Posted on 06/05/2002 11:51:09 AM PDT by sheltonmac
Any time there is a flurry of activity in the Middle East you can count on evangelical Christians to put on a good show. They run around proclaiming an "End of the World Is Near" gospel in hopes of scaring people into the Kingdom of God.
I refer to such Christians as "they" because I happen to be one of those evangelical Christians who believe that God is no longer dealing with national Israel and that His chosen people are those who comprise the church—essentially, all who believe in Christ. This may seem like a radical concept to those who look upon writers of doomsday fiction as prophetic geniuses, but that's what happens when people are drawn away from that boring, dust-covered, leaherbound Bible on the coffee table by novels with flashy covers and catchy titles.
When it comes to end times "prophecy," premillennialists seem to have a monopoly on the market. Hal Lindsey burst upon the scene in the 1970's with The Late Great Planet Earth. It became an international best-seller. In like fashion, the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins has proven to be one of the most lucrative enterprises in the history of Christendom. Sure, these books are by no means examples of literary greatness, but the authors more than make up for that with pure, unadulterated prophetic sensationalism.
The success of apocalyptic authors like Lindsey, LaHaye and Jenkins stems from their ability to exploit the prevailing eschatological school of thought among evangelical Christians, that being dispensational premillennialism. (Thank you, John Nelson Darby!) When it comes to the end times, most premillennialists believe that all Christians will be "raptured," that is, taken up out of the world by Jesus Christ at his almost second coming. Those left behind will have to face the Great Tribulation, a seven-year period of unparalleled chaos which will also herald the rule of the Anti-Christ. At the end of the Tribulation, Christ will return—his actual second coming—to set up his earthly kingdom and reign on the throne of David for a thousand years. After that millennial time of peace, God will do away with evil once and for all at the Great White Throne Judgment. (How there can be a thousand years of peace with evil present I cannot say. I suppose it's one of those things that just works it self out in the premillennialist model.)
With all the hype surrounding the end times, it is certainly understandable that theological misconceptions will filter down into our political ideology. This is not a new phenomenon. In fact, ever since the arrival of dispensational premillennialism on this continent in the 19th century our national political position has shifted to accomodate this line of thinking, thanks to the efforts of evangelical Christians.
Evangelical Christian influence has been around since the founding of this nation, and the beliefs of evangelicals have spilled over into politics. Ordinarily there would be nothing wrong with this, but flawed theology has since given way to a flawed foreign policy, and U.S. interests have become inextricably tied to the interests of modern Israel.
Strong political support for a Jewish nation began in the early 1900s. During World War I, Arthur James Balfour penned the Balfour Declaration which set the stage for British support of a Jewish homeland:
His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.Since dispensational premillennialism had already established itself as a part of the evangelical mainstream, it was only a matter of time before U.S. politicians who had been born and raised in that evangelical tradition began to let their theology affect their political ideology. In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson signaled his approval of the Balfour Declaration when he said, "The allied nations with the fullest concurrence of our government and people are agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundations of a Jewish Commonwealth."
American politicians have continued to voice their strong support for Israel, though little has been mentioned as to why Israel is such an important ally. But that really isn't the issue I want to explore. What seems to be driving the U.S.-Israel relationship, as far as evangelical Christians are concerned, is the popular belief that the nation of Israel still plays an important role in prophecy, and those not wanting to be caught facing the business end of God's wrathful sword come Judgment Day are pushing for more U.S. involvement in the Middle East. About the only reasons we hear are that we have a "moral obligation" to stand behind Israel or that it's simply "the right thing to do."
Dispensational premillennialists typically quote the Book of Psalms when speaking of our "obligation" to support Israel. "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: 'May they prosper who love you'" (Ps. 122:6). This passage has been accepted by many Christians as a universal command by which all believers are bound to pray for the physical city of Jerusalem, lest they fall out of favor with God. Of course, that isn't the case.
While it may be good and practical to pray for the peace of modern Jerusalem, we should really be praying for peace all across the world—the peace that can only come about through the Good News of Jesus Christ. So, in a spiritual sense, Psalm 122 does apply to Christians today. We should pray for the peace of the spiritual Jerusalem, the church (Heb. 12:22), for the well-being of our brothers and sisters in Christ and the furtherance of the Gospel.
Many Christians, however, are too wrapped up in their flawed eschatology to realize that their first responsibility is to the church, the body of Christ, and not to a nation of unbelievers. As a result, eyes glance up in anticipation at the eastern sky every time Israel is mentioned in the media, and the practice of interpreting Scripture through newspaper headlines becomes commonplace.
It is interesting to see the ensuing pandemonium among evangelical Christians brought about by rumors of war in the Middle East. Believers ignore sound biblical instruction and start buying up extra copies of Left Behind to use as witnessing tools for reaching their non-believing friends. Christian columnists all across America crank out editorial pieces on the Jews' divine claim to the Holy Land and the importance of remaining steadfast in our nation's support of Israel. Jack Van Impe goes on television with an air of righteous vindication and says, "See? My latest reinterpretation of my previous reinterpretation of Revelation was correct! The time of Christ's coming in the clouds is fast approaching!"
