WARNING: In Case of Rapture, This Blog Spot will be Unmanned

I write these articles on the fly most of the time, but this time it is really, really on the fly. . .as in I will be flying away in several hours. At least that is what Harold Camping has informed us. The world is coming to an end on May 21, and I don't have that much time left before I must don my rapture robe woven out of silk from Jerusalem.

I overheard some comments today while I was out there working in the secular world (now why was I working in the first place, when I should be eating and drinking because the day after tomorrow I will fly?). These employees were joking about the atheists who have formed a business to take care of the pets of all departed Christians come May 21. That is the American entrepreneur spirit at work--making money at the expense of end time silliness. Many Christians have been doing that for years (just walk through your local Christian bookstore), so why can't atheists join in the parade and reap the same financial bonanza?

My first car was a 1963 two-door white Chevy Impala. I had on it a bumper sticker that read, Warning: In Case of Rapture, This Car will be Unmanned. It was the "in" bumper sticker among Christians at that time in the late 60s and early 70s. I soon discovered that "rapture" was secret (no pun intended) code language known only to the inner circle of dispensationalist Christians. The world by and large had no idea what that bumper sticker was saying. But it made us all Christians feel good, I guess. Or maybe just plain superior to all those worldly folks.

Of course, rapture is not found in any biblical concordance. That in of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, because the word Trinity is not found in the Bible either. The word "rapture" comes from the Latin word "rapio", and it means to be caught up. It is not the word that bothers me so much, but how the word has been co-opted by a cult-like following among a huge portion of evangelical Christianity, which has done nothing but make Christians look and sound stupid in the eyes of the world.

For the first eighteen centuries of Christianity, the idea that Christians would be secretly raptured out of this world to be followed by a seven-year tribulation time and then the Second (or would it be Third?) Coming of Christ was totally foreign to the thinking of all Christians. The trio of Edward Irving, J.N. Darby and Margaret McDonald in their English cult group changed all that. Pretty soon, Darby exported this sensationalism to America, and a divorced lawyer who had spent time in jail, a C.I. Scofield, picked up on this novel theory, and as Paul Harvey was fond of saying, now you know the rest of the story.

Harold Camping may be an extreme example, but he is an eschatological blood brother, whether certain people want to admit it or not, to all the other end time prophecy "experts" who have drunk liberally from the well of dispensationalism. Harold is bold enough to pick a date; others only flirt with dates. (Of course, if Harold lived back in the Old Testament times, when the penalty for being a false prophet was death by stoning, Harold would have been a goner a long time ago.)

What is the difference really between Harold and all those preachers who were so eager to preach after the devastating earthquake in Japan that we were witnessing a sure sign that we are living in the last days, or how the turmoil in Egypt was a sure sign that the rapture is very, very near?

While growing up as a young person, I heard this remark made many times over: "There have been more earthquakes in the 20th century than all the earthquakes in the previous centuries combined. This just proves we are living in the last days just like Jesus said in Matthew 24:7." Well, guess what? No one ever called anybody on the carpet about that statistic; we just took it at face value (and we love to say we are Berean Christians like in Acts 17:11?), because it sounded so good coming from the pulpit or when we read it in print.

The truth is in earlier centuries they did not have the modern know-how in seismology to measure earthquakes. The statement was and is blatantly false, but don't let that minor detail stop many preachers and authors from using it over and over again still today. The apparent rise in earthquakes over the last several decades is due to nothing more than the use of technological advanced seismographs. How many were killed in the Japan earthquake? Compare that to the one in China in 1850, where an estimated 400,000 died, or how about the one in Calcutta in 1737 where 300,000 died, or how about Egypt in 1138 where 230,000 died, or to top them all, again in China in 1556 where there were over 800,000 casaulties?

So Harold is camping on the fact that May 21 is when it will all end. I can only hope and pray that all this inexlpicable fascination with a cultish modern invader called dispensationalism will come to an end someday.

I told my wife I was going to take her to Hawaii on our 33rd wedding anniversary come May 27. You could not imagine how happy I made her feel. But alas, I also told her I found out that the world will come to an end six days before then, so I had to scrap all my original plans.

Another fallout of dispensationalism--it does not promote harmony in the home. Thanks, Harold.

Looking for the blessed hope,

Chris

What is a Mommy After All?

I searched and searched for just the right poem to read on Mother's Day;
But all seemed so impersonal and just did not express what I wanted to say.
I'm not that great a poet; rhyme is not my thing,
And to put it to music--everyone knows I can't sing.
So I've come up with my own prose, be it ever so small
To answer the fundamental question, "What is a Mommy after all?"

A Mommy from my perspective is a 1001 different things--
Or is it rather a Mommy must do each day 1001 different things?
Underneath her blouse is hidden a big letter "S"--
Now does that stand for Super Mom, Super Caring, or Super Tired
(or maybe all the above)?

