Some Thoughts on the End Times

Being that it is 2012, someone may wonder if this post is about the whole December 21, 2012 doomsday prophecy. I assure you that is not the case. That is based on pagan prophecies that have no basis in Scripture, so I don't buy it. Then again, maybe Christ will return that day. But as the Bible is silent on the issue, we shouldn't buy into sensationalistic prophecies. However, I will say this post is a bit of a ramble and rant. You have been warned.

Anyway, I've been thinking and studying a bit on the end times (which Sarrah once corrected me by saying "It's not the end, it's the beginning). Mainly, I've been looking into the differing viewpoints on how it will happen. I've come to the realization that how you look at eschatology (the study of the end) affects how you interpret the Bible as a whole, so I feel like its important, if for no other reason than to see the rest of Scripture correctly.

I think most people know of the most popular view: the church will be raptured off the earth, the world will undergo a seven-year tribulation period, then Jesus will return and establish his kingdom on earth. I'm not entirely certain how this became the most popular view, because it's fairly recent compared to other views.

Similar to that one is the view that the rapture will occur after the seven-year tribulation, or perhaps in the middle of it.

A different view, one that I've found to be pretty convincing, is a view called preterism. Preterists believe that most of the prophecies of Revelation have already taken place. Rather than taking place thousands of years after they were written, they happened soon after. In this view, these visions aren't about a seven-year tribulation that ushers in the end of our world and the beginning of a new one. They are about the judgment that came with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 and, later, the fall of the Roman Empire. This view hinges on the belief that Revelation, rather than being written in the late 90s as is the popular belief, was written shortly before AD 70.

Someone who holds that point of view could have one of two different ideas of what the millennium of Revelation represents. Some people believe it to be a symbol of the time between Jesus' first and second comings. Others see it as a future era of peace after the church has successfully spread the gospel through the world and, essentially, made it a Christian world.

But this post isn't about arguing for or against a particular viewpoint. It's really just me thinking about them.

I don't know how often I read people saying "The end is nigh" on the Internet because of bad things happening around the world. Now, if the seven-year tribulation idea is true, I could see this as being possible given the current state of the world. The only problem with that, however, is that bad things have always happened around the world.

In that general vein, I hear the main argument against preterism being that the world doesn't seem to be getting any better. If anything, it looks worse and worse for the Christian cause every day. But does it have to be that our generation has to get better? Couldn't a few more generations go by while the world changes before it starts to get better? Doesn't the world change all the time? In my opinion, in order for the preterist view with the future era of peace to be true, a long time would have to pass between now and then. Why isn't that possible? Does our generation have to be the last one?

I guess that's the problem. Every generation since Jesus' ascension has thought the end was coming in its lifetime. So far, every generation has either been wrong or unproved yet. Who's to say it will be ours? It could be our children's. Or our grandchildren's. It could be several centuries from now. On the other hand, we don't know when Jesus will return. He very well could return tomorrow.

I guess my opinion is this: just because the world seems bad now doesn't mean the end is happening. Since Jesus' ascension, humanity has survived the Roman Empire, the dark ages, the corruption of the Roman Catholic church, the Crusades, two World Wars, political upheavals, and the fall of kingdoms and empires, and we're still here. Every generation in those times thought theirs was the last generation due to bad things happening. They were wrong. Nowadays, it seems like the main "evidence" most people present is that we have a socialist president, our economy sucks, our country is at war, we give abortions, and Islam is spreading. Three are purely focused on America (which, contrary to popular belief, is not the whole world). The other two have been going on for centuries. Times have been worse. Right now, the world is nowhere close to how bad it would have to be to honestly be called the worst tribulation in history.

Then there are the people who seem to think that if America ends, the world is coming to an end and Jesus will return any second. But in reality, if America ends, it does not necessarily mean the end is nigh. America is not the world. It is one country with a finite lifespan like every other great nation that has ever existed before now. That lifespan could be millennia. It could be a few years. Unless Jesus does return first, America will eventually fall. I hate to say that, but it's the natural course of life for human governments.

