eschatology

Gary Demar: “Why Hasn’t The Lord Come Yet?”

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Gary DeMar answers the question: Why hasn’t the Lord come yet?”

“Why Hasn’t the Lord Come Yet?”

That’s the question being asked on the Christian Post website. Here’s the first paragraph:

Many believers are anxious for Jesus’ return and, in the natural, some feel God is postponing His return despite knowing that the scriptures, such as 2 Peter 3, teach that God is not slow, but is patient, not wanting anyone to perish, said Jeff Kinley and Todd Hampson of the “Prophecy Pros Podcast.” Kinley and Hampson emphasized that Jesus hasn’t yet returned because the Lord is giving “humanity a chance to repent before He returns.”

Why keep history going if it’s all about continued repentance? It seems to me that if this is the argument, why didn’t Jesus return to wrap up everything in the first century? That way, fewer people — by the billions — would never have to repent of anything since they never would have been born.

Like so much of Bible prophecy speculation, many who traverse the topic miss the timing factor built into most prophetic texts.

What is going on in 2 Peter 3? Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, describes what was taking place before their generation passed away (Matt. 24:34). There were scoffers who were ridiculing the prophecy made by Jesus as recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.

Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues as it was from the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:3–4).

Peter and those to whom he wrote were living in the last days, that is, the last days of the old covenant order that began with Adam and ended with the finished work of Jesus on the cross, His resurrection, and ascension. For a generation a warning went out to the Jews to repent. Those who denied that Jesus was the promised Messiah and placed their faith in the stone temple and its planned obsolescence sacrificial system would be caught in the threatened conflagration because they believed God would rescue them from the war machine of the Romans. The rescue came 40 years earlier, and those who believed did not die when the Roman armies march on the city of Jerusalem and dismantled the temple stone-by-stone.

Some believers were impatient and left the faith as James Jordan’s point out in his comments from his commentary on Matthew 23–25 to be published by American Vision:

Indeed, Peter says that these men would “follow their own lusts,” language similar to “eat and drink with drunkards” in Matthew 24:48. As the epistle of Jude, 2 Peter 2, and the later letters of Paul make clear, some of the Christian teachers and disciples also fell away and began to mock and live wantonly.

The temple was still standing. In fact, it was more glorious than ever with the rebuilding process started by King Herod I (the Great) in 19 BC and completed in AD 63, seven years before it was destroyed as Jesus predicted it would be (Matt. 23:38, 24:1–2). Jesus was its ultimate and lasting incarnation (John 2:13–22).

In 1 Peter 4:7, we read: “The end of all things is at hand.” Whatever “things” Peter had in mind, notice their end was “at hand,” that is, near for him and his readers (James 5:8). Jay Adams writes the following:

In six or seven years from the time of writing, the overthrow of Jerusalem, with all its tragic stories, as foretold in the book of Revelation and in the Olivet Discourse upon which that part is based, would take place. Titus and Vespasian would wipe out the old order once and for all. All those forces that led to the persecution and exile of these Christians in Asia Minor—the temple ceremonies (outdated by Christ’s death), Pharisaism (with its distortion of the O.T. law into a system of works-righteousness) and the political stance of Palestinian Jewry toward Rome—would be erased. The Roman armies would wipe Jewish opposition from the face of the land. Those who survived the holocaust of A.D. 70 would themselves be dispersed around the Mediterranean world. “So,” says Peter, “hold on; the end is near.” The full end of the O.T. order (already made defunct by the cross and the empty tomb) was about to occur.[1]

Peter defines the time parameters of the last days after the people witnessed a series of manifestations of the Holy Spirit and their effect on the disciples: “For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day; but this”— the events you saw with your own eyes and heard with your ears—“is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel: ‘And it shall be in the last days,’ God says, ‘That I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all flesh’”[2] (Acts 2:15–17a).

The “last days” were a present reality for the New Testament church made up of Jews who embraced Jesus as the Messiah and believing Gentiles. The gifts of the Spirit were hard evidence that the last days had arrived.

