O.T. BASIS FOR A PREMILLENIAL VIEW: Part 1

There are many views out there for the end times and they will impact how you view Scripture and even how you act upon it. The premillenial view in my opinion is much more Biblically based then any other view. It also gives us a sense of urgency for reaching the lost, because if we believe that Christ could return anytime, then we should be in the world telling them so they are not left behind. If you do not know the different views, you will not be attaining definitions in this blog, so you will need to look them up from another source. There are plenty of great articles out on the web giving definitions of the views.

Many like to say that the premillenial view gives an excuse not to do anything since Christ is returning, but actually the other views give more reason for this then premillenial. If you think that Christ can return at anytime and you have a friend that does not know Christ, then wouldn’t you be more inclined to tell them about Jesus? What if Jesus came the next day and you did not tell your friend? The other views see us as bringing in the millennial kingdom in some fashion or another, which then gives more of an excuse to not evangelize. If I have a friend and they do not know, it is not too much of a worry about tomorrow, because I can tell them at that time since the second coming is reigned in by the church in one fashion or another.

Let me also say that this is a “non-essential” in how it aligns with salvation, because if you do not believe in premillenial, it does not mean you are not going to Heaven. I just believe it can give you a misguided view on the rest of Scripture when it is explaining Israel, Gentiles and our understanding of how Biblical history plays out in the end.

Why do I think premillenial is the better option of all the choices?

The land promised to Abraham is yet to be fulfilled. Romans 11:29 says, “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience,” and one of those gifts and callings was land promised to Abraham. This promise has yet to be fulfilled, and if God is a God who does not lie, then He has to fulfill this promise, which will happen during the 1,000 year reign.

The Davidic Throne-Promise is yet to be fulfilled. 2 Samuel 7:11-16 says, “since the time that I commanded judges to be over My people Israel, and have caused you to rest from all your enemies. Also the Lord tells you that He will make you a house. ‘When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. But My mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.’” This involves the unconditional promise/pledge of an earthly political, messianic reign yet to happen. For it to happen then the premillenial view is what best fits this scenario.

The O.T. leaves us with the expectation of a Messianic Kingdom yet to come. When the O.T. stopped around 400 B.C., the prophets were still believing and hoping for a Messianic reign in the future. They used Isa. 9:6-7, “For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace. There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” Mal. 3:1, ““Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says the Lord of hosts. We still have not had the Messianic reign, which we are told is yet to come.

The next blog will be to demonstrate how the New Testament follows the Old Testament in supporting a premillenial view of Scripture. When having a view there should be symmetry between the Old and New Testament verifications of what you believe.

You are an Adult?

Deuteronomy 6:4-9, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

If someone were to ask you what age does one become an adult, what would you say? At what age does one become accountable for their actions, in particular for their faith? Did you know that within the Biblical context that would be 13 years old? Remember that the Bible was written primarily by a Jewish community, though most others as well thought the same. That is why the Jewish community holds a bar mitzvah at the age of 13 years old, which means that one was considered a young adult and not a teenager or some separate group of people. In their context you are either a child or you are a young adult moving towards full adulthood, but not this separation we have today that many of us call puberty, the teenage years, or something else.

Today 70% of our youth are exiting the church between the ages of 18 and 22 years old, which comes to 8 million twenty-somethings who were once part of youth groups and are no longer attending the church (The Barna Update September 24, 2003). If this is the case then we are not following the command of Deuteronomy, because if we were following these commands then less of our children would be walking away from their faith. Maybe we need to relook at how we are labeling our 13 to 18 year olds today. Instead of calling them children or teens, maybe we should set the bar for them a little higher and call them young adults like they did in the Bible. How old again was Mary when she was married? I believe she was around 13, not that I am advocating that, as I am not, but they certainly saw the age a little different than we do.