I don't know. I guess I've just been somewhat annoyed by a lot of weird end times "prophecies" and people being so sure that our generation will be the end. The point is that we don't know. We can't really know for sure when it will happen. Anything we can know about the end must be based on true, Biblical information and real, historical context.

The Treasury Had a Fake Coin

Yesterday I discovered (well, really more like witnessed) how someone, even when only using the Bible, can make some rather interesting mistakes. I also learned not to rely too heavily on man, although there are many very reliable men we can learn from. I also (re)learned the importance of context.

I've been going through The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, a giant book of about 500,000 cross references. I found myself in Genesis 1:2 (it's been slow going, but Lord willing I have the rest of my life to finish). That verse is as follows: "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters" (ESV). Alongside the word "Spirit," there was a reference to Job 26:14:

Behold, these are but the outskirts of his ways,
and how small a whisper do we hear of him!
But the thunder of his power who can understand?

Do you see any reference to the Spirit in there? I didn't. I looked up a few words in the Srong's Concordance I had handy and found nothing in the original Hebrew. I finally wrote down that I had no idea why there was a reference to this verse here and speculated that maybe the reference to "whisper" had something to do with the Spirit, or how the Spirit has thundering power or something.

Knowing that The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge was based off of a commentary, I decided to find out which one. It turned out to be the Rev. Thomas Scott's Commentary on the Whole Bible. Surprisingly, however, I couldn't find it anywhere, at least not the Old Testament portion of it. I kept finding Matthew Henry's commentary though, and I finally decided to check it out. I skimmed through it to find the verse references in the section about Genesis 1:2-3 and I found a reference to this verse:

By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent. (Job 26:13 KJV)

One verse earlier. One verse earlier. Had I only looked one verse earlier I probably would have caught it. The Treasury referred to Job 26:14. The real reference was probably supposed to be Job 26:13. I looked up the ESV version, which replaces the word "wind" for "spirit," but the Bible regularly refers to the Spirit as a wind, so I probably would have caught that reference too.

This is supposed to be a corrected version of this. But I can't really blame them. When you're trying to sell a product, do you really have time to go through 500,000 cross references?

Note to self: next time, if I find a discrepancy like this, look around. It may be a mistake.

Despair

There aren't many behaviors and actions that people in the world engage in that really shock me anymore. I'm only 23, so I'm sure I'll eventually eat those words, but right now I, like all early-mid-twenty-somethings, feel like I've seen the idea of there being nothing new under the sun thoroughly enough, even in just the past few years alone.

I think what does surprise me, however, is just what people are willing to accept and believe if it keeps them away from the God of Scripture.

There are, and have been, various philosophical systems throughout history. I believe the current, overarching system in America right now is post-modernism, which denies any kind of real truth and says that multiple contradictory things can be true at the same time. Philosophically, it's completely illogical, but that's not the point of this post.

Some of these systems lack God completely, which doesn't surprise me at all. Some of these systems' only logical conclusion is that there is no ultimate meaning to life. This is what is called a "philosophy of despair." That fact also doesn't surprise me.

What does surprise me is that adherents of those systems openly and honestly admit, and even embrace, that fact. They are perfectly content with the idea that, once they die, their existence ultimately means absolutely nothing. There is no ultimate meaning to it all. Everything is pointless.

But people are happy to embrace that idea so long as it means the God of Scripture doesn't exist. People would rather live like nothing matters than face the possibility of judgment from God. This being, of course, despite the fact that God has provided a substitute, a covenant of grace. They'd rather believe that nothing matters rather than live like everything matters.

Sometimes it baffles me just how far people are willing to run from God. But then again, since I'm a Calvinist, I probably shouldn't be surprised or baffled at all. It's just proof of total depravity, isn't it? It's proof that mankind is morally incapable of turning to God rather than from him. It's not that mankind physically can't. It's that "everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed" (John 3:20).

Sometimes people do crazy things.

Overwhelmed By Our Creator

Earlier this week I decided to try a new method of Bible study. It's not really "new" per say, since I've done it before, but it was with a tool I haven't tried out before called The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.