Read the rest of the article here

Gary DeMar: How the King James Bible Refutes Dispensationalism

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How the King James Bible Refutes Dispensationalism

In my 2020 debate with Kent Hovind, the topic of Daniel’s 70-weeks-of-years prophecy in Daniel 9:24–27 came up. Like all futurists like Hovind who hold to a rapture during a seven-year interval in which supposedly the antichrist shows up and makes and breaks a covenant with Israel, the temple is rebuilt, and the Great Tribulation takes place, includes a parenthesis after the 69th week (483 years). According to this view, the prophecy clock stopped after the completion of 483 years and won’t start again until sometime in the future. Pre-tribulationialists believe the so-called rapture of the church occurs before the 70th week that consists of the final seven years of the 490 years while post-tribulationialists claim the rapture of the church takes place after the final seven years. The five rapture positions (pre, mid, post, pre-wrath, and post) depend on the gap between the 69 weeks-of-years and the final seven years. See my book The Rapture and the Fig Tree Generation for a comprehensive critique of the rapture.

Like the 70th year of captivity followed the 69th year of captivity with no postponement or gap in time (Jer. 25:11; Dan. 9:1–2), Daniel’s 70th week follows the 69th week with no gap in time. Notice that Daniel’s chapter on the seventy weeks of years begins with a look back at the 70 years of captivity as predicted in Jeremiah’s prophecy.

Jesus’ ministry begins the 70th week and ends when He is “cut off” (Dan. 9:26) “in the middle of the week [when] he/He will put an end to sacrifice and offering” (Dan. 9:27). There are still 3.5 years to finish the 70th week of seven years.

As a result of many failed predictions, many Christians are beginning to take a second look at a prophetic system that they were told is the only one that takes the literal interpretation of the Bible seriously. Gary DeMar has taken on the task of exposing some of the popular myths foisted upon the public by prophetic speculators.BUY NOW

During the next 3.5 years, the gospel is preached to Israel (Acts 2:5, 37–42) since the 70 years are about Israel. This final half of the 70th week was nearly at its end when “some men from what was called the Synagogue of the Freedmen, including both Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and some from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and argued with Stephen” (6:9) after he performed “great wonders and signs among the people” (6:8).

Here are Stephen’s last words before he was stoned to death by the religious leaders including the high priest (7:1) with Saul “in hearty agreement with putting him to death”(7:54–8:1):

You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did. Which of the prophets did your fathers fail to persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One. And now you are His betrayers and murderers—you who received the law ordained by angels, yet have not kept it (7:51–53; cp. Matt. 23:31–36).

This was not enough for Saul and the religious leaders as Saul continued to persecute the church “going from house to house” where “he dragged off men and women and put them in prison” (8:3) and continued “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” with the full support of the priestly establishment (9:1–2). Soon after, Saul had his Damascus Road encounter with Jesus, and Jesus tells Ananias that Saul is His “chosen instrument … to bear My name before the nations and kings and the sons of Israel” (9:15). In my opinion, this was the end of the 70 weeks-of-years prophecy: to the Jew first and then the nations without excluding the Jews. It took a vision and words from God to make this point clear to Peter in Acts 10–11:18. There was no longer a redemptive difference between the nations and Israel (see Ephe. 2).

Inserting a gap between the 69th week and the 70th week allows premillennialists of all types to conjure up an end-time antichrist, a rebuilt temple, and a covenant made and broken with Israel by the antichrist. Much of the support for this view hinges on the identity of the words “prince” in Daniel 9:26 and “he” in 9:27. For someone like Kent Hovind, this problem is easily solved if one looks at the original typeset version of the King James Bible. In our debate, I did not have the opportunity to raise this point since he admitted that Daniel 9:24–27 is difficult.

But if the original KJV is authoritative, then it becomes necessary for King James Only advocates to explain each occurrence of “Prince” in Daniel 9:25–26 are capitalized along with “Messiah” lit. “anointed”): verse 25, “Messiah the Prince; in verse 26 it’s “Messiah” and “the Prince that shall come.” Are there two princes? Not if each time “Prince” occurs it’s capitalized. While Hebrew does not have any uppercase letters, the KJV translators believed there was one “Prince,” and that single “Prince” was Messiah.

