The Sean McDowell Show - Is Jesus Coming Soon? John Lennox on Revelation and the End of History

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

What is the evidence Jesus is coming soon? What about the Millennium, the antichrist, and the "mark of the beast"? In this episode, Dr. John Lennox joins me to discuss his newest book on Revelation: "God, AI, and the End of History." We discuss his preferred interpretation, his suggests for how to read Revelation (and how NOT to read it), and what Revelation means for today. READ: "God, AI and the End of History: Understanding the Book of Revelation in an Age of Intelligent Machines" by John Lennox (https://amzn.to/48q0M1u) WATCH: The End of the World? John Lennox on AI and the Book of Revelation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAfRswipXiE) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org   Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

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download it today. Life Audio. Sum up revelation for me, what this book is about. I would say, quite frankly, the book is about Jesus Christ. It's a revelation of him. That is, if we understand it correctly, when we finish reading it, we should know more about him than we did at the start. But of all the apocalyptic stories, why do you put confidence in the story told in revelation?

because it's a revelation of Jesus Christ. And he told us about the future, but when he spoke to his disciples, the number one thing he warned them against when thinking about future events was the risk of deception. We are now in an age where AI that you mentioned is making us capable of the greatest and most subtle

kind of deception the world has ever seen. Is Jesus really coming back soon? What should Christians think about the mark of the beast, the Antichrist, the Millennium, and other big questions from the book of Revelation? And what relevance does the book of Revelation have today? Back to discuss these questions is Oxford mathematician, philosopher, and scientist, and author of a new book on Revelation, Dr. John Lennox. Dr. Lennox, thanks for coming back. It's my pleasure. So let's start with this somewhat obvious question, given that you write a book on Revelation.

Why would an Oxford mathematician, philosopher, and scientist write a book on Revelation? And what do you uniquely add to the conversation? Well, you may ask because I'm well aware that mathematicians don't have a particularly good reputation in writing books at Revelation. Isaac Newton wrote quite a bit about it and a number of other mathematicians attempted and some of them even gave a date for the return of Christ but they didn't sell many books after the date had passed but why I wrote it is

not because I'm a mathematician but because I'm passionate about all of Scripture and I believe that just as scripture talks about the past in Genesis, and I regard that as extremely important, it also talks about the future. And it's quite obvious that talking about the past and the future tend to be highly contested. And because I've done quite a bit of work on revelation through my life, particularly with my mentor, the late Professor David Gooding, I thought, it would be good to write something that encourages people not to be afraid of this book

because it homes in on the central hope that Christians have, and that is the return of Christ. So many other motivations were behind it, but I wanted to try to make the book accessible to people who have been scared of it for various reasons, some of them perfectly understand Well, it's a big book, but it is very accessible, easy to follow. And you tell the story in light of kind of the pending fate some people tell about the apocalyptic future of AI. And you contrast that with the book of revelation. So I'm curious, given that your training is in, again, math, philosophy, and science,

which is very logical, analytical. How do you balance that with the book of revelation filled with drama, mystery, imagination, and seemingly fantastical figures? Well, that's an interesting question to think about, Sean. I could refer you to someone much cleverer than me who did this to perfection. That was C.S. Lewis. He had a brilliant logical mind.

He was a first-rate philosopher. And he combined that mind by writing for us both his Narnia, stories and his science fiction books, but all of those are filled with an inexorable logic. That's what makes them so attractive. I, in fact, like Lewis, I believe, I don't see any contradiction in using your imagination so long as it is controlled by logic. And the whole point here is to realize, and this I owe to Lewis a long time ago, is to realize that, symbolism, metaphor, these various figures of speech that are used in the book of Revelation, they all stand for realities. One of the big problems I find in talking to people about this is

