclusion.
In the case of eschatology, my goal thus far has been to show that most (not all) of the passages that are normally associated with a future-oriented perspective do not fit the glove. They do not align with the evidence presented in the New Testament and do not pass the sniff test to meet any reasonable burden of proof. And, instead, it is the preterist view that offers the most compelling explanation for these passages.
To prove this hypothesis, I have presented line after line of evidence in a systematic way. I began by showing how the eschatology of Malachi looks forward to a first-century judgment coming of Christ against the Jews. You can find that article here. I then conveyed how John the Baptist expected an imminent judgment coming by Christ against the Jews (i.e. the ax was already at the root of the tree) found here. From there, I demonstrated that this was, in fact, the general expectation of Jesus, which is laid out specifically in my post on Matthew 21, Matthew 22, Matthew 23, and in the introduction to Matthew 24. Then, over the last couple of weeks, we have been looking at specific signs that Jesus gave (Such as the Rise of False Messiahs and Wars and Rumors of Wars) that so clearly point to a past fulfillment that the burden of proof has swung almost fully in the favor of the preterist position.
This week we continue through the evidence Jesus presents so that we might have a comprehensive view, so we can see the reasonableness of the position, and so we will not be led into trembling by the end-times prognosticators and tribulation hucksters. Today, we look at Matthew 24 and the end time signs of Earthquakes and Famines that Jesus gave, in order to see if this evidence fits hand in glove for a first century fulfillment as all previous evidence has done.
Covenantal Earthquakes and End-Time Seismic Shifts
Before we look at Matthew 24 and the evidence of earthquakes in the ancient world, I want us to see the New Testament expectation for Jesus’ first-century, earth-shaking, end-time coming. Said plainly, I want you and I to see that when Jesus came to the world, He intended to give it a good last days shaking. Whatever remained would be left for Him to rule. Whatever fell away would be like chaff devoured by the scorching east wind.
For instance, In Hebrews chapter 1, the author tells us plainly that we are living in the last days (Hebrews 1:1-2). To him, the “last days” represent the entire era of New Covenant redemption (i.e. the church age). After he drops that bomb, he describes how the era of priests, temples, and animal sacrifices was rolled up like a scroll to be put on the shelf (Hebrews 1:10-14). That long chapter was finally closed and now the final chapter of human redemption has come through God’s Son.
Near the end of the book, after Christ replaced the Old Testament types and Old Covenant vestiges, the author gives a vivid picture of how Old Testament time will end. Not surprisingly, it ends the same way it begins with a wiggle wobbling and jiggle joggling covenantal shake. In the Old Testament, that happened on the local level, by earthquakes at mount Sinai. In this new covenantal era, the entire world and heaven will need to be shaken in order to welcome God’s eternal Kingdom to this earth (Hebrews 12:18-29). While that shaking is clearly spiritual and covenantal, we shouldn’t be surprised when the rocks cry out and when the fault lines tremble. They often see what is happening more clearly than we do.
The Unleashing of Earthquakes
When modern-day prophecy charlatans read the words of Christ:

“In various places, there will be famines and earthquakes. But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.” – Matthew 24:7-8

… They assume Jesus is talking about phenomena that will necessarily plague the modern world. When this ilk of newspaper scholars spy a random earthquake in California or hear tell of an occasional famine in the Middle East, they are the first ones to dust off their heavenly suitcases and prep their underground bunkers for the inevitable tribulation. It is as if they believe we are the only people in human history who’ve ever felt the earth tremble under our feet or have seen our plants die in the dusty scorcher.
It is important, however, for all of us to remember that Jesus is responding to specific questions, concerning first-century events, that the disciples were asking Him about. They wanted to know when the temple would be destroyed (Matthew 23:38-24:1-2), what would be the signs that this event was drawing near and how would this bring about the end of the Jewish age (Matthew 24:3).
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Written by James E. Bruce |
Wednesday, December 7, 2022
There are certain ways of thinking about justice and equality that undermine historic Christian doctrines. People embrace a new kind of equality and then champion a different kind of Christianity, too.

What causes people to leave the church: evolution, the sexual revolution, or something else? Perhaps all of the above. But let me offer an additional reason why people abandon Christianity: equality.Not every kind of equality casts doubts on Christianity’s core doctrines, but some do. Take the most obvious culprit: equality of outcome. If justice demands that everyone receives the same share, then hell is morally intolerable. But equality of outcome has few defenders, even in the academy, so it’s hard to imagine people leaving the church over that.
Equality of opportunity is different. It’s widely embraced, though people mean very different things when they speak about it. Sometimes they want the most talented person to get the job. This kind of equality of opportunity poses no problems for Christianity and is, in fact, supported by it.
But sometimes people use the language of equality to say there is injustice in the inequality itself. Someone may say the problem isn’t that medical school was closed to people because of race, gender, or religion; after all, it isn’t. Doctors just make too much money compared to the rest of us. We don’t need just gross income equality, the complaint runs. Wages need to be fair, or fairer.
Fairness
This language of fairness highlights the variety of views we hold about justice and equality. In The Righteous Mind Jonathan Haidt writes about conservatives who were not pleased with previously published research; they told him so in forthright language. The problem? Haidt and his colleagues asked questions about fairness in terms of equality and equal rights.“We therefore found that liberals cared more about fairness,” he writes, “and that’s what had made these economic conservatives so angry at me.” Conservatives think liberals don’t care at all about fairness, as they understand it: “It was the fairness of the Protestant work ethic and the Hindu law of karma: People should reap what they sow.”
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