Now What?

November 6th, 2012:  Other than the day of Pentecost and the immediate decades following, this election may have become the healthiest day in the history of the Church; perhaps exceeding even the beginnings of the Reformation.  In the eyes of the belligerent and predator-like entities of the world America has finally emasculated itself. 

The last cop in the international neighborhood is no longer a deterrent.  A power-hungry China with resources in abundance, a Putin-inspired Russia, a Mahdi-expecting Iran and the various leaders of an insane Jihadist mentality must be going Pavlovian about this time.  Bill Schanefelt (American Thinker) has seen clearly the ramifications of Romney's defeat. If we cannot (will not?) defend our own in Benghazi, why should our "friends" in the International community trust us?  He begins the article   with this observation:  "After Midway, Japan's fate was sealed, as was Germany's after Stalingrad." He concludes with this:  "What was written?  We know what Midway wrote for Japan, and Stalingrad for Germany, but we have yet to learn what was written on 6 November 2012.  We can only hope that it was not a similar tale."

It should be abundantly clear at this point that I have drawn the sad conclusion that it will indeed be a similar tale.  American exceptionalism is no longer the hope of the world.  "Benghazigate" announced itself and a country went back to sleep.  Comfort-zones and tummy-stuffing seem to always trump potential dangers.  Why then the seeming optimism for the Church?

We have not awakened sleeping giants.  These predators are keenly awake to the possibility that America, the only current deterrent to international aggression on a global scale, is overdue for a financial crash and is being socially fractured by various polarizing groups that will never again approach anything like a WWII unity.  Such a unified social structure is not even subject-matter to our current youth, and not even a memory for our adult population..  There is only one sleeping giant yet to be awakened, it seems to me, and that would be that part of the man-made and visible Church known as the called-out remnant that is resident within her.  "Come out of her my people" is the cry of the angel, even now! (Rev. 18:1-4)  "If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you.  If you were of the world the world would love it own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you" (John 15:18-19) was Christ's utterance to all who are called to be His own. 

The best thing to happen to the true Church is the wrath of man.  As the insanity of a world-system interrupts our life of comfort two polarized groups will be totally and forever separated:  The true Church as a remnant and a false prostitute church as a majority seeking to please the world.  There is only one Giant remaining to be awakened.  Those who are in the current process of "overcoming by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony" (Rev. 12:11) yet remain to be awakened.  Perhaps Nov. 6 accelerated that process in a meaningful way.  Perhaps Nov. 6 was a blessing in disguise.

Let our frustrations drive us into the bosom of Christ.

Absolutes And Their Cost

Ponder these thoughts by Francis Schaeffer and consider the cultural make-up of our Christian community as world-wide governments become more and more dominant over the citizens that are under their charge:

"Will we resist authoritarian government in all its forms regardless of the label it carries and regardless of its origin?  The danger in regard to the rise of authoritarian government is that Christians will be still as long
as their own religious activities, evangelism, and life-styles are not disturbed.

We are not excused from speaking, just because the culture and society no longer rest as much as they once did on Christian thinking.  Moreover, Christians do not need to be in the majority in order to influence society. 

But we must be realistic.  John the Baptist raised his voice, on the basis of the biblical absolutes, against the personification of power in the person of Herod, and it cost him his head.  In the Roman Empire the Christians refused to worship Caesar along with Christ, and this was seen by those in power as disrupting the unity of the Empire; for many this was costly. 

But let us be realistic in another way, too.  If we as Christians do not speak out as authoritarian governments grow from within or come from outside, eventually we or our children will be the enemy of society and the state.  No truly authoritarian government can tolerate those who have a real absolute by which to judge its arbitrary absolutes and who speak out and act upon that absolute.  This was the issue with the early church in regard to the Roman Empire and though the specific issue will in all probability take a different form than Caesar-worship, the basic issue of having an absolute by which to judge the state and society will be the same.

Here is a sentence to memorize:  To make no decision in regard to the growth of authoritarian government is already a decision for it."  (How Should We Then Live?  Crossway, 1983 - pp 256,7  -  Italics are the author's;  bold are mine.)

