Err... yes. Very very spoilt. I'm with you. I will never forget how happy I was to come HOME after China. So very happy. And we're spoiled in a thousand different ways. No, you'll get no arguments from me - we're Rome in the days of bread and circuses, and as rotten-ripe to fall.
Dr. McGee was in 2 Kings because the bit I listen to is the Thru the Bible program, and it ... goes through the Bible, he was just in 2 Kings today. Incredibly informative program, most evangelical preachers don't touch quite a lot of the Bible. He skips back and forth from OT to NT, we're going into Romans next week I believe. Looking forward to it!
Elijah and the Second Coming - yes, I'm agreed that he's supposed to be one of the two witnesses during the Tribulation/prior to the Second Coming. I don't think the Second Coming = the Rapture though, the Rapture is when *we* go to *Him*, not vice versa.
Pat Robertson. Yes. I 'bout cried last night when I heard he was backing Guiliani. I'd prefer if A) We didn't back anyone, particularly this early in the game B) We backed the most moral person, not the person we thought would win. I mean... Guiliani? The commentator who wrote up the report was all "I guess evangelicals are all about conservative politics instead of conservative morals" - ugh ugh UGH. That there is pure slander. FWIW - my preacher doesn't do politics from the pulpit, the preachers I listen to don't do politics from the microphone. At least not to the point of backing particular parties or people. Certainly they're opposed to the usual things, but that's right and proper. I expect to be kept up to date on relevant current events - briefly. I don't expect to hear a whole sermon about it, I vastly prefer the style of sermon that just works through the Bible verse by verse and applies it to daily life. Both Dr. McGee and Pastor Mike do that - Dr. Stanley tends to be more topical, but it's "Christian Living" sort of topical rather than current events. (FYI, Dr. McGee died in 1987).
And yes, I'd be happy if the world changed 'round so that the preachers preached about God and the politicians listened to them because they wanted to get right with God, not because of the voting block. Then again... politics, particularly current politics, makes me ill. It's a mudwallow front to back. And that's where a LOT of the mud that lands on evangelicals like yours truly starts from. :( C'est la vie... we aren't here to discuss politics, which is a relief!
Revival - it does seem like much of the world is experiencing a polarizing. Some countries are experiencing massive revival (often where most repressed) and other countries have declared themselves "post-Christian". Other places are plain dying off. I want, desperately, to think that the US will come back from its full-scale run into "post-Christianity" but I can't see it. Not without a disaster that keeps us so busy that the "shiny people" don't have time to scoff at the honest folks. It's sad, there are a lot more salt-of-the-earth types than shiny folks, but it's as if they've/we've just laid down our arms and decided to let things happen as they will. Propaganda is the first line of attack, I guess it's been effective here.
The reason I brought it up is that my mom was saying that there was a time a few decades back when the signs and portents were building up in much the same way, and then they abruptly stopped. It's not war that makes me feel apocalyptic, although certainly the location is interesting (surely someone who could bring solid peace to the mess in the Middle East could set himself up for power and worship easily enough). It's the swirling evil - the "post-Christian" attitudes. The tighting of belts that will be coming next year, what with all the food areas that have been hard hit by weather this year. A thousand little things. And of course the general desire to have done! :) My attitude DOES color my perspective, and I'm not fool enough to lie about that. Let's face it... NAmerica, particularly the US is rotten ripe and we ARE going to fall, it's only a matter of time. I'd like to think that our fall isn't just another civilization plopping through over indulgence. /shrug. Then again, maybe I'll be moving in with you if that happens, there are not many places LESS self-sufficient than SoCal. :)
I suppose we'll know what's coming when it gets here. But it's always fun to wonder.
Showing posts with label revival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label revival. Show all posts
Friday, November 9, 2007
The End of the World
I'm just not much of a date person when it comes to things like the end of the world. I'm not even entirely sure that there is a Rapture in the way that most Christians mean when they use the word. I do believe there is a day of reckoning and a day of judgement.
What specifically, makes you think these are the last days? Is it the war in Afghanistan and Iraq? I know that you mention chipping people a lot, but besides that.