What do we do differently? According to MTV, who did a poll in 2007 with 13 and 24 year olds, asking them what would make you happy; out of the 1280 young adults asked three-quarters said that their relationship with their family being stronger would make them happy (MTV and the Associated Press Release Landmark Study of Young People and Happiness, New York, August 20, 2007). At home we need to start treating our 13 year old and older children like adults, and we need to be modeling the behavior we expect of them. Do you love Christ like no other, and would any young adult see it in your home and life? Or would they see that you get more excited about sports, shopping, or a television show then the things of God?

What are we teaching the young adults in “youth” group? And why do we expect them to mature when we keep calling them youth. Is your youth group being entertained more then taught about the foundations of their faith? This is a time in their lives where they can become warriors for Christ in a way that married couples cannot be, as they do not have the ties to their life like those married. Instead of walking away from the faith they could be out witnessing for the faith and making great witnesses. Instead of entertaining them continually, we could challenge them in their walk. We are missing the boat with a whole generation and reaping what we have sown over the years, a mass exodus from the church.

Dr. Tim Kimmel says, “a passionate love for Jesus Christ that shows itself in an unquenchable love and concern for others,” is what we want for our children (Tim Kimmel, Raising Truly Great Kids workbook, 26). The question though, is what are some ways to attain this? First, like I have been challenging, we need to decide that they are young adults and no longer children once they hit the teen years. We need to stop giving them excuses to continue childish behavior.

Our youth groups and homes should be encouraging them to deal with their fears and doubting regarding their faith. Help them work through these doubts and fears in an intelligible manner, and at the same time helping them discern the truth from error. “If they are not encouraged to express their doubts, one of two things could happen, both of which are grave: Either they will suppress all questions and adopt a blind faith or they will be easily swayed by fine-sounding yet false arguments against Christianity and end up with a dead faith” (Chris Sherrod, Apologetics for a New Generation, 170).

Next we need to be implementing sound doctrine into our young adult’s lives. In a recent poll by Newsweek and Beliefnet, 68% of evangelical Christians believed that if you lived a good enough life then you do not need to believe in Jesus Christ to get to Heaven (Jerry Adler, “In Search of the Spiritual,” Newsweek, September 5, 2005, 48-49: cited in McDowell, The Last Christian Generation, 34). “Churchgoers today are amazingly ignorant about foundational Christian beliefs and why they matter, due mainly to their lack of personal Bible study and the tendency of churches to emphasize life-enchantment principles over biblical exposition and doctrine” (Sherrod, Ibid.).

Lastly, we need to be equipping in apologetics, which will strengthen them in their defense of the faith (1 Corinthians 15:14-17). The majority of “Christian” college students cannot intelligently defend or explain their beliefs, which I found through first hand experience as a Seminary professor and as a director of campus ministry. They lack the evidence to support their faith. Colossians 4:5-6, “Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.” “They must understand that faith is not belief in spite of the evidence, that believing does not make something true, and that sincerity is not all that counts. Biblical faith is trusting in what you have reason to believe is true, which makes the object of your faith what really matters” (Sherrod, 171).

We need to start building all these foundations into our young adults, and be able to say to them: 1 Corinthians 1:11, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.”

Impact our young adult generation and change our culture for Christ!

Laughter is Good.

Some people have a problem with this video, but I think it is hilarious and in clean taste. Tears came to my eyes, I laughed so hard. Right now for me that is a good thing.

Truth is Relative?

Deuteronomy 18:22, “when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.”

Proverbs 14:25, “A truthful witness saves lives, but a false witness is deceitful.”

As you are talking to someone about faith, they say to you: “that is good for you, but not for me.” Meaning what is true for you in your faith is true for you and what is true for their faith is true for them. What? That has never made sense to me. It is either true or it is not true, there is no in between. Either Christ is Lord of all or He is not, and it is not that it is true for me and not for you.

We have the nature of what truth is confused. One reason is today it is just not talked about at all within the school system, including college. Unless of course it is just to say it is relative. A professor will say, “Truth is relative and I can prove it. It is cold in here to me, but it is warm in here to this student. See truth is relative to the person, just as Jesus may be salvation to one person, but not to another. It is all relative.” This has come about in our post-modern society and is crazy to say the least. But how do we answer the professor’s statement, as it appears that two truths were correct at once, because one was cold and one was warm at the same time?