they think if the language is fantastical, like beasts and so on, that you get in Revelation, it cannot be talking about reality. But that's a mistake. The book itself and also they parallel book of Daniel. For example, just taking that one metaphor of the beast, Daniel himself tells you that the beast stand for empires, real empires, so that it's important to ask the question, what does the metaphor mean and what is the reality that stands behind it? And then the third question is, what does the metaphor tell us about the reality? An example of that, in the book of Revelation, you see the first vision is the glorified son of man walking among seven lampstands. And you're told that the lampstands are churches. And many people react to that

and they say, aha, now I've got it. The lampstands are churches. So the metaphor for them simply identifies the churches. But that's not the point of it at all. It's the other way around. we're looking at the churches as lamp stands, in other words, as sources of light. And the whole point of the first major section of the book of Revelation, which makes it so relevant for today, is that the son of man who speaks to each in the seven letters to the churches is doing that in order to increase the light of their witness, which is a very practical thing. But if you simply identify church equals Lampstand, you'll miss that completely. The point is the metaphor of Lampstand is meant to tell you what aspect of the church's life and work is being concentrated on. And that opens the whole book when you apply that kind of principle. One of the questions that I have for you is I want to know why you have so much confidence in the book of Revelation,

because right now we're hearing these apocalyptic stories about the future of A. AI taking over the world. In fact, I just saw an op-ed last week about how people were arguing that artificial intelligence has already become conscience, and they do that by re-envisioning what we mean by consciousness, interestingly enough. But of all the apocalyptic stories, why do you put confidence in the story told in Revelation? Because it's a revelation of Jesus Christ. And if we are thinking about the future, my first authority and my major authority is him. And he spoke in the gospel records about the future. It's not just the book of revelation that is telling us about the future.

And he told us about the future. But when he spoke to his disciples, the number one thing he warned them against when thinking about future events, was the risk of deception. Take heed that no man lead you astray. And we are now in an age where AI that you mentioned is making us capable of the greatest and most subtle kind of deception the world has ever seen. And the Lord did warn us about certain happenings that we might call apocalyptic, in the sense that he talked about the moon and the stars.

being blackened and all that kind of language that we meet in Revelation. So that if we just had the Gospels, we would be facing a future that is in a sense mixed. In other words, there are certain grim things that are going to happen according to Jesus himself. But then the thing that the secular doom mongers do not have, then he would come back to take up rule on the early. and usher in the world to come with a reign that is perfect because he's going to be the king. That's what's missing. It's not that they're not going to be doom-like things that are seriously grim, because Scripture warns us of that all the way through. It's that over and beyond that, when the enemy has done his worst, Christ will return and destroy what I understand to be the world leader that has dominated a dictatorship at that time.

So let's sum up. Revelation is a big book. It's 22 chapters. And I realize this is somewhat of an impossible question. But your book is so readable that you draw out key themes and ideas. is. If I was to say, Dr. Lennox, sum up revelation for me what this book is about. How would you answer that? I would say, quite frankly, the book is about Jesus Christ. It's a revelation of him. That is, if we understand it correctly, when we finished reading it, we should know more about him than we did at the start. So that's the first thing. It says itself. what it is about. And we need to play close attention to New Testament writers who tell us what the book is about. And in particular, the revelation of Jesus Christ, who he is and who he shall be, is couched in two parts. The things that are, John is told, the book is going to be about and things that are still to be.

So it deals with existing things in the world of John 20 centuries ago and things that are yet to come, certainly from the standpoint of John in those days. But if you want to frame the book, it frames itself in a beautiful literary style, as I understand it, because three times over in the first chapter and three times over, in the last chapter, you have the concept of coming. I put it that way because one of the interesting things in the beginning is the greeting is from the God who is, who was, but not who shall be, rather who is to come. And that idea of the coming of God comes from the Old Testament, Psalm around 96, where Israel was to hope that people of God are to hope that God will come to judge the world and put evil to write. So there's this idea in the Old Testament ready that God will come. But what do you need mean by it? And you see that in the very first chapter of Revelation because the two mentions

of the God who will come between them, it says, behold, he is coming with clouds and every I shall see him and it's talking about Christ. So here you have picking up on the Old Testament promise that God is going to come and judge the world and put everything to write. If you ask how will that happen, he's going to come in Christ, his son. And at the end of the book in chapter 22, you have three times repeated, Jesus saying, I am coming soon. So that's the way the book is framed. And it seems to me, therefore, that answers the question, what is it really about?

