Biblical Prophecy in Action

 

Look…I am not up on an understanding of end-times theology, how to interpret Daniel or Revelation as it relates to Apache helicopters or anything like that.  So, if I get a couple of details wrong here, please go gently.  Anyway, I got the details from John Hagee, so if I am wrong, blame him.

The year 1948 is found in code in Scripture.  It says that in that year the countdown to Armageddon begins.  What is Armageddon?  An army of two-hundred million wipe out Israel and the good times roll.  Christians from Texas and the rest of the Bible belt will be swept up in the Rapture, clearing the atmosphere just ahead of the nuclear fallout. 

Well, it’s something like this.

Now, I have long felt that this Christian belief would turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Absent the support of tens of millions of Christian Zionists in the United States, all the lobbying millions in the world wouldn’t sway elections toward the policies we have seen pursued in the last decades.

But what if it isn’t a self-fulfilling prophecy.  More accurately, what if it is just as God designed?  He knew that the crazies in America would swallow Scofield completely, leading to this moment.

But what is this moment?  Well, I am terrible at writing about current events.  But is seems to me that there is a greater than zero-percent chance that Iran will outlast Israel and the United States in this war.  And if they do, there is a greater than zero-percent chance that either Israel or the United States will launch a nuke against Tehran.  Once that happens, the Middle East goes poof.

Yes, I know.  Greater than zero isn’t very much of a chance.  But how many chambers do you want in your handgun before you are willing to play roulette with a nuclear tipped round?

And, who knows.  Christians may be raptured just in the nick of time.  The thing is, I think the Hagee-type will be surprised to find out that they didn’t get a ticket for that ride – they might find that they have been “left behind.” 

It might be those other Christians – the “fake” ones – who disappear into the clouds.  You know, the ones that disagree with Dallas Theological Seminary and the like.

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Please note: I don’t believe any of this version of end-times nonsense.  But this is where much of American Evangelical Christianity points.

Matthew 7: 21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

Our Present Age

 

Romans 1: 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.

Romans 1: 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, 30 backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; 32 who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

Clearly, we are governed by such people.  If anyone had any doubt about this before, there can be no doubt today. 

Where has such behavior led in the past?

Leviticus 18: 24 ‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you. 25 For the land is defiled; therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants.

Deuteronomy 20: 16 “But of the cities of these peoples which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, 17 but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the Lord your God has commanded you, 18 lest they teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, and you sin against the Lord your God.

People will cry, “Oh, that’s not fair; that isn’t just.”  Don’t be fooled.  God is very patient (He gave the Canaanites centuries), but He isn’t mocked.

Romans 2: 2 But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.

We live in a wicked land, ruled by wicked people.  God’s judgment is true.

Levin’s Confession

 

“To live not for one’s needs but for God!”

“How does he remember God?  How does he live for the soul?”  Levin almost cried out.

“You know how: rightly, in a godly way.  You know, people differ!  Take you, for instance, you won’t injure anyone either…”

Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy

While the novel is named for Anna, Constantine Levin is as central to the story as she and the novel ends with Levin’s confession of faith – a re-discovery (as he abandoned the Orthodox faith of his childhood) that was prompted by a discussion with a peasant.

The words the peasant had spoken had produced in his soul the effect of an electric spark…

This spark brought together many disjointed ideas he had carried through his life. 

“Can I possibly have found the solution of everything?  Have my sufferings really come to an end? … I have discovered nothing.  I have only perceived what it is that I know.”

This realization showed him one thing: he had lived well (that is to say, rightly, in a godly way), but he thought badly. 

“Whence comes the joyful knowledge I have in common with the peasant, and which alone gives me peace of mind?  Where did I get it?”

He spent much time examining many worldly philosophies and ideas in search of the truth that was offered to him from the time of being an infant, as if drinking the truth in with his mother’s milk.

“Can this really be faith? … My God, I thank thee!”

Sobbing, tears filling his eyes.

Yet this joy, this realization would run right up against his old habits.  Yes, he regularly treated others kindly; he could also be quite short with them – including his wife.  Was this joy just a momentary thing, something that would pass soon enough?

He reconciled with his shortcomings, while holding on to this newly embraced faith.  The entire book closes with his confession:

“I shall still get angry with Ivan the coachman in the same way, shall dispute in the same way, shall inopportunely express my thoughts; there will still be a wall between my soul’s holy of holies and other people; even my wife I shall still blame for my own fears and shall repent of it.  My reason will still not understand why I pray, but I shall still pray, and my life, my whole life, independently of anything that may happen to me, is every moment of it no longer meaningless as it was before, but has an unquestionable meaning of goodness with which I have the power to invest it.”