Who can blame these Christians for becoming so enraptured (no pun intended) with the idea of being whisked away in the blink of an eye while the world is left to fester for seven years in its own evil juices? It is comforting for people to believe that they will escape tribulation when the end comes.
But ask anyone who holds to the premillennialist view what Christ had in mind when he proclaimed, "Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place" (Matt. 24:34). Ask them what the apostle Paul meant when he said, "For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham" (Rom. 9:6b-7a). Ask them why God felt it was necessary to establish a New Covenant (Heb. 8) if the Old Covenant is yet to be fulfilled. Chances are the answers you receive will be less than satisfactory.
The truth is that the covenant God had with Israel finds its fulfillment in Christ. "And if you are Christ's," Paul reminds us, "then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3:29). Advocating an "End of the World Is Near" gospel that appeals to gullible Christians and poll-driven politicians cannot be edifying for the body of Christ. If anything, it detracts from the work the Son of God already accomplished through his death and resurrection.
I certainly do not hold myself up as a theologian or biblical scholar, but it doesn't take one to see that the premillennialist paradigm is rather precarious. When a fundamental part of our foreign policy is based on a shaky biblical exegesis and championed by the very people who should know better, it gives one reason to question the immediate future of our nation.
At least we can rest in the fact that God is ultimately in control. His true chosen people, those who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, will not be forsaken, and the glory of the Almighty will shine forth for all the world to see.
I'm not sure I'm using the same dictionary regarding "soon" that He was/is.
Your perspective, scenarios--from my perspective--seem quite overmuch prone to putting God in a box and TRYING HARD--rather vainly it seems obviously clear--to squeeze all the mystery out of every statement that can be the least bit twisted to your construction on reality.
I can imagine all manner of aspects of SOON which were applicable then AND now.
. . .
For one, a thousand years is as a day--what's a couple of days to God? . . . probably pretty quick to a timeless Almighty God.
I suspect the creativity of Holy Spirit could come up with a dozen others. Our finite minds don't do as well at figuring out God's mysteries as we sometimes think they do--especially if the attitudes involved are overly akin to those of the religious leaders when Jesus walked dusty roads in more tangibly human form. . . and humans of EVERY persuasion are hazarded by such tendencies.
...and this fulness occurred through Christ who took away our sins! (see verse 27)
Let's put the whole 3 verses up: Rom:11:25 "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: 'The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. 27 And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.'"
Interesting terms and phrases in these verses. It seems to me that the most logical meaning of "until the full number of the Gentiles has come in." means until the full number of Gentiles to be saved has been saved.
GOODNESS!!! Now, are you REALLY saying (even to yourself) that all the Gentiles to be saved were saved in the first century AD? Guess that leaves you out.
No wonder there's so much trouble with gnats and camels. Mere "fullnesses" get mangled worse than spaghetti in a hay bayler.
. . .
Am I really given to understand . . . trying hard to give trainloads of the benefit of the doubt here but running out of trains. . . am I really given to understand that you REALLY BELIEVE that Christ Jesus somehow completed the FULNESS of the Gentile sequence, period, era, DISPENSATION [oh, what a curse word!], PROCESS, OPPORTUNITY, day on the stage, focus of God's Spirit and work; etc. etc. and etc. was began, done and finished ALL IN THE FIRST CENTURAY AD??? I guess God will have to kick all those Gentiles who died and went to Heaven since--He'll have to kick them out of Heaven. You can tell Him. But I don't want to be around when you do.
Verse 26: "And so all Israel will be saved,"
HMMMM, Immediately before, God was talking about Israel having hardened hearts UNTIL all the Gentiles that were going to be saved were saved.
Now, I'm just a poor shrink/English teacher . . . but the simple clear construction of those sentences and that paragraph leads me to the simple minded conclusion that WILL BE comes AFTER the Fullness of all the Gentiles being saved who will be saved--least-wise--during the "gentile era." Perhaps some will be dribbled in somehow AFTER the Gentile ERA is over--martyrs who refuse the Mark of the Best etc. . . . or maybe that period will also fall under the GENTILE ERA.
Perhaps all this is overtaxing my simple mind . . . but IT SURE SEEMS LOGICAL to my CPU that Given that God is still saving Gentiles--my Chinese housemate being a recent one--PRAISE THE LORD--it just seems ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that the ERA of the Gentiles is not quite over--though a sea change is certainly in the wind.
I also forgot to note that it TAXES my CPU exceedingly to try and wrap my mind around the notion that JESUS, THE PENULTIMATE PARAGON JEW somehow fulfilled anything of the era of the gentiles.
Let's put the whole 3 verses up: Rom:11:25 "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: 'The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. 27 And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.'"
"He will turn Godlessness away from Jacob."
Ahhhhh, So, the genetic Jews have not been sinning since AD 100???? Oh, I forgot, the genetic Jews have been wiped out of galactic existence from God's purview per YOUR construction on reality so--OH, I GET IT--THE GENTILES have been sinless since AD 100!!!!?????????