It's to awaken that hope that we have for the future. And it centers on the fact that he is coming. But a lot of other events as well. That's right. Well, I'm curious why I think revelation is so difficult to understand. And by that, I don't mean us read it 2,000 years later, translated into different language. I think anybody reading the book would say it has a level of being enigmatic. But why do you think it was written that way at the beginning that anybody reading it would feel like what is going on?

Like what do you think is the intention of the author in writing it the way that he did? My response to that is to say that enough of this. look is readily accessible to see that it's worthwhile. That's the first thing. Secondly, it is profound and it is enigmatic. Some of it looks even surreal. And we are not so used to dealing with this kind of metaphor in our everyday life, unfortunately.

So we have to do a lot more digging in order to understand it. But there's another kind of emotional side to it that people have been put off reading it or preaching from it for some sadly very good reasons. Because as you will know, because you're old enough, but not as old as me, we can remember preachers who were utterly sure that they'd got the interpretation right. Yes. And a few years go by and their interpretations are discredited. And that has led to a whole generation of people afraid of it. People are afraid to bring it into their sermons because for many Christian believers, very sadly, let me put it this way, Revelation belongs to the lunatic fringe of Christianity.

And the danger is that we... Looking for a simple way to stay rooted in God's Word every day. The Daily Bible Devotion app by Salem Media gives you morning and evening devotionals designed to encourage, inspire, and keep you connected with scripture. Plus, you'll enjoy daily Bible trivia and humor, a fun way to learn and share a smile while growing in your faith. Get the Daily Bible Devotion app for free on both iOS and Android. Start and end your day with God's Word.

Search for the Daily Bible Devotion app in the App Store or Google Play Store and download it today. Throw the baby out with the bathwater to use another well-fried English. metaphor, that we miss because we don't focus on the things we can understand. You know, many years ago, the point was made to me and it was very helpful. Often, it's the problem with people trying to pin down and identify all the events and all the detail of the book of Revelation. and they're brought up in one scheme of interpretation.

And then suddenly, because they may move outside the circles in which they were before, they meet another scheme. And then they don't know where they are. They begin to say, well, what is the point of this? Now, pinning things down, overkill has always led to people running away with their tails between their legs because they've got it wrong. So what I've tried to do, and I may well be guilty of the same thing, confess it straight away, but what I've tried to do is work on the following principle.

Putting all the detail together is where the difficulty is. For example, the people who are very keen on working out a precise timeline of the future. Now, some prophecy is about chronology. Of course it is. But not all is. And I often say this, don't let your failure to paste it all together in some kind of future chronology. Stop you believing what the individual verses say. And that has often happened that we can, this is the word of God. And it has an authority that comes from the Lord himself that we will realize if we immerse our souls and minds.

in it. And I believe what he says, but it doesn't mean I understand everything, nor does it mean that I can put everything together in a perfectly convincing timeline. And I often think, if you only had the Old Testament and were asked to put together a timeline of Christ's coming, you'd have made an awful mess of it. Number one, you wouldn't would have realized that his coming was in two parts unless you were very subtle. And there were some subtle people, but very few, who realized that it would have to be in two parts in order to be fulfilled. But that would have been something that you'd have to infer from the text. But even if you did what we call the first coming, trying to put in a timeline, in correct chronology, all the details. that there is in the Old Testament prophecy would be a very difficult task. So I say, let's be humble enough to realize that the same could be true of the future. Also, I think we need to bear in mind the fact is that when the Lord issued prophecy himself, some of it, it's obvious what it means, but some of the rest of it, he said, you won't understand it until it happens. So it seems, to me that we must expect that, both in Old Testament prophecy and New Testament prophecy,

