Discerning the Signs of the Times

O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?
—Matthew 16:3

I came across a little Free Speech contretemps in Gainesville, Florida following a link (since removed) on WorldNetDaily. The good people at Dove World Outreach Center decided to engage their community by putting their collective opinion of Islam on a sign and erecting it on the Church’s front lawn. The sentiment expressed has caused a bit of a stir in the neighbourhood. Funny how that seems to happen whenever the unvarnished truth of a matter is clearly and boldly proclaimed.

Why would the Church put up such a sign?
To expose Islam for what it is. It is a violent and oppressive religion that is trying to mascarade itself as a religion of peace, seeking to deceive our society.
—FAQ page at Dove World Outreach Center

I also noticed in the same edition that Joseph Farah, the editor of WorldNetDaily, has written his Between the Lines column on Rick Warren’s missed opportunity at the ISNA, I Agree with Rick Warren:

Rick Warren told the Islamic Society of North America last week that he is not interested in interfaith dialogue; he's only interested in interfaith projects.

I agree with Rick Warren.

So let's get started. I have a project to suggest. It's very simple. It's very straightforward. I think it's a great starting point for Christian-Muslim action.

Let's get Muslims to stop killing and oppressing Christians and Jews around the world.

Sounds good to me, Joseph. Maybe a good way to kick the project off would be to hire a bus and drive every member of the ISNA past the Dove World Outreach Center a few times?


Shalom in Yeshua,
jsk

To the Follower Blind

Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
—Matthew 15:14

What follows is my promised response to a comment on my July 8th post about Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren made by someone with the Blogger nic Cathieunderwood. Her reply was very long and only tangentially addressed the issue of my post, which was Rick Warren’s typical mega-church leader’s descent into apostasy.

Let the show begin:

To look at the current situation in the news about Pastor Rick Warren, the main question you should ask is why is Rick speaking at the ISNA conference?

Right off the blocks, I’m told I’m asking the wrong question (though I never actually asked any questions in my post). This is classic deflection; a way to steer the discussion onto a more favourable track whilst simultaneously discrediting every point your opponent has made. By implication, if you’ve asked less than crucial questions, you’ve received nothing but insignificant answers, so any conclusions you’ve reached based on these answers are themselves unworthy of consideration. This is a fairly successful verbal tactic, but it’s highly transparent and ineffective when the debate is in writing. It’s also condescending. If only I’d been as smart as her, I wouldn’t have wasted all that time plumbing the depths of such an unfruitful seas!

And just why exactly should I have asked why "Rick" is “speaking at the ISNA conference”? (Her use of “Rick” here, rather than the more natural “he”, as the pronoun referring to the antecedent “Pastor Rick Warren” is an early hint that we might be dealing with a pre-fabricated, cut-and-paste argument.) Shouldn’t the motive for the most well known pastor in the U.S. speaking to any large crowd of non-Christians be obvious? Shouldn’t it be to preach the Gospel of Christ?

Yes, it should.

So now I do have a main question, Cathie: When he was speaking to thousands of unsaved souls, why didn’t Rick Warren, America’s Pastor, preach the Gospel?

While I do not wish to offer an apologia for ISNA, I would refer you to multiple articles that describe the organization’s goals in reaching out to other faiths, including Judaism, and denouncing terrorism (Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the leader of the largest branch of American Judaism, addressed the convention two years ago; also see the AP story on July 1 by Zoll, and stories in the Christian Post, Church Solutions and even the Washington Times in the past week).

You don’t wish to offer an apologia, but you go ahead and offer one anyway. Cute.

Well, while I don’t wish to accuse you of being astoundingly naïve, I would refer you to the multiple articles that link the ISNA to other terror-sponsoring organizations like CAIR and the Islamic Brotherhood; name and shame all the anti-Semites that appear regularly at ISNA functions; as well as prove to you that ALL Islamic organizations are in the business of promoting Islam & Allah above Christianity and Christ! Perhaps you didn’t know that “Allahu Akbar” does not mean “God is great” as Muslims claim, but rather “Allah is greater”. Now, greater than who, I wonder?

As for Rabbi Eric Yoffie, he is a Reformed Jew who despises fundamentalist Christians (here's a link to the transcript of his speech to the ISNA in 2007). By definition he does not believe in the literal truth of the Tanakh, and should therefore have zero currency with fundamentalist Christians like you, Rick Warren and me. So, in what way is his speaking to a group of people dedicated to destroying Christianity, the West and Israel supposed to show that the ISNA have “denounced terrorism”?