A Mommy can leap over a pile of toys with a single bound,
Wipe a runny nose faster than a speedy toddler,
And with nerves of steel go toe-to-toe with anyone who messes with her kids.

A Mommy cooks, sews, irons, washes dishes, mops floors, changes diapers,
Dresses the kids, takes them to the doctor, shops until she drops,
Watches Barney for the umpteenth time, kisses and mends boo-boos,
Cleans house, picks up clothes, does the laundry, dusts and vacuums,
And then by lunch time she's ready to go at it again.

A Mommy does that and more,
And yet she finds time for Daddy.

A Mommy is a lighter sleeper than a Daddy;
That's why she always gets up at 2:00 a.m. with a sick child,
While Daddy is still fast asleep, or pretending to be.

A Mommy is smarter than a Daddy;
That's why a Daddy always tells his child to go ask Mommy.

A Mommy does not get paid by the hour;
She gets paid by looking with satisfaction
Into the eyes of a family God has given her.
A Mommy reads to her children from the most precious Book of all,
And tells her children about the most precious Person of all.

A Mommy watches her child take her first step,
And before she can turn around, she is watching that child
Take her first step down a wedding aisle--
A Mommy knows how to cry alot.

What would this world be like if God did not give us Mommies?
Children grow up, leave home, start their own families,
Come back to visit for a while, and always ask for advice.
Yes, children grow up, but Mommies never really do,
Because Mommies are always Mommies.

So I close this little prose with one more bit of rhyme.
To tell you all that a Mommy is I simply don't have the time.
And that's something else special about a Mommy--
She always seems to have the time or take the time.
How she does it, I will never know!

But to see those little ones grow up full of the love of God,
Well, that's worth all the having to get up and go.
So Mommy, I salute you--you really are one of a kind.
Don't worry about falling behind on your housework,
Because your homework is walking behind.




Many thanks go again to Jan Blair of Jones, OK, who did the above in calligraphy and nicely framed it for us over 16 years ago.

Rot in Hell: How a Secular Newspaper Can Teach a Christian Pastor

One thing is certain: Osama bin Laden is NOT the Antichrist.

This article was not exactly what I had in mind for part two of Is the Islamic Antichrist Among Us?, but it is funny how the news events of the day can change one's course.

My sister called me this past Sunday evening to ask me if I were watching TV. She does a good job of alerting me to things I should be aware of, like an approaching tornado, because most of the time we don't have the TV turned on. This time, though, it was not a weather report she was making me aware of; instead, it was the earth-shattering announcement that our military, particularly the cream of the cream of the crop, the Navy Seals, had taken out Osama within a 40-minute time period within his compound in Pakistan.

It was either Good Morning, America or the Today Show the next morning that held up the New York newspaper headlines announcing the death of this terrorist mastermind. One of the New York City newspapers had this for their big caption on the front page--ROT IN HELL. Beside that was the picture of Osama bin Laden.

How strikingly odd that a secular newspaper in New York City would admit in this "eliminate-all-hell-talk" postmodern religious environment that hell must be a real place after all. True, it is only a place for the really, really, really bad folks, like Osama, or other mass murderers, or serial rapists, or child abusers, or former spouses, but nonetheless, the world still has a place for hell, besides just in our cursing. We can't shake off hell, as much as we are told that we must, in this new age of coexistence, full tolerance and positive feel-happy spirituality where all roads lead to heaven. . .except that one road we must keep in tact that leads to hell.

What is the explanation for all this dichotomy of how we should not believe in hell, yet how we should believe in hell? The Preacher in Ecclesiastes says that God has set eternity in the heart of man. Man has been designed by its Creator to think of eternity, that this life is not all there is. The new atheists or the run-of-the-mill advanced secularists can try all they want to rub this "archaic" thought out of our craniums, but it simply will not go away. We have a list of people that we want to see rot in hell. It is more than just a death wish, and it is more than just a hell wish too.

This is because we know that justice is never fully served in this life. It is not right that Osama had a quick death for one time, when how many people did he kill, many of them very painful slow deaths, on 9/11? Even if we could kill Osama many times over, we still would think he did not fully get what was coming to him.

We demand that there be a fuller justice out there beyond this life, something that is more exacting and more definite by a Judge that is completely able and willing to do the right thing in every case. Justice delayed is justice denied, which is often the case in this life; but that sticky unresolved issue could be more than overcome if justice determined is justice divined in the next life.

Of course, a normal man's thinking has all those people "worse" than himself getting their just desserts before God one day; he never stops to consider that Gehenna will be populated by people that were not as "good" as God. That should strike another kind of terror in the mind of every man. How can anyone be as good as God, and how can I then be removed as a prime candidate for residency in hell myself?