that we can understand it, but not necessarily all of it, until it's utterly relevant for us. And it may not be relevant for everyone all the time. That's such good caution to read what we don't understand in light of what we do understand. Yes, that's a better way. I don't know about a better way to put it, but that's the heart of what you're getting at, that don't be intimidated because there's parts we don't understand. There's plenty that we can. Now, this in itself could be an entire show or multi-shows, but maybe just tell us a few ways people will interpret revelation, maybe just a couple different ways, and what your approach is to the book and why you land on that approach?

Well, there are usually three or four distinct ways, depending partly on the authority one gives to scripture, but also depending on understanding of different ways of interpretation. So you have the people that believe it has solely to do with the past time. There's no real prophecy in it. Then there are the others. They're called the preterists for long as I remember. And then there are the what are called often the futurists that fall into different camps that say, well, the seven churches have to do with the past time, yes. But they also give us an insight into what has been happening through, let's say, Christian history. And they will identify all kinds of things. in those seven churches. So they use them as a prophecy. Then there are those who say, no, the book of

Revelation does talk about seven churches, they're past, but the rest of it deals with the future that hasn't happened yet. And then there are yet others who say, well, it deals with the future, but the entire history of Christianity up to the return of Christ. So you've got those different ways of looking at it. And the final one is the idealist way of looking at it, where it is no real relevance to history, past or future, but simply gives us big ideas to think about the battle of good with evil and all this kind of thing. Now, my reaction to all of those is there's some truth that seems to me in several of them. Firstly, it definitely deals with the past.

The seven churches were seven existing churches that John was asked to write to in what is now modern day Turkey. So it certainly deals with the past. That's the first thing. The second thing is that it does deal with very big ideas indeed. Concepts of evil, concepts of judgment, the throne of God. What is God's government like? Those are very big topics that are dealt with in the book. But then it deals with the future, quite self-evidently.

It talks about things that we haven't seen happen in any sense. And it refers to the coming of Christ, which has not happened yet. So any interpretation that says it's not about the future. raises questions about the person's worldview, whether it is Christian or not. But it seems to me, Sean, that one of the most helpful verses or statements on this whole topic of understanding revelation comes where Paul is talking to the Thessalonians in his second letter. But it appears from that letter that someone had got them confused and told them something like that Christ had already come and all this kind of stuff and they were worried they couldn't understand it. And Paul enters the fray and he says, look, when I was with you, I told you the following.

Now that is utterly striking because according to the book of Acts, when he was with them lasted about three weeks. And he says, when I was with you, that is for those three weeks, I taught you. And then he goes on to talk about the coming of Christ in the context of the arising of a figure who that is called the man of lawlessness. And people have got confused about this because the lawlessness is not lawlessness in a sense of civil lawlessness. Paul was writing at a time when Rome was very strong in its legislation. Paul here is talking about spiritual lawlessness. And he says, look, there's going to be a man of lawlessness, who will be destroyed by the brightness of the coming of Christ.

Now, that's plain, straightforward theological text. There are no metaphors there, really. And there's no symbols of beasts. is simply there will arise this person, a human being, that is lawless in the sense that he will sit in the temple and proclaim he's God. That's spiritual lawlessness. But here's the thing. Paul says the mystery of this lawlessness is already at work. Now that to me is utterly fundamental in understanding it. In other words, he taught The three week old converts, let's put it this way, he taught them about the return of Christ,

the arising of this man of lawlessness who blasphemes and rails against God, because they could recognize within their own culture at the time in the Roman Empire, the Roman imperial cult, exactly that kind of lawlessness. which would come to its harvest in the man of lawlessness. And so he reminds him in two Thessalonians. When I was with you, I taught you this. Now, I don't know any situation really. Anywhere in the world were people who'd only been converts from strict paganism to Christianity