Read the rest of the article at American Vision

Gary Demar: The Nagging Persistence of Failed Eschatologies

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End Of The World – Just Ahead sign with bad day on background

As happens at least once a week, I get involved in a discussion concerning eschatology. What’s happening in Afghanistan and the push for a global reset is bringing out the prophecy pundits.

The following comment caught my attention:

Do you also blame the Roman empire on the present-day rush towards globalism, a global digital currency, and a global government? how does Nero factor into what you are seeing with your own eyes today? I know you gotta brand your trying to protect, but that brand is as useless as a Weimar deutchmark.

Here’s my response.

I suggest you read Frank Gumerlock’s book The Day and the Hour for a detailed study of nearly 2000 years of failed prophetic speculation. Where does the Bible talk about “global digital currency”? In what way is the “buy and sell language” of Revelation 13 about digital currency? How would the first readers of Revelation have understood that a digital currency was being prophesied?

When we let the Bible define buying and selling, we come away with a different meaning. Jesus mentions buying and selling in Matthew 21:12. There is certainly a literary connection. Revelation 13 is not describing a modern-day technological society because, in Revelation 6, the earth would have been destroyed by “the stars” that fell from the heavens “to the earth” (21:13). And if that didn’t mess things up, in Revelation 12, we read about a “great red dragon” whose “tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth” (12:3–4). How could the earth survive let alone keep track of people implanted with microchips or Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) implants after such devastation? If stars hit the earth, the earth would not exist. If these stars are meteorites, the destruction they would bring would wipe out civilization as we know it.

If stars are symbols, then so is what we read in Revelation 13. So are beasts and buying and selling. I’ve written on the meaning of “buying and selling” in “The Mark of the Beast and Buying and Selling.” It’s an eye-opener if you stick with the Bible and not engage in “Internet Exegesis.” If James Jordan is right (and I believe he is), then everything you’ve heard or read about buying and selling is most likely incorrect.

Even though the book of Revelation is fulfilled prophecy, it does not mean there are not principles that can be applied to our lives. Tyranny is tyranny, whether it was ecclesiastical tyranny in the first century when the religious leaders in Jesus’ day wanted Him (John 8:59) and His disciples dead (Acts 7–8) or maimed (2 Cor. 11:28) or political tyranny during the time of Nero and the lead up to the destruction of Jerusalem that took place in AD 70.

While we’re dithering about the “rapture,” Islamists are making plans for world domination. Taliban commander Muhammed Arif Mustafa told CNN: “It’s our belief that one day, mujahedin will have victory, and Islamic law will come not to just Afghanistan, but all over the world.”

Eschatology and law matter. Also, our elected officials have been downplaying Islamic ascendancy since 9-11. “Islamaphobia” became the new watchword while white conservatives (including Christians) became the supposed real terrorist threat to the US and the world. So while this is going on, prophecy pundits are still preaching the “rapture of the church.” No worries, “since,” according to the late Jimmy DeYoung, “all Christians leave earth at the Rapture three and a half years before the mark comes into play.”

Some might ask, “But isn’t this all evidence that Jesus is coming soon?” No, it’s an indictment of a crippled biblical worldview and an escapist eschatology that is not taught in the Bible.

Read the rest of the article here

End Time Prophecies and the “Thought Collective”

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Gary de Mar writes at American Vision about the circular reasoning of “End Time Prophecy Prognosticators”

Like clockwork, when something bad happens in the world, Bible prophecy prognosticators start with their end-time claims. They are part of a “thought collective” where adherents share their beliefs in a closed system using the same language and shortcut responses to those who criticize their conclusions. When challenged with this question, “Where in the Bible does it say that?,” they avoid answering directly by offering a formula response that comes from the safety of the “thought collective” bubble.