Justification is the heaven-sent solution whereby man can avoid being sent to hell. Since all our righteousness is like filthy rags (menstrual cloths, literally), we need the perfect Righteousness of Another to be transferred to our account. Jesus, the God-man, through His death on the cross, has made it a reality that a believing, repenting man can have all his sins removed and God's righteousness be put in its place. What better deal could man hope for--this is real hope and change--God gets all our sin, and we get all His righteousness. Man comes out on the better end of that arrangement.

This is where the New York City newspaper falls short. All will "rot in hell", apart from God's saving grace.

But at least the secular media recognizes there is a hell of some sort. Maybe they can teach a few things to people like Rob Bell, a Christian pastor and author of Love Wins, who denies the reality of hell.

What a strange world we live in, where we are asking the world to teach a Christian pastor some sound theology. How foolish could we be for expecting it to be the other way around!

Living with eternity in mind,

Chris

Is the Islamic Antichrist Among Us? (part one)

In February 1989, the Ayotallah Khomeini delivered his infamous fatwa (the formal opinion of a Muslim canon lawyer) against Salman Rushdie, the author of Satanic Verses.

As a quick historical review, during the prophet Muhammad's days in Mecca, before he was run out of town and took his flight to Medina, Muhammad was sitting with some eminent men of Mecca next to the Kaaba, the cube like building in the middle of the center of the mosque at Mecca. There he began to recite sura 53, which describes Gabriel's first visit to Muhammad and then goes on to the second visit:

He also saw him (Gabriel) another time

By the Lote tree at the furthest boundary

Near to which is the Paradise of rest,

When the Lote tree covered that which is covered,

His sight turned not aside, neither did it wander

And verily he beheld some of the greatest Signs of his Lord

What do you think of Lat and Uzza

And Manat the third beside?

At this point we are told that Satan himself put into Muhammad's mouth words of reconciliation and compromise:

These are exalted Females

Whose intercession verily is to be sought after.

The Meccans were overjoyed at this recognition of their deities and are said to have prayed with the Muslims, the early followers of Muhammad. But supposedly, Gabriel paid another visit to the Prophet, scolded Muhammad, and told him that the true ending to the verse should have been:

What! shall there be male progeny unto you, and female unto Him?

That were indeed an unjust partition!

They are naught but names, which ye and your fathers have invented.

Muslims have always been uncomfortable with this story, unwilling to believe that the "monotheistic" Prophet could have made such a concession to idolatry. Actually, this was not a slip of the tongue by Muhammad. This was a calculated attempt to win the support of the pagan Meccans to Muhammad's eclectic religion. When the Meccans failed to follow in line, Muhammad reversed course, and blamed Satan for inspiring him to say the original lines.

If Satan truly had been these words in Muhammad's mouth, how can anyone put faith in a man so easily led astray? How could God allow that to happen? How do we know if there not other passages in the Koran where Muhammad had not been led astray?

For Salman Rushdie to pursue this line of thought and state the obvious from Muhammad's inglorious past, he was deemed as good as dead. Mr. Rushdie became a fugitive on the run from the long reach of the Muslim law.

At the same time, a glaring inconsistency existed, even to this day. Christian end-time soothsayers in our country have recently nominated Libyan President, Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi, as a possible candidate for the post of Antichrist. Other candidates have come and gone through the years, but the nominations will keep pouring in until somebody will finally get it right, supposedly.

But the surprising thing about al-Qaddafi is that he is anything but a faithful Muslim. His public statements on the Prophet, the Koran and Islam in general amount to a blasphemy far greater than anything written by Salman Rushdie. He changed the Islamic calendar, mocked Meccan pilgrims as "guileless and foolish", criticized the prophet Muhammad, and claimed that his own achievements in Libya were far greater than those of the Prophet. He has shown extreme skepticism about the truth of the Koran and even about the details of the life of the Prophet. Though religious leaders found al-Qaddafi anti-Islamic and deviant, and condemned his "perjury and lies," there were no calls for his death, nor were any of his writings banned.

Today there is an uprising in Libya, as there is in other parts of the Middle East. The protesters in Libya have discovered, though, that it is a much harder job to dislodge their leader than in the case of Egypt's Mubarek, another previous candidate for the post of Antichrist. This has led many to assume that the protesters are a more radical group of Muslims who finally want to instill an Iranian-type Islamic state. NATO has gotten involved, along with American air forces, and the time may come when ground forces will be sent in to remove the Libyan leader from power. The question remains, though, why has it taken so long for Muslim leaders to take al-Qaddafi to task for his anti-Islamic rants through the decades?

One explanation is that in Islam and in Muhammad's own life there are a countless number of inconsistencies and contradictions, all because "the end justifies the means."

Ibn Warraq in his book Why I Am Not a Muslim reminds us we need to distinguish three Islams: Islam 1 is the what the Prophet taught as contained in the Koran, Islam 2 is the religion as expounded, interpreted and developed by the theologians through the traditions (Hadith), which includes the sharia and Islamic law, Islam 3 is what Muslims actually did do and achieve, or to put it in other words, Islamic civilization. (Do you see the familiarity with what Jesus had to face in His day with his ongoing confrontations with the Pharisees and scribes?) Trying to reconcile all three strands of Islam will cause any critical thinker to have unending migraines.