for three weeks would have been taught these things. So it's a wonderful insight into how to. think about it in that Paul is saying you need to think about it in your context because you already see the deification of the Caesars, the deification of human beings. Now bring that up to date and it's immediate because here we have artificial intelligence and some of its proponents are trying to turn AI into AGI, in other words, a God that we worship. And you will know, because in the United States already in California, there are worshippers of AI as a deity, because it appears to many of the properties of a deity. So once you put that together with two Thessalonians, the whole picture

begins to make sense because the man of lawlessness, if you write down, I've done this, but it takes some time, the characteristics of this human being, they very closely parallel the first beast, if I might use the technical terminology. I prefer to call it the monster, the first monster in Revelation 13. And there, you do. discover this mysterious number that everybody's had a go at guessing and nobody's got it right. The number is 666, the most famous number in the Bible. But it seems to me that people have failed to see what the text actually says. Who it is, I've no idea, but I know what it is because the text says so.

It is the number of a man. In other words, these blasphemous characteristics, this satanic power, this dictatorship with global authority, is concentrated in a human being. You get that in the symbolism of Revelation. You get it in the plain text of two Thessalonians. And that seems to me to be a place where we can have some confidence. It certainly increases my confidence in Revelation when I see the ideas that. that are in plain text and two Thessalonians filled out in powerful metaphors and symbolism, partly taken from Daniel in the Old Testament, in the book of Revelation. One of the important things you're pointing out for people is that this book is 2,000 years old,

and it relies upon another book, Daniel, another roughly 600 years before that. And people are tempted to think it's completely out of date, but you're saying there's these themes and there's movements that map on to things we're seeing today, and it's incredibly relevant. Now, the moment you go down that road, Dr. Lennox, people are going to go, whoa, time out. It sounds like you have the newspaper in one hand, to use an older metaphor, or, you know, the news.

And revelation, another hand, this has gone bad so many times in the past to your own admission a little bit in the past. So tell us, how do you think, think we should read revelation and how should we not read revelation? I'm reminded of John Stott, the famous British preacher, who said you should have the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in another. So it's it's a very important thing. Well, think of Paul in the first century, about...

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Search for Daily Bible app on Google Play and begin your day with hope, purpose, and peace. These things in the future. And somebody's saying, why do we need to know this, Paul? Aren't you going wild in your imagination? His reply to it is, look, you can see this already today. It is not wild imagination. And so if people say to me today, if I talk about the God idea that's been pushed Homodeus by Yuval Noah Harare in his book, Homodeus of the same title, that AI is going to take over as a god,

I'll say, look, forget about revelation, but go back to two Thessalonians and the Roman cult, the imperial cult. it's saying exactly the same thing. And now look at Revelation, it's saying exactly the same thing. And if you're getting from three or four sources exactly the same thing being said, you're on safer ground if it's just wild imagining. And it seems to me, and I came across this a long time ago, I had a friend in Cambridge who's long, long dead. He was the first man, R.E. D. Clark was his name. He was a chemist. And he was the first person really to show me how science and faith in God worked together. But his very last book was about the book of Revelation. And he said this. And it really sparked thinking me. He said, look, if we really believe that Revelation is in part at least, but it says,

it is a prophecy and it does talk about the future, why should we always try to interpret it using imagery or things in the real world from the past? Because God must have foreseen the technological age. And that really struck me as important. So, for instance, if I see just to take a case point, which will probably tell some of our watchers today that I'm seriously around the bed. If you think of the two beasts in Revelation and the second one, who's like a minister of propaganda, tells the citizens of earth to make an image to the first one that can talk and speak and cause people to be killed. And I say, is there anything? conceivably like that in the offing in our understanding of technology and of