It happens every time some new prophecy claim is made about current events and challenged. Here’s the latest since Joe Biden might be our nation’s next President:

It is amazing to see prophecy being fulfilled right before our eyes. 

How many times have you read something like the above? How many generations of failed prophetic predictions do we have to endure before Christians say “enough”?

Then I saw this:

There are only four passages in the Bible that use the word “antichrist.” You won’t find the word “antichrist” in the book of Revelation. The fact surprises a lot of prophecy enthusiasts. Not one of these passages mentions anything about the antichrist ruling anything. Read the passages for yourself from John’s epistles that were written before the temple was destroyed in AD 70:

  1. “Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18).
  2. “Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22)
  3. “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world” (1 John 4:2–3).
  4. “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist” (2 John 7).

When I pointed out these biblical facts, I was dismissed with, “I respectfully disagree.” He didn’t tell me why he disagreed. It might be due to the fact that the passages are as clear as can be and do not fit today’s general understanding of the antichrist.

Notice that there were “now many antichrists” (1 John 2:18). “Now” refers to John’s day, a point made in again 1 John 4:3. In 1 John 2:22, we find, “Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.” In 2 John 7, we find a definition that compliments what we read in 1 John 2:22: “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.”

John’s definition of antichrist is exclusively theological. Nothing is said about a charismatic leader solving the Middle East conflict, promising to rid the world of terrorism, getting the Jewish nation and the Arab nations to sign a peace treaty that will pave the way for the long awaited Third Temple (of which the New Testament says nothing), a satanic superman, namely, “the most evil man that ever lived.”

John was describing antichrists (plural) in his day as evidence that “it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18). What did John mean by “the last hour”? It’s a reference to the prophecy Jesus made in the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24; Mark 13; Luke 21) and other places (Luke 11:46–52; 13:34–35; 17:22–37; 19:41–44) that a prophetic event was going to take place before their generation passed away. When John wrote his first epistle, the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 was near, possibly only a few years away. “Last hour” is not being used to describe thousands of years of history.

Who were these antichrists? They were Jews who understood the claimed relationship between Jesus and His Father. “I and the Father are one,” Jesus said (John 10:30). The Jews objected “and took up stones again to stone Him” (10:31).

Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.” (10:32–33).

The unbelieving Jews understood the claim that Jesus was the Christ, that is, the promised Messiah. In John’s day, unbelieving Jews were the antichrists because they denied that Jesus was God incarnate (John 1:1, 14) and that He was the promised Messiah. This is why Jesus was accused of blasphemy and the Jewish religious and civil rulers wanted to kill Him.

“If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God’; and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His word. “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple (John 8:55–59).

John described these unbelieving Jews as a “synagogue of Satan” (Rev. 2:9; 3:9), a type of “thought collective” who denied the reality of God’s revealed Word and instead adopted a type of anti-Messianic group think.

While tens of thousands of Jews embraced Jesus as the promised Messiah (read the book of Acts), many Jews rejected Him. They held on to the tradition of the elders and chafed under the claim that the old covenant was temporary and was in the process of passing away (Heb. 8:13).

After answering some of the responses about the antichrists and how those defining the term were not following the biblical definition, the topic of the great tribulation came up. It is during this supposed future event that the antichrist is said to make his appearance. John does not say anything about this claim. Neither does Jesus in Matthew 24:21.

I responded with the following:

The great tribulation is a past event that took place before the generation to whom Jesus spoke passed away. See my book Last Days Madness. John described himself as a “fellow-partaker in the tribulation” (Rev. 1:10).

What was the response of the person who posted the meme?: “I respectfully disagree.”

I responded with: “Disagreeing is not a refutation.” His answer is typical of a “thought collective” response in that it must stay within the narrow confines of the prophetic paradigm. Any attempt to question it must be rebuffed even if it goes against what is specifically stated in Scripture or what’s not stated.

Read the rest of the article here

Kenneth Gentry: Postmillennialism and The Great Tribulation

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A great and thoughtful article by Kenneth Gentry places the Great Tribulation at around 70 AD. I’m glad we missed it!