Anyway, Cath, put simply, Muslims (and Jews) deny the divinity of Jesus, they are Antichrists, and it was Pastor Warren’s duty to them to warn them that they are damned to everlasting life in Hell should they die before believing in Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and repenting of their idolatrous worship of Allah. A duty that Rick did not fulfil on July 4th because he was too busy being oh-so-gosh-darned proud and grateful to be invited.

What I would like to clarify is Rick’s message and motive. You claim that Rick probably doesn’t have an agenda, but I would like to assert that it is his lifelong agenda that led him to accept the invitation to speak at ISNA.

Actually, I claimed no such thing. More evidence that your comment is a prepared statement, rather than you’re your own immediate response to my post.

You may have noticed that outside of Saddleback Church, and Rick’s 30 year Purpose Driven Ministry to pastors, he does very little speaking to Christian groups of believers. Instead, he invests his time speaking to groups of unbelievers that most pastors never get the opportunity to share with. He carefully considers the opportunities that God has given him to address these audiences. These are folks that Jesus died for, but would never enter a church to hear the Good News. Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Luke 5:31 (NIV)

Despite what you and Rick Warren say, no Christian worthy of the name would ever criticise you for talking to unbelievers and non-Christians. Your suggesting such a thing is pure straw-man building, a self-aggrandizing fallacy. All Christians applaud anyone who engages in outreach to those “who would never enter a church to hear the Good News”—if, that is, the person doing the outreach actually TELLS the people the Good News. You know, Cath, the very thing Rick Warren didn’t do?

The deceptive misreading and misapplication of Luke 5:31-32 didn’t escape my notice either. In these verses, the “sick” & “sinners” the Lord is referring to are not Pagans, Unbelievers and Gentiles (today’s Muslims, atheists and agnostics); the sick are apostate Jews (like Rabbi Eric Yoffie); the sinners are Jews who break the Law of Moses. It works like this: To be spiritually sick implies one began spiritually well. The spiritually well would be observant Jews; ergo the sick would be apostates. To be a sinner, one who misses the target, you need to have known what the target was and been actively trying to hit it. Only Jews at that time knew what the target was (righteousness through the keeping of the Law), so only they could miss it (sin); ergo a breaker of the Law of Moses.

Rick believes strongly that if you want to actively demonstrate the love of Christ to others as He commands us to, then you have to reach out to a variety of audiences. No one is ever convinced of God’s love by labeling, condemnation, or anger. Rick strongly believes that if we want to behave in a Christ-like example, we must not waste any time judging others (Jesus didn't), but instead, do everything we can to build relationships of love and respect and trust with others.

You are once again erecting a straw-man. No one is chastising Warren because he wasn’t angry or judgemental enough when dealing with the Unsaved, we are chastising him for keeping the Unsaved ignorant of their unsaved condition by compromising the Gospel in order to “build relationships of love and respect and trust”. Just look at that quote again, Cathie. Do you see the glaring omission from those three aspects of these relationships Warren seeks to build? It is “Truth”; the essential element of any loving, respectful, trusting relationship. And, as all we Christians know, Jesus Christ is Truth itself.

As for not wasting “any time judging others” because “Jesus didn’t”, sorry, Cathie, but you and Warren are just flat wrong. Jesus is the Judge of Judges. He is literally mankind’s Judge, Jury and Executioner and tells us He will judge EVERYONE eventually [John 5:22; 8:26; 12:48]. He did not waste his time judging Gentiles during the First Advent, of course, because they didn’t even know who God was, or His Messiah. As well, that was not the Lord’s mission [John 12:47]. He did however pronounce a mountain of Judgement on the Scribes and Pharisees; just check out Matthew 23!

We too are to judge, but must take care to do so correctly [John 7:24]. We are never told to “build relationships of love and respect and trust” with non-believers, we’re told to preach the Gospel to them. And we are to be especially wary of those who “have a form of godliness, but [deny] the power thereof” [2 Timothy 3:5], those who preach “any other Gospel” [Galatians 1:6-9]. Yeah, Cathie, that includes Muslims and Jews (and Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roman Catholics, et al). Don’t ever forget that Muslims are not mere atheists; they are Antichrists worshipping a false god and following a creed that commands them to actively work against the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ and set up a demonic Kingdom of Satan. Just what relationships do you imagine Jesus wants us to build with them?