course the answer is obvious there is and if it's genuine prophecy then the Lord knew about this age I mean that sounds almost blasphemous to put it that way of course he did but it means that if we're cautious it is not foolish to look around at your culture and see this kind of thing at work. Paul, long after Daniel had prophesied, he did exactly the same thing and says, look, nowadays, it's going to be like that the future. And here is the issue. It's humans aping God. And we're right at the heart of it today. So that to my mind is a strength. And that's why I feel I had to write the book because we've got to somehow get through the noise of people being scared,

stiff of taking the book seriously to see that whatever else it's saying, it's certainly indicating some of the things that are being talked about today, like a global world government. People are talking about that. Churchill suggested a long time ago, but people are talking about it as the only hope. We're nowhere near it yet, but it's in the air. And if scripture talks about it then, we can have a much more intense look at it. There's another way of looking at this, Sean, and that is that people who discuss AI robotics in the future are not scared of predicting what kind of scenarios we might have in the future.

And I have written fairly extensively about the views. of one particular scientist who's brilliant physicist Max Tegmark. And in his book Life 3.0, he mentions half a dozen, maybe 10 possible scenarios of the future. And the word God appears in three of them, I think, as I remember it. And what is very interesting, he has the idea that you mentioned right at the beginning, that AI might take over the world and regard humans as redundant and dispose of all of them. But then he has a benevolent God scenario where the AI behaves benevolently

and is like a God and so on and so forth. But what interested me greatly about that book was the scenario on which he spends most of the time is called Prometheus, which name has just come back recently into vogue. There's someone starting up a tech entrepreneur starting up a system called Prometheus. I don't recall whether it's Jeff Bezos or Zuckerberg.

I think it may be Bezos. But anyway, in Tegmark scenario, the Prometheus arises out of Amazon, certain kinds of workers that work for Amazon. And eventually this company developed. develops a huge brain of some kind. It sounds vaguely like AI and it takes over the world's economy. And then he adds that every citizen is forced to wear a bracelet. This bracelet is monitoring them, just like I suspect our Apple watches or our smartphones are. And if we are not holding the party line or the state line, it eliminates us with a lethal injunct.

rejection. And you see, that bracelet, you just have to change in your imagination things of it, a very small distance. The book of Revelation 13, the monster who's in control of the earth, that image that is made, whether it's an AI or not, I just don't know. But it forces people to take a mark. And anybody that doesn't have the mark gets killed. And the principal reason for the mark is that you cannot buy or sell without the mark. It's economic control, which is precisely what the bracelet is in Max Tegmark scenario. So I say to people, look, and I say to everybody who's watching this, if you're prepared to take seriously some of these futuristic scenarios written by physicist Max Tegmark,

then I want to invite you to take even more seriously a scenario that precedes his by 20 centuries and has a lot more credible evidence for it because it stands on the shoulders of Christ who lived and died and rose again and gave strong evidence that he was who he claimed to be. Amen, that could almost be a mic drop moment right there. But I got a few questions for you. I've got to ask you. I've been starting a series on Sundays with professors from Talbot where I'm taking some of the most difficult, thorny passages in the New Testament and just kind of get in their

brief take on them. And of course, Revelation is full of those kinds of questions that people want to know about. So let's jump in and ask you a few of these. And I realize you have full chapters on these and there's nuance we can't remotely get to. but maybe just kind of your quick take and thoughts in how you process this would be great. So the first one is, should we ever give a date for when Jesus will return? And if not, how do you process when you hear specific dates? Well, our Lord told his disciples that they do not know the day or the hour.

And we have enough experience of people giving dates to know that it is something we should not do. But there's another side to this. Paul, when he was talking on two Thessalonians, to go back to that statement, was asking them to observe a trend in their society, which would lead to the return. In other words, we should, instead of fixing dates, we should be much more interested in the sight geist, the culture, the spirit that's in our culture, that is favorable to, the kind of developments that Scripture talks about. So trends, the Lord talked about them. When the disciples asked him that very question, when he would come, he didn't say, don't bother

about it at all, but he gave them a lot of teaching. It won't come until that, and that's got to happen first. So he did give them some kind of temporal considerations or chronological ones, but warned them that they would be in extreme danger of misinterpreting and saying, oh, no, the Messiah is here. He's here. He's already come. There's a huge risk when you ask the question, when. And the Lord warned about it. And I tried to tease that out in my book. So do you think you'll see the return of Christ in your lifetime? Do you mean my physical lifetime on this earth? Yes.