The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge by R.A. Torrey is basically a big and detailed book of Biblical cross references, containing over 500,000 of them. The idea behind it is to let Scripture interpret Scripture and to see the Bible as one cohesive whole. My method is to read a chapter, then work through the cross references one-at-a-time for about an hour, maybe more, maybe less. If I can't finish the whole chapter, I continue the next day. And I benefited from our digital age in this; there is a Treasury eBook available on Amazon called the OSNOVA Study Bible. The free sample contains the Treasury through the entire Old Testament. The New Testament section, along with a book and the entire King James Version of the Bible (which is what the Treasury, written in the late 19th to early 20th century, is based off of), is only about five bucks. Without five Amazon bucks to spare, I downloaded an app with the KJV to use for now.

I started today in Genesis 1. I got a notebook and a pen for notetaking. I spent an hour studying. I read the first chapter, then set upon the cross references. I didn't get past Genesis 1:1. There were so many cross references and I took enough notes that it actually consumed the whole hour. But in that study I found myself overwhelmed by the power of our Creator God.

Throughout the Bible, God declares that he created the heavens, the earth, and everything in it. He uses this as proof of his power to help, to save, to rule, and even to judge. Our God created the entire universe! How minuscule are we in comparison?

Note: The following math is based on numbers from Wikipedia, and thus could be wrong. Plus, I am neither an astronomer nor a mathematician.

Let's think about this for a minute. We live here on earth. We stand about five or six feet tall on average. The planet, however, is about 25,000 miles around at the Equator. That's over 130,000,000 feet. That's about 26,000,000 times longer than we are tall.

Now let's look at the Sun. You've probably seen those little model Solar Systems with the Sun and the eight (nine) planets orbiting it. The Solar System looks nothing like that. The Sun actually comprises over 99% of the overall mass of the Solar System. It's about 109 times bigger than our planet. For those keeping count, that's about 2,725,000 miles or 14,170,000,000 feet. That's about 2,834,000,000 of us.

But wait, there's more! The Sun is actually dwarfed by a star known as VY Canis Majoris, which is about 1,420 times bigger than the Sun (or larger). That's about 154,780 times bigger than Earth. That's about 3,869,500,000 miles, or 20,121,400,000,000 feet, around. That's about 4,024,280,000,000 of us. There are not even close to that many people on Earth.

Then there's the entire universe, which is far bigger than that, so large that we don't even know how big it actually it is. From earth, we can observe about 46 billion light years, which is approximately 276,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles (give or take a zero), of it. That's not even taking into account how much of it we can't see, what we don't know about.

God is bigger than that. He created all of that. He knows every inch of that universe.

Overwhelmed yet?

For, But, and Therefore

While reading the books of the Bible written by Paul, I've noticed and learned something about Paul's writing that is very interesting, and I have to thank John Piper for pointing this out initially, as it helps a reader to understand a book more and to see it as a cohesive whole.

Paul uses certain words very often. Those words are "for," "but," and "therefore" (as well as their variations). The structure of one of his passages is usually along these lines:

• Statement
• "For..." (reason or example that the previous statement is true)
• "For..." (reason for the reason)
• "But now..." (change, typically the result of Christ's atoning work on the cross)
• "For..." (more reasons/examples)
• "Therefore..." (implications)

And most Pauline literature can be divided into several sections of the above.

That's a generalization, mind you, but looking for that pattern can really help a reader to understand that Paul's letters, rather than disjointed and all over the place, are usually long arguments that progress and flow and develop throughout the book. His "therefores" may even continue on to a new statement or a "for" statement.

Paul is a bit long-winded at times. This can make reading one of his letters seem daunting. But by reading slowly and carefully while keeping the connections of one statement to the other in mind, reading his letters becomes more enjoyable and he is easier to understand. Also, keeping context in mind is essential.

I hope this helps.

The Problem with Government

You're probably expecting some kind of political position post here, with supposedly Scriptural references to back it up. "Capitialism is awesome" or something. Well, you're right, sort of.