For starters, Muhammad did not invent a new religion. He was basically jealous that his tribe in Mecca did not have a monotheistic religion like the Jews and the Christians. Inside the Kaaba there were 360 idols, for instance. What Muhammad did was draft the moon god "Allah" into becoming the One Supreme God, and then from there he borrowed pagan practices left and right, much of it from Zoroastrianism, to fit them into his home-brew concoction of Islam.

Islam does not allow for critical analysis. Everything is to be accepted by blind faith. When one dares to question anything about Muhammad's life, his sayings, the Koran or Hadith, or the religion of Islam in general, that person becomes a marked man, ala Salman Rushdie. In contrast, Christianity invites critical thinking and probing investigation, because the truth has nothing to fear.

Because Europe and the United States have been swept off her feet by growing secular humanistic ideology the past two centuries, they no longer have the stomach and mind to recognize the danger that Islam imposes. The United States is not far behind Europe in so many ways. Have you ever wondered why since 9/11 there is the inexplicable attempt on the part of the political, academic, media and religious establishment to defend and even promote "peaceful" Islam at all costs? How can the National Organization for Women remain silent, for example, about how women in Islamic countries are treated? Such is the case, though.

I have often wondered about the "COEXIST" bumper stickers I see on vehicles. Is it just by accident that the first letter C represents Islam, whereas the last letter T represents Christianity? Hmm. But more to the point, what are the chances that we would find a COEXIST bumper sticker on a vehicle in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, Turkey, et. al.? A rational person would have to conclude that we don't have much problems with "coexisting" in the United States. (How many Muslims have been persecuted, beaten, imprisoned, killed in this country, and how many mosques here have been bombed or burned to the ground? Compare that number to Christians and churches in Islamic countries.) It seems that the Islamic countries didn't get the memo yet on peaceful, tolerant coexistence.

In the United Kingdom, where Prince William got married today (finally!), there are more Muslim mosques than Methodist churches. Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe. Many European leaders are afraid to make a move due to how it may upset the Muslims in their respective countries. Witness how Spain quickly withdrew its armed forces from the Iraqi war, all because of a terrorist attack on a train.

Where did this "bend-over-backwards-to-appease" Islam attitude develop in Europe? In the sixteenth century, when Europe began to explore other parts of the world, the notion of the "noble savage" was first fully developed. That included Muslims in Africa, the Middle East and the Far East. The seventeenth century saw the first truly sympathetic accounts of Islam. Compared to the Catholic Church, for example, Pierre Bayle would comment: "The Muslims have always had more humanity for other religions than the Christians." The Crusades, going back several centuries, were the Catholic Church's attempt to outdo the Muslim jihad. This had a lasting negative hangover in the minds of the intellectual class in Europe.

George Sale in his translation of the Koran in 1734 firmly believed that the Arabs "seem to have been raised up on purpose by God, to be a scourge to the Christian church, for not living answerably to that most holy religion which they had received." In other words, Islam was a means of divine judgment upon the Christian church. Had the church lived up to its ideals, then Islam would not have succeeded so much. That was the estimation of many at the time.

It was Voltaire, the French atheist, that got the pro-Islamic, anti-Christian ball rolling at full speed. To Voltaire, the God of Christianity was a "cruel and hateful tyrant" who "surely cannot have been born of a girl, nor died on the gibbet, nor be eaten in a piece of dough" and nor could he have inspired "books filled with contradictions, madness and horror."

By contrast, Voltaire found the dogmas of Islam very simple: there is but one God, and Muhammad is his Prophet. There were no priests, no miracles, no mysteries. This appealed to the anti-supernatural bent of people like Voltaire. The historian Gibbon, who wrote The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, painted Islam in a favorable light, especially as contrasted to Christianity. The anticlerical Gibbon jumped on Islam's bandwagon because it provided more ammunition is his own disdain for the doctrine of the divinity of Christ. Gibbon's deistic view of Islam as a rational, priest-free religion, with Muhammad as a wise and tolerant lawgiver, enormously influenced the way all Europeans perceived their new sister religion for years to come.

A familiar pattern was emerging in Europe in the late 1700s and into the 1800s--Islam was being used as a weapon by a growing number of movers and shakers in European society to mock and to attack Christianity. Many of the European apologists of Islam had not proper acquaintance with the Arabic sources of Islam; most had only a superficial knowledge of their subject. They simply used Islam as a convenient weapon against intolerance, cruelty, dogma, the clergy and Christianity.

This is where we are today. Christianity is the whipping boy; Islam is the whipper.