I don't know. It would be wonderful. I would be very thrilled to be one of those relatively few Christians who go to be with the Lord without dying. And Paul did talk about such people. But in the normal process of things, I just, let me put it this way, because this answer is another. question. If you start to think, oh, it's going to be such a long time because none of the signs are being fulfilled, the danger is that you become lazy. And one of the fascinating things about the book of Revelation is it talks about Jesus coming soon and he hasn't come yet.

And the same thing happens at the end of John's Gospel, where Jesus says to Peter about John. Do you remember the John? Peter asked Jesus about John, the disciple and said, what shall this man do? And the Lord put it bluntly in modern English, it's none of your business you follow me. And if I decide that he should stay until I come, what is that to you? And so a rumor started that John was going to be still alive when Jesus returned. There's that tension between two sorts of time. I imagine it this way, and this may be a little bit naive, but I move towards the world to come at two speeds.

One is the speed of events on earth where Christ will come at a certain time in the future. But then I move at a different speed in terms of my own life. Because when I die, I go to be with the Lord. And that's a very complicated thing. And it seems to me that what the New Testament encourages me to do is to live as if that coming were very very good. soon. That's the only way to live. But to realize that as far as earth time goes and the timeline, it may be a thousand years in the future, but that'll be irrelevant to me. And it thinks to me, it's the relevance getting people to live as though the Lord can come at any time. And that is

the content of some of his parables, of course, that we are to watch, we're to be ready. So some of the parables that the Lord taught towards the end of Matthew are it won't happen until until until until and others are watch because the son of man comes in an hour that you don't think. And the only way I can resolve that tension is to realize that I'm moving towards eternity at two speeds. You commented earlier on your kind of view on the mark of the beast, but what about the millennium, which is one of the most debated passages and ideas is where do you land on the debate about the millennium? Well, where I land is not very important, but what's your teacher teachers is.

And again, this is a, this is a big discussion, but I actually believe it's an important discussion. Because millennium, of course, means a thousand. And the idea of a thousand year reign is only mentioned in one chapter in Scripture. And that is absolutely true. But the idea of Christ reigning in the future is a big theme in all of Scripture. The hope of Israel is that the Messiah would come and reign. And so I have two reactions. One is to say, how often does God have to mention a concept for it to be true?

I would have thought once is enough. And the word of thousand comes several times in chapter 20. But secondly, we're talking about this central Jewish hope. And it seems to me that this is important. I am well aware that I have many believing friends who are in the a millennial camp, who think, in other words, that the millennium stands for the period from essentially from now until the return of Christ. I think they say some things that are very true and need to be believed, but when it

comes to rejecting the idea that there will be a physical reign of Christ, I part company, for several very major reasons that I've gone into in detail in the books. But very briefly, firstly, the hope that God would restore the kingdom. Want to keep God's word with you wherever you go? The King James Bible Study KJV app by Salem Media makes it easy to read, study, share, and pray daily with a timeless KJV translation. Enjoy features like offline access, audio Bible listening, smart search, and tools to highlight bookmark and take.

notes, all designed to keep your Bible studies simple and organized. Best of all, it's free to download in the Google Place Store. Grow in your faith every day. Search for King James Bible study, KJV, and download the app today. Israel is discussed between Jesus and the disciples at the beginning of the book of Acts. He rose from the dead, and they realized he had these enormous powers. So they came, and in Acts chapter one, they say, Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom, that is the government to Israel now? That shows that they expected the government to be restored to Israel. Their question was not, are you going to restore it?