North Americans are spoiled. Dreadfully so in that they haven't, in recent memory had a war that destroyed their infrastructure completely. The reason I am reluctant to speculate about any dates is that when my grandparents went through the Russian revolution, and others still through the second World War and Stalin's famine - things were so dreadful that to any human eyes it looked like the end of the world. Many believed it was the end of the world. This past century has seen dreadful wars, wars that engulfed the whole earth and numbers of people killed, that just to look at the numbers on the page makes your heart shudder.
How could anyone of that time not have believed it was the end of the world? And even before that, around the same general time period when Seventh Day Adventists were donning their white robes and jumping up and down on a hill in - New York State? - waiting for the rapture, Mennonites in Russia went through a similar thing, only they believed that Russia was the new promised land and that Christ would return there to set up His kingdom. And some others yet believed that the Temple in Jerusalem had to be rebuilt before Christ returned, and so they headed off to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. They became known as the Templers. Not those Templers from the Crusades - a Mennonite form of Temple-rebuilding Templer.
And when they couldn't rebuild the Temple, to make a long story short, most of them headed off to Australia.
As to a revival - was Dr. McGee talking about 2 Kings because of Elijah and Elisha? Elijah is supposed to return before Christ. I think that we aren't headed for any sort of revival here in North America. I think that the very evangelists that preach this message and preach politics from the pulpit and preach the prosperity gospel have so turned off the vast majority of people that if anything, they cause people to lose their faith entirely. Matthew 24:
And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
These pastors also tick off people who aren't Christians, to the point where Christians become their own instrument of execution. On the news now lately, there have been stories about some of their prosperity preachers and preachers who preach to their congregation about what political party they ought to vote for. But these same preachers cry foul and cite their first (I believe it is the first?) amendment rights when these same politicians or the general public points out their tax exempt status rests on the tolerance of the state.
I watched a commentator on CNN and he made the point that if the government limited the power of these prosperity gospel thieves and publicans, then a precedent was set for the government to come back to any church who supported a politician, and intervene there.
And I am thinking DUH!? Since when is it is the business of any church to endorse a politician or a certain way of political thought? The purpose of the pulpit is to preach the redeeming love of our Lord Jesus Christ. The church can't have it both ways, claiming separation of church and state while involving itself in affairs of state.
It isn't wrong for a church or an individual to speak out about issues of morality, to warn people against immorality. But it is very wrong and very wolf-in-sheep's-clothesish to use the pulpit politically, the way Jerry Falwell did, and the way Pat Robertson is doing now. Preachers who use the church to that end are doing one of the very things that was an issue in the Reformation, when the the Catholic church required rulers to pay it homage.
When Paul was brought up before Agrippa, (Acts 26) he did not talk about the problems that he was having with the politicians of the day or use that time to endorse one Jewish leader over another. Paul's interest was not in the kingdoms of this world, which pass away, which are temporal - his interest was the kingdom that was eternal - the kingdom of God. And Agrippa said to him, "Almost thou persuadest me to become a Christian."
I think it is shameful and an outrage what too many churches are doing, involving themselves in temporal matters of politics.
I know that often Christians say, well, they don't want to judge the state of any one's soul, ie, as in whether Pat Robertson is going to Hell in a hand basket but that really means that we are just cowards, living as though Christ were dead and not raised. Jesus had no problem speaking out about the hypocrisy of religious leaders in his time.
Jesus made it clear that in the last days things would be going on pretty much as usual, with people marrying and giving in marriage, and bridesmaids falling asleep waiting for the bride. I don't think we necessarily have much to look for in the direction of signs. God's time isn't our time. Two thousand years ago the disciples believed that Christ's return was at hand. How is one supposed to take that if one is a Biblical literalist?
That being said, just because there may not be a religious revival in North America doesn't mean that it isn't going on elsewhere in the world. The world is a big place. Revivals of a spiritual nature go on all the time in various parts of the world, big ones and littler ones and we never hear about it. But just because we don't hear about it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
(PS: the store had my stuff! I had left it there after all.)
Layla
What specifically, makes you think these are the last days? Is it the war in Afghanistan and Iraq? I know that you mention chipping people a lot, but besides that.