In our secular culture, there are about a dozen different groups of influencers that we at Saddleback seek to serve and reach out to including those in academics, business, military, sports, health care, media, prisoners, entertainment, other faiths, and government. If we are to fulfill Jesus' Great Commission in the world, we must build bridges to all of these, and more. Just know the goal of every speaking engagement Rick accepts is always the same: The global glory of God. We seek to build bridges of love - from our hearts to hearts of even those we may disagree with - so that Jesus can walk across!

What does serving and reaching out to all those influencers entail? What do you do once you’ve built your bridges? Do you seek to influence them away from their ungodly behaviours and lifestyles and towards the Lord? How does reinforcing the lie that Allah and the God of the Bible are the same help establish the “global glory of God”? How does building bridges of love from our hearts to the hearts of the openly antichrist fulfil the Great Commission? I really don't think Jesus needs that kind of help.

By the way, the Lord’s Great Commission was not to “build bridges of love”; that’s unscriptural, relativist nonsense! The Great Commission was to go and “teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever [Jesus has] commanded” us [Matthew 28:18-20]. Does Rick Warren do this? No! Did he do this to those at the ISNA conference? Again, no!

The theme of the session at which Rick will speak is “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” a theme most appropriate for a message on perhaps our country’s most sacred day, Independence Day. Rick will bring a message appropriate to the values of the meaning of this day on what America and all Americans, not just Muslims or Christians, need to maintain our independence. Freedom and independence were at the core of our country’s founders and those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice to protect this country across its history.

This statement is a breathtaking example of Amerocentric Idolatry! Wherever did you get the idea that Independence Day is sacred? When did God establish July 4th as a Holy Day? The American Declaration of Independence is a fine document as far as earthly political idealism goes, but it does not supersede Holy Scripture. This might come as a shock to you and Pastor Warren, and all those other Americans who equate the U.S. with the Biblical City on the Hill (Matt 5:14), but the only Nation that God cares about is Israel. Check out what happens to all the others in the Book of Revelation.

With regard to Life, Liberty and Happiness: All the Muslims, Jews, servicemen, politicians and millionaires in America working in harmony from now until Kingdom Come will never even understand what these things really are, never mind create a nation that secures them for its citizens and the world, if they don't first give their hearts, minds and souls to the author of each and every one of them, the Lord Jesus Christ.

As an aside, I’ve come across this patriotic idolatry in Americans before. Last November, my wife was in Alaska. She attended a Baptist Church service in, I think, Fairbanks, where the Pastor was preaching on the Financial Crisis and how America would pull through no matter how bad the situation became. He said America couldn’t fail, because it was “too good and too strong”! The idolatry and pride in that statement alone, coming as it did from a supposedly Bible-believing Christian, is all the proof you need that American Christianity is in a very unhealthy state.

As a pastor, Rick intimately understands these values, particularly the value of religious freedom, and will fiercely advocate for them unashamedly in front of any audience. But religious freedom means the right to practice the religion of one’s choice regardless of whether or not others agree with a particular religion’s tenets, and the freedom to associate for the common good of all Americans and for those less fortunate than us around the world. That is a value that is not only part of our heritage as Americans, but also a commandment of Jesus Christ.

Regardless of what you thought you were saying, all these statements do is display your ignorance of the guiding principals and values of your Founding Fathers, as well as your ahistoricity with respect to your nation’s heritage. The freedom of religion you’re speaking of was freedom to worship Christ without interference from the state. The Founding Fathers came from a Britain wherein only one form of Christian worship was permitted BY LAW. At no time did they seek to establish a right to worship anything and everything. They wouldn’t even have been able to conceive of a nation state where freedom to worship Satan, a tree or one’s own sinful self was a protected right. The very idea would have struck them as monstrous; which is exactly how your idea that somewhere in the Bible Jesus commanded His followers to set up this kind of nation state strikes me!

I appreciate the opportunity to clarify Rick’s appearance before ISNA and would refer you to a recent issue of Rick’s “News and Views” in which he thoroughly discusses why he speaks to a variety of audiences.

