Posted on 04/22/2006 4:18:25 PM PDT by tenn2005
It is almost impossible to pick up a newspaper or magazine or watch TV without someone predicting that we are living in the “Last Days.” This has been particularly true in view of the numerous national disasters which have occurred over the past year. The signs that the pundits and televangelist point to are all supposedly Bible based prophecy. That being the case, it is entirely appropriate to go to the Bible and see exactly what it says concerning the “last days” and the context in which the statements are made.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalmorality.com ...
We may be, we may not be. No one knows but the Father. However, people will always speculate about it...of course with the end days always occurring during their own lifetimes. Makes people feel important I guess.
Are we living in the last days? Of course, always. Few get more than 35,000 days to begin with. If 10,000 - 20,000 are already gone, we are down to the last days.
Christians have believed so since about 70 AD. And they were really cheezed when the interpretation of Daniel of an October 22, 1844 arrival of Jesus in the clouds didn't happen.
It's good marketing, too. An evangelist telling people that the end times will begin 20 years from now is going to find an audience of procrastinators.
Telling them that the end times are easily several hundred years from now will cause folks to head for the doors.
Not all of them - you forget about the amillennialists and postmillennialists, who have much different expectations re Christ's Second Coming than do the premillennialists (and especially the premillenial pretribbers). Pretribbers make up the lion's share of American Christians today, especially those in the arts and media. And they're the ones telling us we're in the last days, and have been for the last hundred years.
Supporting the amil and postmil camp, whole books have been written about the premillennial infatuation since 1917 with Russia and the Mideast, but such books are unpopular and largely ignored by the Christian Booksellers' Association, who instead favor pretrib premillennial authors like Hal "Late Great Planet Earth" Lindsey.
Hal Lindsey made a career out of his belief that the Second Coming would occur by 1988. In the 21st Century he's still trying to convince people he was right about 1988 (he now says that "God has extended his 'grace period'"), while subtly altering expectations for when Christ will actually return. A smarter -and-wiser-for-his-years Lindsey is altering his prophetic timetable to have us look much farther in the future - about a thousand years, i.e. until long after Hal Lindsey has cashed his royalty checks and has died.
LOL, I'll defer to you. I was generalizing.
I'm sure some Christians are all over the board on this. They are on everything else!
Deuteronomy 30:19... "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live...."
If that means we're closer to the end than the beginning, then yes I think so. How close to the end I have know idea. Christians should be aware of and watch for the signs, but should not “immanentize the eschaton.” There is much we don't know about God's timing.
JWinNC
Oooops... getting sleeping... that was a poor choice of words. I was thinking one thing and wrote another.
I mean we should not seek to bring the end (eschaton) prematurely to the present (imminent NOT immanence).
JW
I believe that those who read the entire article will see that the Bible clearly teaches that "last days" refers to the last dispensation of time, not the final days before Jesus return. Accord to the teachings of the Bible the "last days" began in the first century and will continue until Jesus returns.
Those who teach otherwise usually have an agenda. I agree with a previous poster who pointed that their objective is usually to make a profit.
We need to learn to do own Bible study so we can know and teach the truth rather than allowing the Televangelist to spout their false doctrine then immediately ask for the poeple to send money so they can continue spouting their false doctrine.
How many times the Master Teacher, Jesus, ask that his followers send Him money? Funny, I can't seem to remember a single time.
Don't worry about The Last Days.
Your days are numbered.
"Live like you were dying."
That is probably the best advice I have received lately. Thanks for you input. You obviously have your priorities straight.
I'll be 40 in a few months, so I figure I'm about halfway to my last days :-).
Only if the only people you acknowledge as "Christians" are fundamentalist and evangelical Protestants.
The event became known as "The Great Disappointment". They were positive Jesus was returning that day.
A valid point, Campion, and I stand corrected. Apologies to my Catholic and Orthodox brethren! Let me rephrase that to say "Pretribbers make up the lion's share of American Protestantism today"
Only if the only people you acknowledge as "Christians" are fundamentalist and evangelical Protestants.
What about mainstream Baptists, Methodists, etc.? We have searched and cannot find any church or pastor who doesn't become defensive of their pre-trib position when asked about it.
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