North Americans are spoiled. Dreadfully so in that they haven't, in recent memory had a war that destroyed their infrastructure completely. The reason I am reluctant to speculate about any dates is that when my grandparents went through the Russian revolution, and others still through the second World War and Stalin's famine - things were so dreadful that to any human eyes it looked like the end of the world. Many believed it was the end of the world. This past century has seen dreadful wars, wars that engulfed the whole earth and numbers of people killed, that just to look at the numbers on the page makes your heart shudder.
How could anyone of that time not have believed it was the end of the world? And even before that, around the same general time period when Seventh Day Adventists were donning their white robes and jumping up and down on a hill in - New York State? - waiting for the rapture, Mennonites in Russia went through a similar thing, only they believed that Russia was the new promised land and that Christ would return there to set up His kingdom. And some others yet believed that the Temple in Jerusalem had to be rebuilt before Christ returned, and so they headed off to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. They became known as the Templers. Not those Templers from the Crusades - a Mennonite form of Temple-rebuilding Templer.
And when they couldn't rebuild the Temple, to make a long story short, most of them headed off to Australia.
As to a revival - was Dr. McGee talking about 2 Kings because of Elijah and Elisha? Elijah is supposed to return before Christ. I think that we aren't headed for any sort of revival here in North America. I think that the very evangelists that preach this message and preach politics from the pulpit and preach the prosperity gospel have so turned off the vast majority of people that if anything, they cause people to lose their faith entirely. Matthew 24:
And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
These pastors also tick off people who aren't Christians, to the point where Christians become their own instrument of execution. On the news now lately, there have been stories about some of their prosperity preachers and preachers who preach to their congregation about what political party they ought to vote for. But these same preachers cry foul and cite their first (I believe it is the first?) amendment rights when these same politicians or the general public points out their tax exempt status rests on the tolerance of the state.
I watched a commentator on CNN and he made the point that if the government limited the power of these prosperity gospel thieves and publicans, then a precedent was set for the government to come back to any church who supported a politician, and intervene there.
And I am thinking DUH!? Since when is it is the business of any church to endorse a politician or a certain way of political thought? The purpose of the pulpit is to preach the redeeming love of our Lord Jesus Christ. The church can't have it both ways, claiming separation of church and state while involving itself in affairs of state.
It isn't wrong for a church or an individual to speak out about issues of morality, to warn people against immorality. But it is very wrong and very wolf-in-sheep's-clothesish to use the pulpit politically, the way Jerry Falwell did, and the way Pat Robertson is doing now. Preachers who use the church to that end are doing one of the very things that was an issue in the Reformation, when the the Catholic church required rulers to pay it homage.
When Paul was brought up before Agrippa, (Acts 26) he did not talk about the problems that he was having with the politicians of the day or use that time to endorse one Jewish leader over another. Paul's interest was not in the kingdoms of this world, which pass away, which are temporal - his interest was the kingdom that was eternal - the kingdom of God. And Agrippa said to him, "Almost thou persuadest me to become a Christian."
I think it is shameful and an outrage what too many churches are doing, involving themselves in temporal matters of politics.
I know that often Christians say, well, they don't want to judge the state of any one's soul, ie, as in whether Pat Robertson is going to Hell in a hand basket but that really means that we are just cowards, living as though Christ were dead and not raised. Jesus had no problem speaking out about the hypocrisy of religious leaders in his time.
Jesus made it clear that in the last days things would be going on pretty much as usual, with people marrying and giving in marriage, and bridesmaids falling asleep waiting for the bride. I don't think we necessarily have much to look for in the direction of signs. God's time isn't our time. Two thousand years ago the disciples believed that Christ's return was at hand. How is one supposed to take that if one is a Biblical literalist?
That being said, just because there may not be a religious revival in North America doesn't mean that it isn't going on elsewhere in the world. The world is a big place. Revivals of a spiritual nature go on all the time in various parts of the world, big ones and littler ones and we never hear about it. But just because we don't hear about it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
(PS: the store had my stuff! I had left it there after all.)
Layla
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