You see, I see a lot of arguments about the way government should be. You've got people arguing that what we need is less government. Let the people govern themselves. Then you've got people arguing we need more government to regulate the people. Both sides argue against the other side by pointing out "the human factor," the way that form of government can be corrupted by people. They then argue for their preferred form of government, conveniently leaving out the fact that humans also run that and corrupt it as well.

If you have small government, then you have people governing themselves. It's good to not have government intervention in every aspect of our lives. The problem, however, comes when people start deciding they can do whatever they want. They are free people, no one can tell them what to do! This leads to people doing bad things because there are no repercussions, no one to hold them accountable. People are corruptible. This is just what happens.

That, of course, is where laws and regulations come into play. We need those. The Bible says that the government is responsible for punishing wrongdoers and rewarding those who do good (1 Peter 2:13-14). Thus, the government is now bigger. But then it gets too big. It starts telling people how to spend their money. It tells people what their jobs will be, or how to live their lives. It forces people to surrender their hard-earned money, or to be defenseless. This is also just what happens.

The problem with each argument is that it selectively presumes on an inherent goodness in mankind. That is, man is evil in the other form of government, but good and right in whatever I prefer.

Here's the truth: mankind is inherently evil and corrupt. No matter which form of government you have, it will eventually be corrupted by people. We've seen it in the US. We've seen it in communist nations. The problem is the people.

What we need is something that changes hearts. What we need is a form of government run by a perfect, incorruptible, and absolutely good and just ruler. Can that be done by man's power? Has it ever been done by man's power? Historically, human institutions inevitably fail.

Our institutions, imperfect as they are, will not last. We need something that will. And in order for it to last forever, it needs to be perfect. It needs a perfect ruler who is perfectly good, who cares for his people perfectly. That doesn't sound like any mere human I know.

The Christianity I Know

Over the years I've seen a lot of opinions on, views of, and ideas about Christianity. More often than not, those ideas are misconceptions that don't even come close to the genuine article.

A few years ago, right after LOST finished its final season, I saw The Jimmy Kimmel Show. This particular episode focused on the series finale of LOST. I will never forget as Jimmy Kimmel attempted (and utterly failed) to explain Christianity. According to his view of Christianity, when you die, your good deeds are measured against your bad deeds. If the good outweighs the bad, you go to heaven. If the bad outweighs the good, you go to hell.

That is not the Christianity I know. The Christianity I know states that my good works are completely insufficient to get me to heaven. God is perfect. His standard is perfection. If I am not perfect, I am not good enough to get into heaven. Only through the grace of God and the atoning work of Jesus Christ can I get to heaven (Romans 3:21-30). That's not to say that good works are irrelevant; good works are the result and evidence of salvation (James 2:18). They are not what saves me. At the moment of salvation, my heart, soul, and mind are changed so I can do good works (Colossians 1:21-23, 3:1-17).

There are people who believe that the core of Christianity is charity and social work. That is not the Christianity I know. The Christianity I know is thoroughly God-centered. God and his gospel are central. That's not to say that we shouldn't engage in charity and social work and feeding the homeless. But that is not the point of Christianity.

There are people who believe that it is the solemn duty of all Christians to defy oppressive governments, and sometimes even seem to believe the Constitution to be on par with the Bible. They believe Christianity to be a political movement. That is not the Christianity I know. The Christianity I know has only one authoritative document (okay, technically sixty-six, but they are all one cohesive whole): the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16-17). That's not to say the Constitution isn't a wonderful document. But everything must be beholden to the Bible, including the Constitution. Should they ever contradict, the Bible must take precedence.

That Bible also says that governments are put in place by God to punish evildoers and reward those who do good. They also must be beholden to the Bible. We are to submit to them except when to do so would disobey what the Bible says (1 Peter 2:13-17). The Apostles did not try to overthrow the Roman government, and they only defied it when it prohibited or prevented them from preaching the gospel (Acts 4:18-20). The preaching of the gospel, not political revolution, eventually resulted in Rome being ruled by a Christian emperor. Also, Jesus himself paid taxes to the government despite the fact that they used their money to do ungodly things (Matthew 17:24-27).