This is my second in a multi-part series explaining how we can believe in postmillennialism, even though Jesus teaches about “the great tribulation” that is to come. In this series of articles we will learn a remarkable fact: The great tribulation is past. Indeed, it occurred long ago in the first century and was concerned with the destruction of the temple in AD 70.

Obviously, if this is so, then the great tribulation punctuated the beginning of Christianity (as the new covenant-phase of God’s kingdom) and has no direct bearing on the end of the Church Age (supposedly lying in our near future). Thus, it does not contradict postmillennialism’s historical optimism. Let us consider the evidence.

Most evangelicals focus on the remarkable judgments in the Matthew 24. And they do so to such an extent that they overlook important contextual clues that go against the popular conception of the great tribulation. And they do this despite the fact that these clues are quite clear and compelling.

These clues revolve around Matthew 24:34 which involves the key observation for a proper understanding of the great tribulation. This is the text we must focus upon; it will be our guiding star shedding light on our pathway through this dark and frightening passage.

Read the full article here

MAKING SENSE OF HELL by Dan Hitchens

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From First Things

Eternal damnation has never been a wildly popular doctrine, but it seems to be coming under particular pressure at the moment. Public intellectuals like Stephen Greenblatt shake their heads at the teaching; eccentric theologians think up arguments against it; when Church leaders are asked about it, they often respond with ambiguity and embarrassment. No wonder the New Yorker’s Vinson Cunningham was recently moved to ask Catholics: “What modern believer wouldn’t want to cast off this old, sadistic barrier to faith in a loving God? What kind of deity draws such a hard line between his friends and his enemies, and holds an eternal grudge? Surely the loss of hell—even the idea of such a loss—should come as a bit of a relief.”

My gut reaction is sympathetic to Cunningham’s point, and such reactions shouldn’t be simply dismissed. But they should be tested. When an emotional response can’t be given a logical foundation; when it relates to something about which we are, necessarily, very ignorant; and when its implications are untenable—then it’s safe to conclude that the emotion is misleading.

Start with the logical foundation. Sin deserves punishment; in life we can always turn back toward God’s mercy, but the philosophers tell us that at death, the soul can no longer change its ways. Before death we can be swayed this way and that by our feelings and habits. But when the soul is separated from the body, this changeability ends and we are left with a single orientation. If we have turned toward God before death, we will find happiness; if we have chosen something else instead, we are in mortal sin, and our just punishment will continue for as long as we reject God—that is, forever. The inhabitants of hell go on choosing their fate: “The damned are so obstinate in their sins,” writes St. Alphonsus Liguori, “that even if God offered pardon, their hatred for him would make them refuse it.”

The attempts to pick holes in this argument are not, as far as I can see, successful: Interested readers can find a useful series of refutations here. The real objection, I think, is less logical than intuitive: Even if some punishment is necessary, isn’t hell excessive?

But here we are reduced to saying, “Surely…” about things we have not begun to grasp: the hideousness of sin, for example. Most of us, if asked to estimate how bad our sins are without the benefit of revelation, would say that although we hadn’t always conducted ourselves very honorably, we didn’t hurt anyone that much, and after all we’ve had a tough life and we’re pretty decent people overall. We would not guess, if we did not already know, that God came to earth and was humiliated and tortured to death for our sins. Do we really have a clue about the gravity of our offenses? Similarly, none of us have seen what a soul in mortal sin looks like after death, when its good impulses have fallen away and nothing remains but the desire for evil. I could opine on what strikes me as a fair punishment for unrepented mortal sin, just as I could opine, without googling, on the Olympic hopes of Azerbaijan’s national basketball team. But as it happens I know nothing about basketball, and I suspect most of our intuitions about the gravity of sin are worth even less.

Fortunately, we are not totally ignorant, because we have the guidance of the Church. Not just the authoritative teaching statements, though that is enough, but all the expressions of the Church’s wisdom through 2000 years: the standard interpretation of many, many verses in the Old and New Testaments; the sermons of the saints, with their terrible warnings about the next life; the ancient prayer of the Mass that we be “delivered from eternal damnation”; the mystics, including those of the last century, who saw things that nearly made them die of fright; Dante’s Inferno and Michelangelo’s Last Judgment.