So. . .is the Antichrist an Islamic religious-political figure who may be on the scene now, or who will appear soon? It is reported that Glenn Beck has suggested as much. The 12th iman will reappear, and in Islamic theology his likeness is comparable to the Antichrist we read about in the New Testament. So the reasoning goes. But what does the Bible say about the Antichrist? Surprisingly, the Bible paints a totally different picture of the antichrists or an antichrist than that that has been popularized through evangelical or even Mormon circles.

Yours in Christ,

Chris

Earthquakes in Pulpits and Pews

Tim LaHaye was in Hawaii at a Bible prophecy conference (at what other conference would he be attending or speaking?) when the 8.9 earthquake rattled parts of Japan. When asked about the news in Japan, the first thing out of his mouth was along the lines that the Bible says there would be earthquakes in various places before the Second Coming of Christ. Where is all that Christian compassion for the victims and survivors of that catastrophe? Nothing seems to matter more than to hope that this crisis or the next crisis fits into our end-time scheme. Just like Jonah. (See earlier blog post, Have You Been Gypped about Egypt?, and especially my P.S.)

Let us set the record straight. Jesus is coming again. There will be a second bodily coming of our Lord. There will be a future bodily resurrection of believers and unbelievers alike. There will be a new heaven and a new earth. There will be an eternal lake of fire.

But there is absolutely nothing in the Bible that says that earthquakes, famines, wars, or whatever else would increase in frequency right before Christ's Second Coming. This may come as a shock to many, especially those who have been fed dispensationalism all their lives. And I may be branded as some sort of kook heretic, but so be it.

It was the improper interpretation of God's Word that led the religious leaders in Jesus' day to miss the boat on his First Coming, and it is the improper interpretation of God's Word that is leading many Christians today to miss the boat regarding the Second Coming. (See John 2:18-21 and Mark 14:55-65 for one such example.)

There is ONE passage about earthquakes or wars or other catastrophic events that have been used over and over again by countless preachers and authors who relish in sensationalizing over national or world tragedies. This passage is found in the Olivet Discourse, which is found in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21. Many assume right off the bat that this whole discussion between Jesus and His disciples was about the signs leading up to the Second Coming of Christ. That is where people go wrong.

The disciples were not thinking about the Second Coming of Christ. They did not know fully yet about the First Coming of Christ, and they would not know all about that until after Christ's resurrection. So why would they bother to ask about the Second Coming now thousand years removed from them, when they did not even have at the time the slightest clue about Jesus' death just several hours away?

What was the burning issue on their minds? Luke 21:5-7 tell us, so does Mark 13:1-4, and so does Matthew 24:1-3. Jesus made it so clear to them and to us, how can we miss it? Jesus pointed to their beautiful Temple in Jerusalem, which all Jews took enormous pride in, and said that building would be leveled to the ground. Naturally, the Jewish disciples were astonished to no end, and they wanted to know when the end of their Temple would occur.

Jesus proceeded to answer their question. He gave the signs leading up to the end of the age, not the end of the world, but the end of the old covenant age, when Jesus would come in judgment upon that generation that rejected the Messiah. When the Temple is destroyed, there are no more sacrifices, priests and Levites are out of a job, and the old covenant nation of Israel ceases to be. Plain and simple. The disciples were not asking about the signs leading up to the Second Coming of Christ (why would they be concerned about that since it was going to be such a long way off, two thousand years and counting now?). They were asking when the Temple and their nation would come to a screeching halt.

Wouldn't that concern us if someone with impeccable credentials and authority told us today that our nation's capital would be overthrown? Would our normal, natural reaction be, "When will a rebuilt nation's capital be destroyed some hundreds or thousands of years later?" How preposterous. That flies in the face of reason. Or would it be something like this, like what the disciples asked, "When is our country today coming to an end? Tell us, give us some clues, give us some time indicators, when will the D.C. we have now be Destroyed Completely?"

So Jesus answers the disciples' question. He doesn't answer a question that they didn't ask. He doesn't give answers that would be totally irrelevant to His disciples. Jesus knew what the disciples were asking, the disciples heard what Jesus had said, and the question before us is this: Will we hear Jesus, or will we hear some popular preacher/author instead, who will take advantage of an earthquake in Japan, in order to prove a point that Jesus never made? Do we know more than our Lord?

Bottom line is this--everything Jesus said in Mark 13:5 and following (and in the other synoptic gospel accounts) is about historical events that would happen leading up to the destruction of the Temple in the first century. And in Mark 13:30, Jesus wraps up everything in a nice pretty bow by saying, "Truly I say to you, THIS (not THAT, as in a future distant generation) generation will not pass away until ALL THESE THINGS (all the things he talked about from v.5 on) take place."

Was Jesus right? Jesus spoke these words in 30 A.D. Guess what would happen in 70 A.D., forty years later, within a generation of time? The Temple was destroyed by an invading Roman army. The old covenant age came to an end. The nation of Israel ceased to be. Jesus came in judgment, like when God came in judgment numerous times in the Old Testament (Isaiah 26:21, Micah 1:3, etc.).

