John K. Jenkins Sr - The Doctrine of Eschatology

All right, thank you for joining us again tonight. We 're in this series on the key doctrines of the faith. We’ve spent the last several weeks discussing the key things we believe, and tonight is actually week six of our acknowledgment and conversation about these doctrines. What is so important about this is that what you believe determines where you will spend eternity and where your faith lies. I think it’s essential that you all know what it is that we believe, what we’re teaching, and why we teach it. Therefore, we have spent time walking through and examining six key doctrinal beliefs, and tonight we are finishing with number six.

We have also looked at what some other religions believe as it pertains to these key doctrines. I want you to know-I’m going to say it again-I want you to understand what’s different about your beliefs versus those of others. I just want you to be persuaded and to know where your convictions are and why we believe what we do. So, let me take a quick moment to mention what the first five doctrines were. If you didn’t get an opportunity to participate in those teachings, I strongly encourage you to go back and check them out. The great thing that came from the pandemic is that you can access all of those teachings for free on YouTube. You can visit our YouTube channel — some of you may already be on it-and it’s called Inside FBCG. Enjoy viewing those teachings at your leisure.

The first doctrine we covered was the source of authority, which defines what we believe. That source of authority is the Scriptures, the Holy Bible, comprising the 66 books of the Bible. We examined what constitutes those books, how we received them, why God gave them to us, and the trust and confidence we have in them as the Word of God. That’s why we govern our lives by them-that’s the source of authority, number one. Everyone has a source of authority; don’t let it be merely your opinion, your mindset, or the influence of a movie star. People allow numerous things to dictate their beliefs, but we believe the Scriptures define our lives and order our steps.

Secondly, we discussed the doctrine of God-the nature of God and His personhood; we looked at several Scriptures that relate to this. Thirdly, we examined the doctrine of Jesus Christ — who He is and what we believe about Him and what He has done for us. Jesus is the cornerstone of our belief and faith; He is the one who dictates it all. Some groups have tried to undermine His divinity, attempting to demote Him, but we believe He is God. The Bible clearly teaches that He is God, that God became flesh and dwelled among us, and we beheld His glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, as John 1 teaches us. We place absolute faith in Jesus Christ; He is the cornerstone of everything we believe. We believe He died on the cross for our sins, was wounded for our transgressions, and rose from the dead. That is what we believe-God brought Him back from the dead, and we place our complete confidence in Him.

Number four, we dealt with the doctrine of man — the makeup of man and our history, how God constituted us, and what makes us who we are. We examined how mankind brought sin into the world. Then, number five, we addressed the doctrine of salvation-how we get saved. Jesus Christ bore our sins in His body and, in fact, was raised from the dead. This aspect distinguishes Him from Buddha, Confucius, Hare Krishna, Muhammad, and others. What sets Jesus apart from every other so-called messiah or savior is that He conquered death. That is why we trust in Him-He is the one who did that for us, and we give God glory for who He is and what He did.

Today, we conclude these key doctrines with the doctrine of eschatology. Let me put that on the screen for you quickly so you can see it. The word " eschatology» means «things to come.» It refers to the study of the future, of what will occur tomorrow, in the coming years, and in the decades ahead. Again, people hold a variety of beliefs, but we’re going to briefly discuss what we believe about the future. We want to begin by examining what this study of end-time events entails .