And then there is St. Thomas More at his trial, saying that if he was not telling the truth “then pray I that I may never see God in the face”; the little children of Fatima doing their penances to help imperiled sinners, and in the process launching one of the great devotions of the twentieth century; the testimony of exorcists who, in the course of their liberating work, have spoken with demons about the next life; the countless holy men and women who have gone out to preach and care for the sick and spend themselves in love—not mostly, but partly, because they feared what they might hear on Judgment Day; the countless ordinary men and women who have forced themselves into the confessional—not wholly, but perhaps, on that day, mostly, because they believed they needed urgent rescuing. If Catholicism is the work of the Holy Spirit, then it looks like this is one of the truths He wants to lead us to.

Even non-Catholics will have to contend with Jesus’s words on this subject, which seem designed to make impossible the sort of creative rereading of which modern scholars are fond. He speaks, repeatedly, of the unquenchable fire. It is hard to downplay this and call it the fire of God’s love, because he also promises to tell the damned: “I never knew you.” He employs vivid images, like the narrow gate, but you cannot say his teaching is all metaphorical, because he describes literally the desperation of hell: “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Our Lord does not sound like he is referring to some process of difficult but healthy purification. He sounds like he is warning of a fate worse than death. Get rid of the doctrine of hell, and you will ultimately have to treat Jesus as though he does not know what he is talking about. For any Christian, that is an untenable conclusion.  

Is belief in hell a barrier to faith in a loving God? Apparently not, because the saints, whose lives were filled with the love of God and neighbor, saw the reality of hell more clearly than anyone. Perhaps this is not so surprising: It makes sense that those who truly understand the mercy of God also understand the consequences of rejecting it. 

Dan Hitchens is deputy editor of the Catholic Herald.

Leaving Rapture Culture Behind | Chris Williams

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Chris Williams writes:

Leaving Rapture Culture Behind | Chris Williams

Photo credit: Flickr, waiting for his word
Photo credit: Flickr, Waiting for His Word, no edits made. C.C. Licensing.

This post is part of a weekly series focused on the National Geographic Channel’s documentary miniseries “The Story of God with Morgan Freeman.” I’ll be tackling the topics of that series from a Christian perspective over the next few weeks, usually by Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. This post is based on the next episode, “Apocalypse,” which will air on 4/10 at 9 p.m.

I think most evangelicals go through a Rapture obsession.

I remember when it happened for me. I was 15 and my parents had taken me to a dc Talk concert. During the show, the trio played a cover of Larry Norman’s “I Wish We’d All Been Ready.” When the group got to the last verse of the song, what had been a light-hearted, energetic show suddenly chilled me to the bone:

The Father spoke, the demons dined
How could you have been so blind?
There’s no time to change your mind
The Son has come and you’ve been left behind
I wish we’d all been ready

I’d been raised in a Baptist church since infancy, so I knew that my family believed in the Rapture — the time when many Christians believe Christ will take His living and dead followers up to Heaven. According to that interpretation of Scripture, nonbelievers will remain to suffer through a period of suffering (the Tribulation) that culminates in the reign of the Antichrist, the battle of Armageddon, the fiery destruction of the planet and, ultimately, the Final Judgement. I’d heard about this for years, but this was the first time I began to consider its implications.

Would I be alive when Christ returned? What if I wasn’t truly saved? Would I be left behind? What would it be like for those who were? I had nightmares of friends and family suffering catastrophic war, giant locusts and continent-demolishing earthquakes.

A few months later, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins published the first “Left Behind” novel. Like many other evangelicals, I devoured it. I also read other books that promised to unlock the code of Revelation, listened to church leaders theorize about the Antichrist’s identity — often the Democratic presidential candidate — and sometimes jumped if I heard something that sounded a little too much like a trumpet.