There are many passages in the Bible that speak concerning the Second Coming of Christ, but Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 are NOT one of them.

What about the earthquake in Japan? Or Hurricane Katrina? Or Haiti? Or 9/11? Or Mt. St. Helens? Or the Vietnam War? Or the San Francisco earthquake? Or the Chicago Fire? Or the Black Plague in Europe? Or the Crusades? Or any other disaster that has been used to justify the nearness of Christ's Second Coming?

Rather than go to Mark 13, we should go to Luke 13, like verses 1-5, for insights on how Jesus handles man-made or natural disasters. "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." Jesus said that twice in fact. He didn't jump on the leading news stories in His day in order to hype them for some end-time scenario. He preached repentance to those who were still alive. There is a far greater "fate" than dying in a tsunami; it is dying without Jesus.

Maybe the real earthquake that needs to happen today is the one in our pulpits and pews. Maybe we need to shake loose of some bad teaching that has grabbed hold of us for so many years and has distorted our view of prophecy and of the gospel.

Living in the blessed hope of Christ's coming,

Chris

Dear John, Your Uneducated Peasant is The Intelligent Being

In a letter to the editor at The Oklahoman newspaper, dated March 12, 2011, a John D. Sargent of Oklahoma City wrote the following in response to an earlier letter to the editor:

". . .First, the Bible is too incomplete to explain the 'how' of practically anything. If the entirety of human history, much less the cosmos, can be demonstrated by the amount of water contained within the Pacific Ocean, then the Bible represents the historical equivalent of a one-gallon pitcher. In reality, the Bible is religio-political propaganda, created by tribal shamans and first-century clergy, to explain the 'why' to their adherents.

Second, considering that he was an uneducated peasant, Jesus could not have known even a portion of what a modern person knows second hand about the cosmos or germ theory. Christianity is a multimillion-dollar business and its sustainability relies upon an effective marketing program (fear, uncertainty, doubt). Bible literalists/fundamentalists must wake up and realize that the clergy's livelihood and position within their respective organizations is dependent upon their ability to convince consumers of the effectiveness of their product.

Using the Bible in support of intelligent Design is a a fool's errand"

Here is my Dear John letter:

With all due respect to John Sargent's vacuous, worn-out arguments, his last statement is a remarkable example of evolutionary hypocrisy: "Using the Bible in support of intelligent design is a fool's errand."

Now did John Sargent use his intelligence to come to the conclusion that we all came from non-intelligent matter?

And as a famous philosopher once said, "If there is a God, nothing is impossible; but if there is no God, then everything is permissible", then how can we make any value judgments of what is foolish and what is intelligent in the first place? Would it be foolish or wrong for me to kill someone I don't like, or would it be an act of intelligence to speed up the process of the survival of the fittest? No one can say, because everything becomes permissible.

The inspired, inerrant Bible never makes the claim of being a "scientific textbook"; neither do William Shakespeare's works nor any other great work of literature. We don't use the Bible to teach calculus, business law, architecture, civil engineering, interior design, computer technology, German, or any other worthwhile pursuit. We can be educated to learn how to make a living, but we need Something or Someone to tell us how to make a life.

God gave created man a dominion mandate in Genesis 1:26, and involved in that is the discovery of God's wonderful creation. The human body is wonderfully and fearfully made, so says the psalmist. If God told us everything how He did it, then that would put scientists out of a job. So it would be intelligent not to bite the Hand that feeds you and made you. "It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out." (Proverbs 25:2)

Just last night I was watching a science program on PBS, hardly a Bible fundamentalist mouthpiece, and I learned that scientists do not know what 95% of the universe is made of, because it is mostly dark invisible matter. If scientists only know 5% of the universe's composition, then how can they tell us with such certainty what did or did not make the universe? That would be the fool's errand.

Whom John Sargent calls "an uneducated peasant", Jesus Christ has done more to change people's lives for the better now and forever than all the John Sargents and Chris Humphreyses in the world put together. If Jesus were just "an uneducated peasant", then why do secular works, such as encyclopedias, still devote more time and space to His life than to any other person in the history of mankind?

Maybe John Sargent can use his intelligence from non-intelligent matter to figure that one out for us.

Respectfully yours,

Chris Humphreys

Have You Been Gypped about Egypt? (with all apologies to Libya, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain, and all the rest)

Sure enough. It happened. Sermons, Bible studies, prophecy conferences, books, articles, you name it have poured out about how today's turmoil in the Middle East is a fulfillment of prophecy. It seems that eager beaver Christian leaders are ready to capitalize on any crisis to prove something that you and I can't figure out on our own. In the New Testament day, that elitist idea of special knowledge granted to a few was called gnosticism; today it is called dispensationalism. With our Scofield Bibles in hand, and with our note pads ready to jot down the latest "insights" from our prophetic gurus, we are confident again that "this" today in Egypt is "that" foretold in Isaiah.

