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.

Londonistan

In 1920, an anti-Semite Jew hater of the first order was appointed by the British government to be the grand mufti of Jerusalem. Haj Amin al-Husseini who, it could be reasonably argued, exceeded even Adolph Hitler himself in his hatred of that race. At least, from time to time, the Third Reich attempted to deport some Jews from their conquered lands rather than murder them. Not so with Amin al-Husseini. He went to his death bed decades later advocating with zeal the death of EVERY Jew on earth. The man was a purist. Chuck Morse (The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism, WND Books, 164) describes the appeasing nature of the appointment with these words: After al-Husseini instigated the 1920 pogrom against the Jews of Palestine, Herbert Samuel, the British administrator of Palestine and himself a Jew, appointed him as grand mufti of Jerusalem. This act of appeasement by Samuels finds its echoes in the response by many liberal world leaders to today's terrorist threat. (bold added) The operative word above would be "appeasement" I am currently reading Israel: A History by Martin Gilbert (Harper Perennial, 2008) concerning the Zionist movement from its beginnings to the beginnings of Aliyah, through the Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel and the wars that the Arab neighbors forced upon the Israeli people after that. One can barely read through ten pages without references to the impediments generated by the British Mandate authorities to prevent the immigration of Jews to the land of their ancestors. These impediments were generated with zeal at times, even when the Holocaust was made manifest to the Western world and Jewish lives could have been saved by supporting that movement. After the Balfour Declaration of support for the establishment of a homeland in Palestine for the Jewish People in 1917, British support for such an establishment started to evaporate. Middle East oil began it's allure to the Western World and ninety years later appeasement seemingly has won the day. So what does that have to do with Londonistan, one might ask? Well, while reading about such things I thought of the promises made by Abraham's God concerning the fact that He would bless Abraham and his seed. Further, He would bless those who blessed, and curse those who cursed. (Gen 12:2,3) So who has "cursed" here? One could postulate that Great Britain was certainly not blessing the Hebrew people through these decades, could one not? They were zealously pursuing just the opposite up until authority was transferred from the British Mandate to the international community in the form of the United Nations. To whatever degree one would imagine that in God's eyes this was a cursing, then a delicious thought (delicious if it were not so tragic) comes to mind in the form of poetic justice. Sixty plus years after the 1948 transfer of authority, London, the heart of British society, is being overrun by the very people whose approval they whored after at the expense of the Jewish people and nation, namely over 400,000 Muslim residents whose loyalty is to Islam and not to England. And, of course, it is becoming obvious that this infection is spreading throughout Europe. The World is snake-bit. Appeasement has won the day. It seems to me that only the Return of Christ will turn this around. We need to do what is right in His sight. Just some thoughts.

Another Tsunami

8.9 - WOW! Japan shakes violently. 8.9!!

Luke 21:25-28 came to my mind:

And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then will they see THE SON OF MAN COMING IN A CLOUD with power and great glory. But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.


There used to be a time when I did not witness to this passage. This is pertinent because I have believed that we are approaching the close of the age for over thirty years now. I could not, however, agree with those of like-mind who attempted to witness earthquake swarms and volcanic eruptions as signs that this passage was being fulfilled before our eyes. The intensity was simply not there to arouse my faith that that particular declaration in Luke was being made manifest. That condition is rapidly being reversed in my mind. This, however, is not the emotional and intellectual thrust that surfaced when I learned of the quake and subsequent damage.

We are living in a world that is realing from hatred, rebellion, duplicity, natural disasters and economic insolvency. Political and union thugs are justified in Wisconsin, militant Islam is winning the day because of greed and appeasement, the visible church is not outraged by the onslot of spiritual apostasy, the international community is about to have a financial crash, Arab nations are in rebellion with the only winner being the Muslim Brotherhood, and in the midst of it all the Western world is snake-bit. - 2 Tim. 3:1-5 comes to mind. - And now, 8.9! So, what are we to do?

Jesus tells us "to lift up our heads" Let me put it this way: beloved, we need to have this insane world drive us into the bosom of Christ. We are not a sobered church. Whatever Christ demands from us at this time of our lives should cause us to respond with sobriety and an intensity that the current world condition demands that we respond. I sense that there are many 8.9-like conditions in areas other than natural disasters that await this world.

Even so, come Lord Jesus!