Left_Behind_film_poster

This wasn’t a new fad. Hal Lindsey ignited Christian culture’s end times obsession with his 1970 book “The Late, Great Planet Earth,” which theorized that the Rapture and Tribulation could play out in the ’70s and ’80s (spoiler alert: they didn’t). Russell S. Doughton’s “A Thief in the Night” and its three sequels depicted the Rapture and Tribulation for Christian filmgoers several decades before Kirk Cameron and Nicolas Cage were left behind. And any time a new war or global conflict occurred, writers found a new way to link those events to the Biblical warnings of trumpets, seals and horsemen — all for a price. Rapture culture is so pervasive that even Homer Simpson got in on it.

It’s easy to understand the evangelical obsession with the end times. We love doomsday stories, and Earth under the Tribulation is the ultimate dystopia. It’s the perfect plot for a movie, complete with apocalyptic weather, a world war and supernatural beasts; it’s no wonder Christian bookstores are filled with Rapture films and books. Plus, there’s a smug satisfaction evangelicals get from Rapture narratives. Not only do the bad guys get judged, but we don’t have to suffer; we get to sit on a cloud in Heaven watching the show.

Two decades after that concert, I’m a bit chagrined about how into all of this I was. Many Christians, including myself, actually believe “Left Behind” is way off base. The word “Rapture” doesn’t appear in the Bible at all. The idea of Christ coming to rescue believers before the Tribulation was popularized by an Irish priest in the 1800s. While Christians do believe Christ will return, judge the living and the dead, and bring Heaven down to Earth, we’re a bit muddy on how that all works. Some still believe in a pre-tribulation Rapture; others believe it might happen afterward or halfway through. Still others believe that Revelation is symbolic of events that have already happened, or is both a warning to the early church and a political allegory. The ominous number 666 conjures pictures of tattoo’d barcodes in some believers’ heads, while others believe it’s actually a reference to Caesar Nero, who was persecuting Christians around the time Revelation was written.

The truth is, I don’t know how the world is going to end. I also don’t know 

when

 it’s going to end, or if I’m going to be around to see it. I’ve stopped worrying or trying to figure it out. As a Christian, I rest in Jesus Christ and His finished work. If He chooses to take me away before things get bad, through death or Rapture, I’ll welcome it. But if it’s His plan for me to endure the Earth’s final days, I believe that He’ll give me the strength to do that as well. My job is not to try to predict events or look for hidden Bible codes. My job is not to fear the end times or pray for judgement. My job is to trust.

And to hope, which is something that goes missing in all the Rapture obsession.

In a culture that peddles fear and tension, end times theology has taken on a grim tone. Yes, the Bible says that things will get dark before Christ’s return. And looking around our world, it’s easy to see violence and disaster everywhere and wonder just how much worse it’s going to get. Admittedly, sometimes it feels like I’m just waiting for God to step in and say, “Time’s up.”

But what gets lost in the Rapture hysteria is that the promise of Christ’s return is not one of destruction, but of renewal. It’s a reminder that no matter how dark this world gets, there’s coming a day when Christ will make it right. This world might be destroyed by war, but it will be renewed by love. Oppressive regimes will be wiped away, replaced by a good king who’s died for his subjects. Sickness and death will be replaced by a life more vivid and vibrant than anything we can imagine. Revelation ends not with a war but with a feast. Not with enemies, but a family. Not with screaming, but with singing.

Photo credit: Flickr, Keoni Cabral
Photo credit: Flickr, Keoni Cabral. C.C. Licensing.

Contrary to media portrayals — and, very often, our own words — Christianity is not about licking our lips and waiting for our enemies’ annihilation. It’s about believing a truth so beautiful that we want the entire world to believe it: God has made a way for us to know Him. Many times when I was younger, I wondered why Jesus didn’t just take the disciples with Him to Heaven and end the story there. Why wait several millennia to return? It’s only been in recent years that I’ve discovered two reasons. One is that we know this world is a mess, and Christ’s followers are tasked with making it less messy. We have the job of preparing for the king’s arrival by pushing back the effects of sin. We’re called to love and serve others, live peacefully, take care of the planet, and pursue justice. And the other reason? Christians believe in “the more, the merrier.” We believe that the reason Christ hasn’t returned isn’t because He’s lazy or slow, but because He’s patient and has given us time to reach the world with His message. Those two things drive missionaries in every corner of the world and should be the beating hearts of our churches. That — not politics, morality or nationalism — is the heart of evangelicalism.