Some Observations: 

In observing the current ethos of the Christian community in the Western World, it seems as though we are not doing all that well in resisting the rise of authoritarianism.  To whatever degree our life-styles are not being disturbed, to that degree we are being passive.  The good news is that those life-styles are now under a proactive, deliberate and well thought-out assault by a godless community that has declared the Church of Jesus Christ (and the absolutes that attend to that Church)  to be its enemy.  Such an assault demands an ever-increasing response by the remnant community that is resident within that Church.  The assault is not the good news; the response is.

Observations sometimes engender questions.  Considering the sobering times in which we live one might be tempted to consider if his, or her absolutes are substantive enough that he, or she might be in danger of becoming "an enemy of society and of the state."  Are the Rock Jesus Christ and the Word of God absolutes that will not tolerate any other religion or belief-system in your life? Jesus Christ and Him crucified is the absolute of the entire universe.  That absolute makes all other cultural systems that deny it to be the enemy of the true Church.  It also makes that Church enemy of those systems.  Are we ready to become an enemy of society and of the state?  It's that important.  Our religious comfort-zone may be in need of being disturbed.

If I may disagree slightly with the author, I would suggest to us that Caesar-worship might very well be the  issue that we will all have to face.  Society and technology have advanced so far in the approximately forty years since he wrote that we might experientially see what Mr. Schaeffer did not.  That Caesar-like beast described to us in Rev. 13 may be looming not so very far away and not so long in waiting.

It is my belief that we currently live in a time when authoritarianism has won the day.  Godless stateism is unstoppable;  we have crossed that Rubicon.  Details will follow.  We are not here to heal the world; we are here to call out our community.  Healing the wounds of the world is what Christians do, but there will come a day when that modern-day Caesar will tolerate such activities no longer.  We will become enemies of society and of the state.  May our life-styles be disturbed!

We have been bought with a price; we are His slaves  -  NO APOLOGIES!

Take A Shot

I thought that I would put myself to the test and let a world-class scholar challenge my tendency toward a posttribulational but prewrath position regarding the "Rapture" of the Church.  This endeavor is meant to augment my claim that my mind is opened to biblical positions that are contrary to my own especially when the subject-matter relates to the various eschatological statements concerning the Church and the coming of the Lord (see my previous post on July 24).

The book is entitled "Kept from the Hour:  Biblical Evidence for the Pretribulational Return of Christ"  The author is Gerald B. Stanton with introduction by John F. Walvoord (Zondervan, 1991).  Both are world-class scholars from the Dallas/Talbot/Biola tradition; a tradition that I have looked up to and have respected for many years now.

In refuting the posttribulational claim that those with a pretribulational view are merely attempting to meet the demand for a "comforting type of teaching" Dr. Stanton responds thusly:  "This, however, is uncharitable, for those of pretribulational persuasion do not gear their ministry to comfortable teachings.  Among their number are the most powerful and convicting preachers of sin and judgement and hell, and they preach these things because they are in the Book.  The same men preach the comfort of a pretribulation hope, not because it appeals to the flesh, but because this, too, they find in the Word of God.  The idea of comforting one another with these truths originated with I Thessalonians 4:18, not with Thiessen, although he loved to proclaim it." (p. 31)

This source of comfort has been proclaimed by many able teachers in the pretribulational community and I find it to be derived by a shallow exegesis and further find it to be incredibly harmful to those who do gain comfort in the passage.  The idea is that the believers in the Thessalonian Church are to be comforted by a gathering together unto Christ before the great tribulation period engages.  I fail to find that thought to be even hinted at in the biblical passage.  Let's review the passage as found in I Thess. 4:13-18:

"But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve, as do the rest who have no hope.  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.  For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, and remain until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep.  For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first.  Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. therefore comfort one another with these words." 

