Submitted by Marty on 2009-06-06:
Question: Should difficult statements within Bible prophecy be understood literally or more spiritually?
Answer: Certainly there are passages which, at first glance, appear difficult.
Isaiah's great prophecy of harmless animals during the Kingdom which Christ our Lord will establish at His second coming (Isa. 11:6-9), for example, is quite shocking to the average scientifically-trained person.
Some Christians (i.e., amillennialists) have even denied that there ever will be such a Kingdom on earth, and therefore tend to "spiritualize" the passage (i.e., Luther, Calvin and many Reformed theologians through the centuries), insisting that straw-eating lions (Isa. 11:7), for example, must refer to bloodthirsty men.
But the Bible does not allow such treatments of the inspired text.
As Alva J. McClain, a leading premillennial theologian of the 20th century (and my instructor in theology from 1948 to 1951), observed: "This great prophecy (of Isa. 11:6-9) has often been treated with both incredulity and ridicule. But those who accept as inspired the Genesis account of man's original state in Eden (Gen. 2:19) will have no difficulty in believing that God is able to restore these conditions in the coming Kingdom of His Son" ("The Greatness of the Kingdom" [Winona Lake, IN: BMH Books, 1959], p. 239).

Submitted by Hal on 2009-06-06:
Question: What will happen to the natural world, as well as people, when Christ's Kingdom appears?
Answer: When the Kingdom comes to earth, astounding changes will take place in all animals.
Each mammal, bird and reptile that survives the global catastrophes (the "great tribulation" spoken of by our Lord in Matt. 24:21) which precede Christ's second coming will remain on the earth, free at last from the original curse: "For the earnest expectation of the creature (creation) waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature (creation) was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature (creation) itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God" (Rom. 8:19-21).
However, this will not be true for human beings. Survivors of the great tribulation will not all enter the Kingdom.
As our Lord explained to Nicodemus, only those who have experienced new birth through genuine faith in Him - like Abraham whose faith was "counted ...for righteousness" (Gen. 15:6; cf. Rom. 3:25; 4:9-12) - can enter into His spiritual Kingdom (John 3:3-5, 16; cf. Col. 1:13); and only those who belong to His spiritual Kingdom will enter His earthly Kingdom (Ezek. 20:33-38; Dan. 12:12; Mal. 4:1-3; Matt. 13:36-43; 24:36-41; 25:31-34).
And then, at last, just like the world before the curse, and the world during the flood, men and animals will be in harmony with each other again.

Submitted by Christopher on 2009-06-05:
Question: What does Bible prophecy mean when it says that "the lion shall eat straw like the ox" (Isa. 11:7)? Can this statement be taken literally?
Answer: In essence, your question is, "How can lions still be lions if they will 'eat straw like the ox' (Isa. 11:7)?"
It is important to note that the inauguration of the earthly Kingdom of Christ will involve the sudden reversal of the stupendous miracle that took place when God cursed the entire animal kingdom on the day that Adam, the king of the earth, rebelled against his divine LORD.
"For the creature (creation) was made subject to vanity, . . . (but) the creature (creation) itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God" (Rom. 8:20-21).
God brought about a sudden change in the genetic information code in originally beautiful and harmless animals and thus inaugurated them into what we now call "the reign of tooth and claw." Lions were still lions, and continued to reproduce "after their kind," but their tooth structure, appetite and metabolism changed drastically.
Not all animals became carnivorous, but every kind of animal experienced changes appropriate for a fallen world. This would include increased offspring to compensate for massive violence, disease and death, which were never before known (cf. "groaneth and travaileth in pain" - Rom. 8:22).
No longer were animals under man's original, total dominion. Thus, after quoting the human dominion retrospect of Ps. 8:5-8, the author of Hebrews states: "But now we see not yet all things put under Him" (Heb. 2:8). One might call this the understatement of the New Testament!
The Bible therefore teaches that the Edenic curse on the animal kingdom will be suddenly and supernaturally reversed when the Kingdom age dawns upon the earth - and lions (for example) will function again as they did at the beginning of the world.

Submitted by Tyler on 2009-06-01:
Question: I can’t understand Bible prophecy. Is it just confusing? Can it mean whatever a person wants to make of it? Can we make the prophecies fit whatever view a person has? Or is there some kind of standard by which we interpret and understand Bible prophecy?
Answer: The Lord Jesus, 60 years after He rose from the dead, spoke from heaven to the Apostle John on the Island of Patmos in Rev. 1:3, saying: “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.”
What prophecy was He speaking about? It is the prophecy that is revealed in these marvelous 22 chapters that are the capstone of the entire Bible, called the book of Revelation.
Yes, it requires study. But one of the things you have to realize is that even the figures of speech, the symbols, which are used from time to time in the book of Revelation are not doors to keep the light out, but windows to let the light in to help people understand more clearly the literal details that God wants to communicate to us regarding events about to happen, such as the rapture of the church, the resurrection of the dead, the great tribulation, the anti-christ, the two witnesses, the 144,000 witnesses, the Battle of Armageddon, the second coming of Christ in glory following the judgment throne of Christ for the church and the 1,000-year kingdom on earth.
Prophecies are clearly stated throughout the entire Bible, but they do require deep study.
The Bereans “searched the scriptures daily” to see "whether those things were so" (Acts 17:11). It is not something which just falls out of the sky without any thought, study or prayer to find out what God really said.
Like everything else, studying Bible prophecy depends upon the patient, prayerful, discerning, serious study of God’s Word, and then what looks obscure at first, or even contradictory, begins to take shape and form, and we see the truths that God wants to communicate very, very clearly in Bible prophecy.

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