‘In their efforts to limit Revelation to the A.D. 70 destruction of Jerusalem, preterists take the beast to be Nero. But a simple reading of the text indicates that the beast is destroyed at the Second Coming of Christ (Rev. 19:20). The contradiction couldn’t be clearer: How could Nero be the beast of Revelation when he perished in A.D. 68 yet Christ has yet to come?’
Twisting the meanings of what I read to be plain spoken foretelling of future events, events that have not yet happened, you must ask what would motivate the preterists to do this? An even more interesting question would be who or what entity is behind this?
The Bible warns of the false prophets who will attempt to misled the Faithful in the Last Days. It appears to me to be one more attempt to do just that, this is not new by the way, I have heard it before in various Bible study groups that I attended and left in short order.
They do have pure motives ... I will say that. Liberal scholars have ridiculed Christians because Jesus said He would 'be coming quickly' ... and they point the finger and shout 'See, your faith is misguided because Jesus never came back ... its been 2000+ years.'
In the preterists mind they are defending the scriptures from the liberal ... RC Sproul admits this in his writings. I don't fault them there ... but the approach is undermining the words of the Savior in this one area.
An even more interesting question would be who or what entity is behind this?
They are sincere; I would not label them false teachers per say ... as most would have the gospel right; but just wrong on this view.
Amen to that! We have seen many already: Herbert W. Armstrong, Jehovah Witnesses, Hal Lindsey, Jack Van Impe, Pat Robertson, Lester Sumrall, Edgar C. Whisenant, Harold Camping, David Berg, Jerry Falwell, Ed Dobson, Grant Jeffrey, and others, all of a dispensational or futurist stripe.
Philip