Kato Mivule | November 1st, 2010
Jon Stewart held a rally this past Saturday at the National Mall in Washington DC in an effort to his credit, trying to “restore sanity” in the current political discourse in the USA.
America has become so polarized that even some Christians are caught up in the negative partisan politics, often siding with Tea Party activists, who of late have gained the reputation of being uncivil and “extreme”. Yet Jon Stewart made an astonishing statement as I watched the “Sanity” rally on TV, that “ these are hard times and not end times”. The statement of course refers to Evangelical Christians in America who preach and teach Bible Prophecy on TV, Radio, and Churches.
However, of lately TV and Radio personalities mainly on Fox News, like Glenn Beck have taken on the mantle of political Bible prophecy teacher, injecting apocalyptic scenarios and Bible prophecy references in their speech to persuade their listeners that if the Obama administration continues in power, then we are really in the end times and doomed. It is a tactic used to scare mainly old citizens, and Christians in forcing them to take political action.
Many 'real' Bible Prophecy Teachers like Dr. David Jeremiah have appeared on Fox News in promotion of their end Time Bible Prophecy books, the most popular being “The Coming Economic Armageddon” by Dr. David Jeremiah, and Fox News to their credit has used such fear mongering techniques to increase their business base as any astute businessperson would do. The politicians, especially Republicans have not left this fear mongering technique to go to waste.
To avoid being labeled extremists, Republican strategists have used the Tea Party as a proxy to scare any Evangelical Christian to vote for them, using Bible Prophecy as a tool in this fear mongering endeavor. In such circumstances, Bible Prophecy is viewed as an event that can be controlled by Man in order to appease Man's goals. If you have a democrat in the White House, then Bible Prophecy is sure coming to pass and swiftly with the “destruction of America”, a phrase that Tea Party activists love to use as a talking point. However, if you have a Republican or a Tea Party Christian in the White House, then Bible Prophecy is somehow withheld. Such abuse and misuse of Bible Prophecy by Political Christian activists is what is turning Bible Prophecy into a laughing matter and a thing to be joked about by comics.
The difficulty is not Jon Stewart's thinking that 'hard times are not end times', the issue is Christians who manipulate bible prophecy for political gain. Any serious Christian knows that Bible Prophecy is not controlled and timed by Humans but by God in Heaven who will fulfill all things in His own time regardless if the President in the White House is a Christian or not.
Yet still living in hard times does not necessarily mean that we are in the end times as spoken of in the Book of Revelation for example. Just because you lost a job does not mean the world is ending tomorrow or the Antichrist will appear the next day. Any responsible Bible Prophecy teacher and any serious student of Bible Prophecy must separate the irrational fear-mongering from Bible Prophecy studies. Fear, paranoia, irrationality have nothing to do with Bible Prophecy, especially for Christians; Bible Prophecy, especially the Book of Revelation was written as an encouragement and hope for Christians going through hard times, that they were conquerors together with Christ Jesus who conquered death and is alive forevermore.
On the contrary, to respond to Jon Stewart, yes, hard times are part and parcel of the end times and New Testament scriptures make it clear on that. Yes, it makes sense to question if we are really in the end times, if the hard times take on a global nature combined with global catastrophes, and convulsions of nature, then Christians have an obligation to discern so. Therefore hard times could be a very good indicator that we are in the end times or at least getting into the end times. Yet fear has nothing to do with it except for those who don't know The Lord, as the New Testament states how mens hearts will fail for the fear of those things that will come upon them.
I believe in the Bible, I believe in the New Testament scriptures, I believe in Bible Prophecy with Timings and Seasons in the Hand of The Lord and not controlled by man. Yes, we are in the last days but these last days have nothing to do with the political manipulation of political christian activists who are unashamedly using and exploiting Bible Prophecy for their own selfish political gains and it is a shame that they disgrace the Name and Word of The Lord.
PRETRIB RAPTURE – HIDDEN FACTS !
ReplyDeleteHow can the “rapture” be “imminent”? Acts 3:21 says that Jesus “must” stay in heaven (He is now there with the Father) “until the times of restitution of all things” which includes, says Scofield, “the restoration of the theocracy under David’s Son” which obviously can’t begin before or during Antichrist’s reign. Since Jesus must personally participate in the rapture, and since He can’t even leave heaven before the tribulation ends, the rapture therefore cannot take place before the end of the trib! Paul explains the “times and the seasons” (I Thess. 5:1) of the catching up (I Thess. 4:17) as the “day of the Lord” (5:2) which FOLLOWS the posttrib sun/moon darkening (Matt. 24:29; Acts 2:20) WHEN “sudden destruction” (5:3) of the wicked occurs! (If the wicked are destroyed before or during the trib, who would be left alive to serve the Antichrist?) Paul also ties the change-into-immortality “rapture” (I Cor. 15:52) to the posttrib end of “death” (15:54). (Will death be ended before or during the trib? Of course not! And vs. 54 is also tied to Isa. 25:8 which is Israel's posttrib resurrection!) If anyone wonders how long pretrib rapturism has been taught, he or she can Google “Pretrib Rapture Diehards.” Many are unaware that before 1830 all Christians had always viewed I Thess. 4’s “catching up” as an integral part of the final second coming to earth. In 1830 it was stretched forward and turned into a separate coming of Christ. To further strengthen their novel view, which the mass of evangelical scholars rejected throughout the 1800s, pretrib teachers in the early 1900s began to stretch forward the “day of the Lord” (what Darby and Scofield never dared to do) and hook it up with their already-stretched-forward “rapture.” Many leading evangelical scholars still weren’t convinced of pretrib, so pretrib teachers then began teaching that the “falling away” of II Thess. 2:3 is really a pretrib rapture (the same as saying that the “rapture” in 2:3 must happen before the “rapture” ["gathering"] in 2:1 can happen – the height of desperation!). Other Google articles throwing light on long-covered-up facts about the 180-year-old pretrib rapture view include “Famous Rapture Watchers,” “X-Raying Margaret,” "Edward Irving is Unnerving," “Thomas Ice (Bloopers),” “Wily Jeffrey,” “The Rapture Index (Mad Theology),” “America’s Pretrib Rapture Traffickers,” “Roots of (Warlike) Christian Zionism,” “Scholars Weigh My Research,” “Pretrib Hypocrisy,” "Pretrib Rapture Secrecy," and “Deceiving and Being Deceived” – all by the author of the bestselling book “The Rapture Plot” which is available at Armageddon Books online. Just my two cents’ worth.