How wonderful! I guess we need to let a few thousand murderers and rapists and arrogant and . . . who once earnestly accepted Christ and then became overcome again by their evil--err--less admirable--choices--we need to let them go and consider them as sinless.
I wonder why "revisionist" keeps coming to mind.
Wellllllll, a hundred years ago, people scoffed at the idea that Russia would ever be a significant enough country to fulfill any shred of Bible prophecies about it.
Then the idea that a modern military would ride on horses of sufficient number in a moder war such that the blood would flow as high as a horse's bridle brought out more derision from the "higher" Biblical criticism schools.
I mean, given the vastness of the plain of Megedo (sp?), it HAD to be a ridiculous notion, right?
Evidently God doesn't think so. being rather specific about things--throughout the Old Testament--they came true precisely as predicted.
Given that the Replacement Theology folk would have us believe that all Bible prophecies purported to be regarding the end times [you know, the era we are so obviously now in]--that all those prophecies were fulfilled by the first century AD. . . there should sure be a lot of fossilized blood in that vast valley.
OH, right, SYMBOLIC BLOOD. I'm not sure what fossilized symbolic blood would look like? Would it bear any resemblence to fossilized CPU's?
Actually, I have wondered if the 100,000,000 figure were an equivalent sort of thing--something atomic weapons would encompass. But I haven't wondered it long. I think God still has an overwhelming tendency to speak very literally and say what He means and mean what He says.
Some have said logistically it is impossible to transport 100,000,000 Chinese to the MidEast.
Nevertheless, God said it. I believe it. And I expect to see it happen from some vantage point in the normal span of my lifetime.
I don't care if he allows satan to transport them supernaturally or if they hitch rides on a UFO mothership. Somehow, the soldiers and the horses and the blood will all be there as predicted . . . in the future. . . evidently the not too distant future.
Welllllllllllll, the BIBLE declares that Jesus is touched with the feelings of our infirmities, weaknesses. It seems pretty logical to me that He wept along those lines.
Another passage implies or states that He was touched over Jerusalem's ignorance of who He really was and the suffering their ignorance would result in.
I find your simple reading of the text of Daniel flawed; your premises flawed; your logic flawed and your conclusions flawed.
I opened to Daniel to give just a few examples and may yet before I go to bed. But I will likely put it off for another day . . . and given the priorities, I'm not sure when that day will arrive before I move back to the U.S.
I find the above sentence about years beneath the analyetical skills of a number of 12 year olds I know. I certainly don't find it a great point.
As a shrink,I continue to be amazed that the Replacement ?thumpologists? can honestly look themselves in their mirrors after believing such . . . "logic" . . . using the term very loosely.
However, I've lived long enough to know that the emotionality involved with religious beliefs can mangle the simplest of statements--and that's even before satan gets clearly and overtly involved.
He never seemed to write a LOT of ancient history down for us after the fact just for the fun of it.
He did produce a LOT of prophecy before the events for a diversity of reasons. I doubt He's changed much on that score.
Who knows what that mystery involves? God has no obligation to spell out to us all the details of ANY of the mysteries He allows us to apprehend however fractionally with whatever fraction of our finite brains.
I can accept that God changed His mind without understanding how to mesh that thoroughly with His unchangeableness. But He defines all that. He IS all that. Not me in my finiteness.
But if you wish to put yourself on God's level and tell Him what He can and cannot do and can and cannot be--by all means--help yourself. Please excuse me if I don't stand too close to you in a thunder storm.
I'm talking exclusively about THE BIBLE.
I do respect Hal Lindsey for having the courage to TRY and sort out various Biblical prophecy scenarios. I just believe it's not God's time yet for anyone to have it all figured out. I also believe that God is not interested in the arrogance that would result if He allowed any one man to figure it all out.
I also believe God is a good enough general He's not going to clue satan and His troops in to all the details ahead of time.
I'm happy to give Hal grace about getting things wrong. He does not pretend in the least to be a prophet of God. He's merely a writer speculating about things with a ton of research and now a hefty amount of contacts in high places both in Israel and in the U.S.
Well, I agree. And, that is why I think this nation is in deep doo-doo.
Yes preterism is a strange theology, which can be easily demolished by even a casual reading of Scripture. I've often wondered why it started and why people cling to it so desperately. What need in them does it satisfy? Why is it so important to them for God to be "finished with Israel" that they are willing to allegorize away vast reams of Scripture?
There ARE various takes on Scripture (like the Rapture, for instance) that truly ARE debatable. I am pre-Trib, but I can at least see the reasons for some folks who are mid-Trib. But preterism is so easily demolished by Scripture that it amazes me it still hangs around today.
The irony of THIS thread, if you go back and read the story, is that the ones who are illogical and emotional are the ones who agree with the author!!
I do NOT believe in REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY!
I do believe that we ARE in the end times.
I do believe that GOD WILL redeem genetic Israel--AT LEAST 144,000 of them in our era.
I DO believe that those who bless genetic Israel will be blessed.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. It's late and I'm tired.
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