One thing that Morgan Freeman mentions at the end of the episode is that the word “apocalypse” doesn’t mean annihilation or ending. It’s actually a Greek word that means “unveiling.” And these days, when I look out at our world and think of what my faith tells me comes next, I’m no longer filled with fear, but with hope and expectation. For the Christian, the apocalypse isn’t the war to end all wars. It’s the wedding to end all weddings, and the start of the true story we’ve been preparing for all of our lives.It’s not an end; it’s the beginning of forever.

The “Beast” Revealed

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Who is the Beast of the Book of Revelation? There are many fanciful and wrong ideas about this, but many Bible scholars are now pointing to the Roman Emperor Nero.

J.D. King writes in the World Revival Network blog:

idolWho The ‘Beast of Revelation’ Really Is

As far back as I can remember people have been speculating about the “Antichrist,” an evil figure referenced in portions of the New Testament.

After President Ronald Wilson Reagan was shot and miraculously recovered in 1981, people made the ridiculous assertion that he was the prophesied evil figure of “end-times.” It didn’t help that his first, middle, and last name all had six letters (666).

At that same time, others argued that the Antichrist was Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev or Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. Less than a decade later Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians were insisting that the “Man of sin” was actually Iraqi Saddam Hussein in the land once known as Babylon.

Later, I learned that previous generations believed that the Antichrist was Benito Mussolini, Prime Minister of Italy or Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany. The actual listing of individuals identified with this role is quite long and ludicrous. Whatever nation happens to be the current enemy of America (or Israel) usually supplies us with the current candidates for the antichrist.[1]

Obviously there’s a lot of misunderstanding and misapplication here. Many of our collective anxieties and fears are coloring our readings of the Bible. We’re bringing into the text things Scripture never actually articulates. Much of this happens because of our confusion about the Bible and ignorance of the apocalyptic genre. We don’t comprehend its intended meaning or its use of fierce imagery and symbols.

Read the full article here

Failed Predictions

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JD King writes:

The Rapture’s In 1988? What Can Be Learned From Failed End-Times Predictions

Over the last season I’ve been pressing into worship and enjoying more of the presence of the Lord. I’ve also been having wonderful outings with my beautiful wife and children. I keep thinking, how can I bring more encouragement and assist in the expansion of the Kingdom of God in this hour?

Yet, every time things begin to advance, feet start dragging and someone “slams on the brakes.” Bible-believing Christians are supposed to be talking about “doing life together” and growing in the purposes of God. Yet, most are continually distracted by politics, fear, and apocalyptic end-time scenarios.

I sincerely desire to laugh, love, and leave a legacy, but it can be extremely difficult. Many so-called “prophets” are talking about societal breakdown and catastrophe. In their sensationalist best-sellers, they claim to have witnessed the “signs of the times.”

This is so prominent that a message of “good news” and hope is extremely difficult to find these days (and sometimes it’s even rejected).

You probably already know this, but this isn’t the only generation that has made these claims. In fact, over the last century there have been countless assertions about “harbingers” and “signs of the apocalypse.” Leaders in previous eras also insisted they deciphered the Book of Revelation and understood the alarming headlines.

So, the pessimistic, cataclysmic claims aren’t new. They’re actually part of the lengthy tradition of anxiety and failed prognostications. In fact, speculative predictions about the end have characterized American Christianity for at least three generations. One would like to think that this madness would ultimately cease, but it never really does.

I’ve found that people keep making these kinds of end-time assertions. Yet, an honest analysis would show the “track record” isn’t good. Thousands of “undeniable” claims in previous decades were proven to be wrong.

Let me remind you of some of the things affirmed in the past.

Read the rest of the article here