Now what appears to be the source of grief and hopelessness in the Thessalonian community (v. 13)?  It appears that the text is indicating that some in the community have lost their loved-ones and that those very same loved-ones may not be candidates to be "caught up" to meet the Lord in the air (v. 17).  Not so, Paul claims.  We are all going to be gathered together in that wonderful day to be with Him forever.  That is our hope!  Nowhere does the passage indicate that we will be delivered from tribulation; any Tribulation, even the one "with a capital T".  Our loved-ones will be with us all in that great day.  Let's "comfort one another with these words". (v. 18)  As in my previous post, I  am emphasizing that this controversy is not simply academic. Physical life-and-death brutality may soon be unleashed upon the Christian community by this escalating godless world-system.  How much more serious is the thought that some in our community will have their faith tested beyond measure and will actually abandon the faith; an abandonment that  will lead unto eternal damnation.  We need to go beyond pretending that we are tolerant of our different positions on this particular subject and begin to actually dialogue with each other with an open mind while actually generating love and respect for each other.  Our experiential life, it seems, does not always attain in degree to our preaching of tolerance.

I am still open to being challenged.  This statement by the author did not press that challenge.

Thought That I Would Start Over

So when is the Church going to be raptured?  Sick and tired of the subject?  Don't be; it's more than important.  In the midst of this ever-increasing violent and duplicitous world the Church awaits a blow that she is not prepared to take  -  or so it seems to me.  The violent side of this blow will drive a remnant of the man-made church into appeasement;  the duplicitous side will draw out a remnant unto an apostasy.  Eternal lives are the fruit of such a sifting.  It's important.

I attend a men's bible study.  We have decided to tackle the Book of Revelation.  Next week we will be addressing (hopefully exegeting) verse seven of the first chapter. 

"Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him, and all of the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him.  Even so, Amen"

Now when I first read this verse in preparation for the class the thought came to my mind that there is no indication of a secret coming here. Then, I stopped and thought that I would put my mind in neutral and that I would determine to "start all over".  So, I made a covenant with God:  With all of the integrity that resides within me I will exegete every passage that I can that deals with such matters from this day forward and will do so in such a manner that I will "listen" to what those who disagree with my position have to say as a result of their exegesis.  Similarly I will invite the men to do the same.  Let's spend the rest of our days allowing the Word of God to say what it wants to say without our eisegetically distorting its meaning.

It may be becoming somewhat obvious as you read this article that my tendency is to believe that the Church may very well go through this awful period of time.  As dark as this world is becoming I have never wanted to be wrong more than right now.  Hopefully I will be posting much on this subject in the coming days. 

The invitation is open to all of us to examine ourselves and our eschatological positions.  Let the other guy take his best shot at us.  It's important.

Spychips and Beastmarks

I found this article on World Net Daily last week:  http://www.wnd.com/2012/05/u-s-military-developing-spychips-for-soldiers/

 To one who understands that famous passage in Rev. 13 that alludes to "the mark of the beast" -  and understands it to be an event that is not only literal in it's meaning but also yet to be realized in a future time -  instantly the thought that comes to his or her mind upon reading the article is that this is nothing short of what can be accurately identified as "mark-of-beast technology".

And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand, or on their forehead.  -  and he provides that no one should be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name  -  Here is wisdom,  Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.  (Rev. 13:16-18 NASB)

The essence of the article is suggested by the bemoaning of some who were interviewed that there will be an unstoppable progression from the chipping of military personnel to a "computer chipping for all".  The article states that "The U.S. military wants to plant nanosensors in soldiers to monitor health on future battlefields and immediately respond to needs, but a privacy expert warns the step is just one more down the road to computer chips for all".  This process is to be generated and controlled by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. 

For details read the article.

Now the point that I wish to raise is not that this is necessarily a bad thing.  Logically it seems to be a reasonable and profitable thing to do.  Micro chipping of a human being is not intrinsically an evil exercise.  Credit card fraud could be eliminated, illegal persons identified, criminal records along with medical records could be instantly surfaced, etc.  -  HOWEVER  -  it appears that there will be a time when an evil, blasphemous, all powerful beast of a man will use such technology to cause some in the man-made visible church to turn from the faith and to abandon Christ the Redeemer and the true Christian community and  to give allegiance to this false Christ.  The possibility that any one of us could make such a decision at that time should absolutely frighten us.  Rev. 14:9-11 should stagger the Christian community to whatever degree one perceives this chipping to be an inevitable progression toward the events described in Rev. 13 and 14.  I fear that that sobriety is lacking in the Church as a whole at this time.