If we hold the correct view of the nature of truth then it is actually pretty easy to see the difference in what the professor was saying. That view is the correspondence view of truth, and people cannot get around it, as if God designed it that way to make sure we have truth. Truth is based on the referent of the context of the sentence, paragraph or paper that is written. If I am cold and you are warm at the same time; this can be true because of the referent of each sentence. I am cold. Coldness refers to me. You are warm. Warmness refers to you. But to say that this applies to salvation does not apply, because the referent is Jesus the Christ. To say Jesus is Savior refers to Jesus, and the answer must respond to the sentence and not to personal opinion.

As a matter of fact, to say that truth is relative is an absolute truth statement. One is saying that “truth” is a relative thing. It is a contradictory belief. When someone tells you they believe in relative truth, then ask them if they are sure about it, because no matter how they answer they are making an absolute truth claim based on the referent of truth. God designed it so that you cannot get around it.

All non-correspondence views of truth are self-defeating because they all use the correspondence view of truth to make their claims. Lies would become impossible without this view of truth because if statements do not refer to the object, they would make statements almost meaningless. This would lead to nothing being false, because there would then be no real difference between two objects, as there is no referent that a statement references. Factual communication would then break down, because statements have to respond to the object they are talking about, thus we are back to the correspondence view of truth.

In the end, people who try to say they are relativists actually prove truth in the end, because they want us to understand what they are saying about truth. They are making truth claims about their topic of no truth. It is self-defeating.

God designed truth and we have to decide whether Jesus is Lord or not, but we cannot say that it is true for you and not for me. Salvation is through Jesus Christ or it is not. Jesus is the referent and not you and me. It is either true or false, but cannot be both. The only thing one can do is say, “I believe,” or “I don’t believe,” but not it is true for you and not for me. As shown there is no such thing as relative truth and it is self-defeating to even argue against it.

You must choose and not hide through a self-defeating argument. Jesus is either Lord of your life and you are for Him, or He is not and you are against Him.

Luke 11:23, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.”

John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

Excited About Death?

“Mommy, when are we all gonna die so we can go to Heaven and see Jesus?” – Kayla Seymour (age 5).

“Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die.” – David Crowder Band

Philippians 1:21, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

My wife and daughter were sitting on the couch yesterday and Kayla, my oldest, asks her the question above, “Mommy, when are we all gonna die so we can go to Heaven and see Jesus?” I was sitting in my recliner and had to ask if I just heard what I heard, and Erin affirmed the question.

We explained death to Kayla, as we have had friends pass and family, but more then anything we focus on Christ and where He is. We continue to tell her that Heaven is where you will meet Jesus. She knows that is where her little brother, Tobiah, is waiting for her, but she really wants to meet Christ and if that means dying, she seems to be alright with that.

Are we like that? If you were asked right now, “You could meet Jesus now, but you have to die right now?” How would you answer? Well, could it wait a year or two so I can see my children grow up? I just received a raise and my life here is going pretty great, so could it wait a few more years? So many in my family would be sad by the loss, that I should stay here, because it is important for them. Or would you say, “Yes, I want to be with my Savior, whom without I would be dead anyway.”

Don’t get me wrong, I think we should be like Christ here and should enjoy the life God gave us, but where is our real focus – here or Heaven? In the end, where is our loyalty, the world or Christ? Are you so in love with Him that you long to be with Him now? If not, why not? Do you ever wonder when you are going to get to see Jesus, and wish it was sooner then later? Are you like the David Crowder song mentioned above, “Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die.” Isn’t this the truth, we all say we want to go to Heaven, but we don’t want to die, but in reality that is how we get to Heaven.

My daughter went on to ask a bunch of questions about Heaven, but that one could not get out of my head. “Am I so excited about seeing Jesus that I am wondering when I am going to die.” Of course the rapture may come first, but that is just another excuse. The point is, how much do we really want to be with Jesus.

Luke 14:26, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.”