There are those who believe the whole of Christianity is to hate gay people and women (mainly meaning abortion, but other things as well). That is not the Christianity I know. The Christianity I know says that Christians, regardless of gender, are equal in Christ (Galatians 3:28). One is not better or worse than the other. They are just different from each other and complement each other. The Bible also does not condone murder (which is what abortion is). It also does not condone homosexuality (note that I did not say homosexuals, meaning people), because it goes against the order that God created (Rom. 1:26-27).

I once saw a picture of some people at Evergreen holding signs about sin and the judgment. I have no idea if they were also holding signs about salvation and grace, but I doubt it would have made a difference. Next to these sign holders sat two women, clearly a couple. One of them was holding a sign that said "I apologize for these 'Christians.'" The sign clearly implied that, because these people talked about sin and judgment, they were not Christians, because Christianity is a religion of peace, love, and tolerance. That is not the Christianity I know. The Christianity I know is above love, yes, but not in the way people think. That leads to my last point.

There are people who think that Christianity is hateful, intolerant, and oppressive and that Christians just want to make everyone do what they say. That is not the Christianity I know. The Christianity I know is not hateful. It is loving. It is loving enough to warn people about the fatal consequences of their actions.

Let's say someone was about to touch an electric fence charged with enough voltage to kill him. Would it be loving to let him touch it? Would it not be loving to say, "Don't touch that, it will kill you"? If he touched it and died, and people knew you could've stopped it but took no action, would you not be seen as heartless and unloving, or perhaps cowardly?

When we warn people of the judgment, it's not because we hate people. It's because we love them. It's because we don't want them to face the terrible judgment of a perfectly just judge. What is hateful about that?

Sadly, however, I think that a lot of Christians (so-called or genuine) have fallen into the trap of seeing these various misconceptions of Christianity as the real thing. I think it's because we've let things and people other than the Bible define Christianity to us. Christianity cannot ultimately be defined by politicians, theologians, bloggers, scientists, and especially the unbelieving world. The only one who can and does define Christianity is our triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit. And the only way we can know what Christianity truly is is through the Bible.

Olympianism

Having lived in Olympia for about two years now, I've met a lot of different kinds of people. I've met musicians and audio nerds. I've met computer geniuses. I've met theater folk (both actors and tech people). I've met caregivers and people who have them. Students, workers. Parents. Gay people, straight people, bisexual people. Alchemists (I'm not even kidding). Olympia is a very diverse place.

I think the most interesting thing about it is that, despite Olympia's characterization as a godless city (which I don't disagree with), most people here are actually very spiritual in some fashion. Interlaced with the list above, I've met pantheists, Buddhists, mystics, one Thelema adherent (I don't know what you call them), and even universalists.

The funny thing about it is that if you dare to make your Christian beliefs public (at least the part about how sin is bad), you may face a rather large backlash from it. People here do not like the God of the Bible, despite the fact that, in their minds, he doesn't exist. Despite the fact that, to them, everyone can have their own spiritual beliefs and that's okay.

So if they hate God, why all the searching for something outside themselves?

Why the idea that everything is god? If everything and everyone is god, is anyone or anything really god? Why does it even matter that everyone is god?

I saw a guy quote John 1:1 and take the idea of "The Word" to mean something along the lines of some spiritual law or philosophy that cannot be contradicted or something because "the Word was God." What about the whole context of John 1, which clearly shows the Word to be not only God, but also a person who came to earth to rescue people? Why even quote the Bible if you don't believe a vast majority of what it says? Wouldn't that be similar to me trying to make an argument for Christianity by quoting the Quran or the Upanishads?

And if Jesus really did claim to be God, but he wasn't, then how can we trust anything he says? Doesn't that put him in the same category as the psychopaths who falsely claim divinity to rule over other people as absolute dictators? Or, if he genuinely believed it, wouldn't that make him deluded to the point where, in our day, he would be in a mental hospital? Can we really consider him to be just a good teacher with the claims he made?

Everyone here is searching for something, and it seems like most of them believe there is some kind of god out there, be it nature or philosophy or something. I don't know if they seek for their own pleasure, or because they feel there is something greater than all this, or because they just want there to be something more than all this. But the point is that everyone here is searching. But for what? And why?