So a tiny chip now becomes a gorilla in the middle of the room.  The question demands an answer:  Should a Christian military man or woman refuse this chip or any other chip yet to follow?  I do not have the answer.  I know that this is already a conflict in the lives of some.  Will a man become a candidate for Rev 14:9-11 if he takes this chip?  Of course not.  No allegiance is demanded  to anyone by so doing.  Will some Christians refuse any kind of implant in the future?  Yes, some will.  Would that be a good discipline to place oneself under?  Yes it would.  Isn't it interesting that these questions are even being raised.  This so-called information age; this exponential age; this increasingly godless age seems to be surfacing such subject-matter.

Again, I have no answers to suggest the one and only answer to such questions.  What I am strongly suggesting, however, is that our community needs to become evermore alert to the progression of what seems to be biblical events that suggest the soon coming of our Lord and all of the godless, hateful, lawless and blasphemous activities that precede that coming ( 2 Tim. 3:1-5)

To whatever degree that we perceive such activities to be Biblical; to that degree let the frustrations of the moment drive us into His bosom and drive us into affection for His community of believers.  Be sober - be alert - encourage one another - assemble together.

The King is coming!

He Surely Gave It All!

This is from my daughter-in-law whose cousin is a PHD professor in Physiology at Vanguard University.  She starts out with a little background to the Crucifixion of Christ and then gets heavy into the physiology of what happened to His body.  I hope that you find it to be as powerful and faith-building as I did.  Pay special attention to her expansion on the phenomenon of hemohidrosis ( sweat like drops of blood - Luke 22:44) and to her comments on the Lord's utterance of forgiveness as He was attempting to exhale. This is worth our time and close attention.  May the Spirit of the Lord minister to all of you, especially as He did to me when she explained the agony of exhaling those words of forgiveness at the same time.

http://www.gbccmedia.com/play.php?id2=577

What Would I Have Done?

Here are some thoughts from Erwin Lutzer (When A Nation Forgets God, Moody Publishers):

"Here is an eyewitness account of how some members of the church reacted to the Nazism of their times.  Put yourself in their shoes and ask:  What would I have done?"

I lived in Germany during the Nazi Holocaust.  I considered myself a Christian.  We heard stories of what was happening to the Jews, but we tried to distance ourselves from it, because, what could anyone do to stop it?


A railroad track ran behind our small church and each Sunday morning we could hear the whistle in the distance and then the wheels coming over the tracks.  We became disturbed when we heard the cries coming from the train as it passed by.  We realized that it was carrying Jews like cattle in the cars!


Week after week the whistle would blow.  We dreaded to hear the sound of those wheels because we knew that we would hear the cries of the Jews en route to a death camp.  Their screams tormented us.


We knew the time the train was coming and when we heard the whistle blow we began singing hymns.  By the time the train came past our church we were singing at the top of our voices.  If we heard the screams, we sang more loudly and soon we heard them no more.


Years have passed and no one talks about it anymore.  But I still hear that train whistle in my sleep.  God forgive me; forgive all of us who called ourselves Christians yet did nothing to intervene. p. 22


"We should not be too critical of the church in Germany.  What would we have done in the face of such abuses?  What should we do when the state's policy is evil?  What train is rumbling past us today whose whistle we ignore?" (bold added)

A challenging question for us today, not so?  What is somewhat disturbing to me is the thought that forces itself upon the subject-matter that so many Christians are not challenged by such a question. More disturbing yet is the thought that not many pastors are challenged by the question; some not even knowing that the question is even being asked.

With an ever-increasing godless agenda being adopted and proactively pursued by the World community against the church, it seems to me that a little more sobriety needs to be  embraced, and even generated, by the leaders of our local churches.  Those trains seem to be "rumbling by" our churches with an ever-increasing rapidity.  Are we singing louder and louder, or are we (hopefully) beginning to listen and observe that "rumbling" elephant that is in the room?

BTW, I recommend the book.  It is timely, substantive, and one can read it in one, or two readings.