Not long after the unrest in Egypt erupted, I came across numerous instances where Christians were flocking to hear how the latest leading news story was all there written down for us thousands of years ago. The Bible is more of a crossword puzzle, where the word cross has been marganilized to make room for our imaginative prophetic puzzles to be solved. We come out looking smarter than God Himself, all the while looking more foolish again in the eyes of the world.

Have you noticed that all the prophecies mentioned by these dispensational experts about Egypt are in the Old Testament, and none are in the New Testament? That should tell us something big. Why are there no prophecies in the New Testament, which covenant is said to be superior than the old covenant (Hebrews 8:6-13), about the current Middle East situation? Why is there no mention of Egypt in prophecy in the twenty-seven books of the New Testament? Not even one in the book of Revelation, the largest prophetic book in the entire Bible. (Interestingly enough, first century Jerusalem is identified as Egypt in Revelation 11:8.)

If all the experts today want to take us entirely to the Old Testament to prove their cherished theories, then are they willing to live under the Old Testament's dire warnings of what should happen to those whose prophetic insights don't come to fruition? (Deuteronomy 18:20-22) Death is the only option for any prophecy blunder. As a way to escape any responsibility, like Pontius Pilate who washed his hands of any guilt, modern day dispensational preachers will say they do not consider themselves as prophets in the Old Testament sense of the word. Therefore, they conclude, this Deuteronomy passage is not valid concerning them, since they are only trying to teach what the prophets foretold.

However, such reasoning does not stand up, especially if these modern preachers twist and distort Scripture out of context to their own profitable liking. In that sense, they are creating new prophecies which God never said in the first place. If their teaching applications do not come to pass over time then, they are demonstrating themselves to be false prophets. But alas, very few will see it in that regard, because dispensational preachers and teachers are banking on people's short retention span. (The words "profitable" and "banking" are not just financial metaphors!)

Haphazarding a guess, I am inclined to believe that many sermons have been preached out of Isaiah 19 recently, where the connection has been made between what we read there and what we read and hear today in Egypt. For example, v. 2 says, "And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will fight, each against another and each against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom. . ." Aha, some would say. Isn't this what we see going on in Egypt today? Civil unrest, and Egyptians fighting against Egyptians, right? So, therefore, the conclusion must be that all this today has been prophesied right here in Isaiah 19.

Another verse I am sure dispensationalists will latch on to is v. 4, "and I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a hard master (President Mubarek, or his successor?), and a fierce king will rule over them, declares the Lord God of hosts." So the guessing game begins who will be this hard master, this fierce king, who will take over the reigns of Egypt today, and how will he be the missing cog on the road to Armageddon?

It is a high crime not to believe the words that come out of God's mouth. It is also a high crime to put God's words in His mouth where we try to force Him to say something that He never meant.

If we want to go down this dispensational road of imaginative speculation and fanciful interpretation, then we better be consistent all the way. Let's read the rest of Isaiah 19 and not just pick and choose a couple of verses that seem to fit any preconceived end-times scheme.

Where is the Lord riding on a swift cloud to Egypt? (v.1) If we are to be strict literalists, as dispensationalists insist we must be, exactly when did that happen recently, or when will it happen?

Where are the idols of Egypt today? (v.1) Islam is a false religion, but can anyone show us where the carved idols are in Egypt today?

Where are the sorcerers and mediums and necromancers in Egypt today? (v.3) If Isaiah 19 is about today, then should we not expect to see v. 3 clearly in view today?

Where is the king who will rule Egypt? (v.4) Will he take that title upon himself? Mubarek was President, not King, of Egypt. We must be literalists, say the dispensationalists.

Where and when will the Nile River and all other waterways be dried up in Egypt? (v.5-7) We should all be waiting for that to happen any day now, right?

According to v.8-10, what are going to be the principal occupations in today's Egypt, if Isaiah 19 is about today's headlines? Does Egypt today depend on fishing as its main source of income?

Where are the capital cities of Zoan and Memphis today? (v. 11-14) I thought Cairo was its capital today. Are we to believe then that Zoan will overtake Cairo as the new capital of Egypt?

Also, will the new king in Egypt today take over the title of Pharoah? (v.11) Has there been any suggestion on the part of anyone that the new leader in Egypt or any future leader will be called Pharoah?

In v.16-25, we read that Egypt, Assyria and Judah will join forces in a spiritual way. Where is Assyria today? Where is the tribe or nation of Judah today? Syria today is not Assyria; and Israel today is nothing like Judah of the Old Testament days.

Where are the five cities in Egypt today that will speak the language of Canaan? What is the language of Canaan? And where is the Old Testament altar going to be built in Egypt today?

If dispensationalists try to spiritualize all the above, then they are destroying their own literalistic theories.