Their question was, are you going to do it now? Now, his answer is very important. He says, not for you to know the times of the seasons. which the Father has set in his own authority. In other words, gentlemen, it's already been organized, but you're not going to be told when it'll happen, but it will happen. And what you've got to do in the meantime

is to go and evangelise the earth and get on with the gospel. You see, that to my mind is very important. If the idea of him ruling on Earth was false, He ought to have denied it at that point and say, look, I have no intention of restoring the kingdom to Israel. That's never going to happen. No, he said, not for you to know the time it will happen. The father has that in his hand, but you get on with the gospel instead of worrying about these things, which is a good lesson for many Christians who get so caught up with sorting this out that they stop communicating the gospel.

So that is hugely important. And therefore, there's another question that's hidden behind the one you asked me. And that is the whole role of Israel, past, presence and future. But since you didn't ask it, I'm not going to answer it. I leave people to read my book because it's far too big a topic. But I have faced it. Fair enough. I appreciate that.

Maybe give us your quick take before we wrap up on the Antichrist. How should we think about this? Is this a future figure we should try to recognize? Or is that just too much to ask in a brief response? No, I think the question of the antichrist is much easier than the millennium. It's sorry, it's that there appear to be two levels. Firstly, John, it's interesting, in his epistles, he talks about many antichael Christ have come and so on. Antichrist just means in opposition to Christ and there are many of those around today. So they're around all the time and they have been since early days. But then there's

the question of one particular individual who doesn't tend to be called the Antichrist in Revelation, but the man of lawlessness in Paul, the monster in revelation and so on, is, of course, completely Antichrist. So I suppose it's because I'm Irish. I believe both that there are antichrist all the time and we need to watch out. There are many people that are very much opposed to Christ, not just to God, to Christ. And I've debated some of them. I bet.

But then those in a way can be looked at as pointers towards one who, will come who will be destroyed by Jesus at his return and that's speaking about one world ruler dictator in the end time and the Lord will destroy him as he comes back to reign so I think in that sense it's easier than the other questions well I don't have as cool of an Irish accent as you have but my mom got my name Sean when she was traveling through Ireland years ago and thought I've got to have a kid named Sean. She loved it so much. So it's one of the places in the world I have not been to yet, but it's on the top of my list.

Last question for you about this. How do you hope people use your book? It's called God AI and the End of History, but it's really a commentary on revelation. How do you hope people would use this book? I hope that for them, it will lead them into a deeper word. worship of Christ himself and a deeper readiness to obey because we only have one life and we're moving towards his return. And therefore, I wrote the book in order to encourage people, believers to invest their

lives in a very real world to come, which would be ruled by him. It would be such a pity to arrive in glory and say, do you know, if I realized what it was going to be like, I would have put more investing of my life into it. Yeah. That is a great word to end on. Again, it's called God, AI, and the End of History. It's a big book, but very readable as all your books that I've read are with a lot of depth and thought behind it. So pick up a copy of God AI in the end of history and write a review for our guest today, which also helps spread the word further.

While you're at it, make sure you hit subscribe. We've got some other conversations coming up on all sorts of apologetic, worldview, cultural, theological topics you will not want to miss. If you thought about studying apologetics distance, we have students in the UK, in Africa, all around the world. We'd love to have you study apologetics with us, specifically, online. and or in person. And we have totally updated our certificate program, some of the leading experts in the world

where we will walk you through kind of getting a certificate and apologetics. And there's a significant discount below that you could use. Dr. Lennox, really appreciate your time. Thanks for your great work. And maybe someday we can have you back again. Well, thank you very much indeed. I've enjoyed, very much enjoyed, as always, talking to you, Sean. Bye-bye.

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brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, where we have on campus and online programs in apologetic, spiritual information, marriage and family, Bible, and so much more. We would love to train you to more effectively live, teach, and defend the Christian faith today. And we will see you when the next episode drops. Hey friends, I'm Susan Michael. My podcast, The Out of Zion Show, is now partnering with Live Audio Podcast Network.

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