How about this for a novel idea. . .novel to dispensationalists? Why can't Isaiah 19 be a prophecy about events that would happen in Isaiah's lifetime? Not something thousands of years down the road, but something more immediate. Does not Isaiah 20:3 indicate a three year period of time? Why do we think that every prophecy, or even most of the prophecies, have to concern us and our times? Are we that egotistical? Do we think the world of biblical prophecy revolves around us? Are we better than all those Christians who lived before us, who evidently had nothing said about them in their times, if indeed dispensationalism is true? Where do we get off thinking that God made us kings and queens while Christians in previous generations and centuries were nothing but paupers in comparison? (Judging by the state of Christianity today, a person may be inclined to believe the reverse is true instead.)

Isaiah 19 uses the names of people, places and events to describe what would happen during that day, not during our day. How can we be so blind to miss the obvious?

A text taken out of context is a pretext. I have even heard dispensationalists use that catchy phrase. Okay, let's take them at their word. If we start at Isaiah 9 and read on, we see that all the nations mentioned in prophetic judgment were nations at the time of Isaiah himself: Assyria, Philistia, Cush, Babylon, Moab, Tyre, Sidon, and last but not least, Egypt. Why do we have to suppose that all the nations mentioned in those chapters before and after chapter 19 deal with nations back then, but in chapter 19, God throws us a curve ball, and talks about a nation way off in the distance, like in the 21st century A.D.? How exactly does chapter 19 then have any relevance to the original hearers of Isaiah's prophecy?

It is true that only the nation of Egypt in the Middle East, outside of Israel, carries the same name as what we find on the map today, but what does that really prove by itself? A text taken out of context is still a pretext.

I feel sorry for Libya, Jordan, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and other places in the Middle East who are experiencing as great as an upheavel and maybe more so than what Egypt has encountered so far. Not a word is being said about them from our leading dispensational spokesmen. Of course, those nations are relatively new nations, and it may be hard for even the most creative, imaginative interpreters of Scripture to find their names in the Old Testament. We may owe these nations an apology for slighting them and focusing all our time on just one country.

Have no worry though. All the latest sermons on Egypt will soon be forgotten; they will be collecting dust in file cabinets along with all the hundreds and thousands of other sermons in the past on prophecy where the interpretations have never panned out. We will move on to the latest news story of the day and just depend on the short memories and shallow theology of all our devoted followers.

Jonah was the reluctant prophet. The last thing he wanted to do was go preach to the hated Assyrians. After a brief submarine ride, Jonah got the message though, and he preached the message to Ninveh. To Jonah's disgust, the Ninevites got disgusted over their sin, turned from their sin, believed in Yawheh God, and God did not send punishment their way. The once praying, preaching prophet became a pouting prophet in Jonah 4. All his prophetic dreams, charts and diagrams were in the ash heap. The gripes of wrath is what we find Jonah doing outside the city limits of Ninevah. He was only out there to see if God would somehow change His mind and vaporize Ninevah within forty days. He was a prophetic speculator and spectator.

He could have stayed inside Ninevah to help disciple all these new converts. He could be in there preaching and teaching them more about the true Yahweh God that they had come to believe in, and he could have been in there praying with and for them. Nope, he would have none of that. It was more to his amusement to see if his preconceived prophetic wishes would come true whereby he could rub his hands in glee over the destruction of Ninevah.

Sometimes I get the feeling that we Christians in America are so consumed with doom and gloom that we rub our hands in glee when a new worldwide crisis comes on the scene. We seem so eager to pounce on the latest catastrophe and try to prove to others and to ourselves that this is what God said would happen in the last days. We have moved in with Jonah outside of Ninevah. We have become prophetic speculators and spectators. We eat it up, and we can't buy the latest prophetic books fast enough.

Imagine for a moment two churches in town: one church has recently advertised a big special sermon and Bible study on end time events and how Egypt today is a direct fulfillment of this or that prophecy in Scripture; another church in the same town at the same time has gotten the word out that they want to have a very special prayer service for the Christians in Egypt and the Middle East during this upheaval, and to pray for some missionaries they know are serving over there. Let's say that both churches have put out the word equally through different avenues about what would be happening this coming Sunday at their respective churches.

Now which one do you think would attract a bigger crowd?

We know the answer to that question, don't we?

We would rather be outside of Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, or Ninevah, where we could safely speculate or watch with bated prophetic breath. How many would want to go on the "inside" and spend our time instead lifting up fellow persecuted believers in prayer and for the gospel to make more inroads into the hearts of Egyptians or Libyans?

Are we more like Jonah than we care to admit?

Yours in Christ,

Chris

P.S. An 8.9 earthquake has rattled Japan and left hundreds dead. Are our hearts broken over the lost of many lives, or are we nestled in with Jonah outside of Ninevah, somewhat giddy on the inside, because "there will be earthquakes in various places" (Matthew 24:7)?