You’re welcome, Cathie, but, as I said above, I really didn’t need you to clarify that. But I am grateful for the link. It saved me a bit of time by leading me directly to proof of Rick Warren’s apostasy in his own words. I’d also be grateful if you were to let him see this response to your comment, it just might help get him back on track. If it’s too long, and he doesn’t have time to read it all, just refer him to 1 Timothy 6. He won’t find anything to bolster any of my arguments there, but he will find Scriptural advice from the Apostle Paul that any pastor whose bank account is bigger than his yearly mortgage payments would do well to heed.


Shalom in Yeshua,
jsk

A Proselyte Responds

It was after midnight here in New Zealand when I finally posted The Collapsing Warren of Apostasy. Less than three hours later, something with an inaccessible Blogger profile called Cathieunderwood submitted a 470 word rebuttal beneath it. It’s the first time in nearly six years of blogging that I’ve received a comment that contained 200 words more than the post itself did!


Basically, the comment is nothing more than a long-winded press release from some saucer-eyed Warrenoid at Saddleback Church; an over-confident apologetic dressed up like Bible-Study Barbie®. She’d written about 300 words too many and didn’t respond in any way to what I wrote, but she did manage to address a claim I never made. Conveniently enough, she provided a link to the very same Rick Warren blog-post that she appears to have used as a template for her comment.

Now, I’m not a journalist, and it wasn’t my intention to detail all the things Rick Warren has ever done or said to betray his apostasy; that’s been done by others already and can be found all over the Net. The last thing anyone needs is for me to chew their food for them. But that being said, I feel the need to respond to this comment in a serious way. To me, the theology on display in both Cathieunderwood’s comment and the Rick Warren blog-post she cited is just too deceptive in its re-packaging of the Gospel, that I just have to fisk it.

Now, that sounds like fun, doesn’t it? But don’t worry; I won’t forget 2 Timothy 2:23-26

Right.

I should be done in a day or two. Keep Watching this Space!


Shalom in Yeshua,
jsk

Lileks Punts a Little Green Football

This is more of an update to this post. This paragraph of James Lileks’ July 7th bleat kinda, sorta leaped out at me:

[W]ebsites are not immune to audiences falling away or turning elsewhere. There are a few websites I used to visit several times a day I dropped from the bookmark, because the proprietor got a few new hobbyhorses. That’s fine; we all get bees in our bonnets. But one way to blow off traffic is to spend a great deal of time magnifying an issue, confusing “lots of posts about the subject” with an argument, dismissing anyone who doesn’t feel the same about the subject with the identical amount of fervor, and - le straw finale - wading into the comments flailing the ban stick because people do not have the precise amount of outrage you demand they have, or because they express weariness with the constant creak of the hobbyhorse. Monomania is one thing; joylessness is another; joyless monomania is death.

Ever the gentleman, James wouldn’t actually name the Website or its Proprietor, but I will: Along with the majority of Lileks' readers, I’m certain he’s talking about Charles “Ban-Stick” Johnson and his Little Green Coliseum. The “hobbyhorse”, Johnson’s very own King Charles’ Head, is Intelligent Design.


Shalom in Yeshua,
jsk

The Collapsing Warren of Apostasy

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
—Romans 1:16

There is no doubting that Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren is a roaring success by any worldly standard. Below a picture of him and President Obama, dressed in matching black tuxes sans ties, Saddleback’s website provides a concise curriculum vitae:

Pastor Warren founded Saddleback Church in Lake Forest in 1980 with one other family. Today, it is one of America’s most influential churches, with approximately 20,000 people attending the weekend services. Saddleback offers more than 200 community ministries and support groups for parents, families, children, couples, prisoners, addicts, people living with HIV/AIDS, depression, MS, Parkinson’s, autism, and many others.

He is the author of The Purpose Driven Life, the bestselling hardback in American history, with over 30 million copies sold worldwide. He built the Purpose Driven Network, a global alliance of pastors from 162 countries and hundreds of denominations who have been trained to be purpose driven churches. He also founded Pastors.com – an online interactive community that provides sermons, forums, and other practical resources for pastors – including archives of a bi-weekly newsletter that is sent to more than 100,000 pastors and ministry leaders.

Like Billy Graham and Pat Robertson, Warren became a household name, and was duly eyed with suspicion by the anti-Christian American Left. Four years ago, hailed by Time Magazine as “America’s Pastor”, Warren was giving “snarky, secular elitists” like The Nation’s Wendy Kaminer the all-over vapours. To them, with Bush in the White House feasting on the raw flesh of minority children and destroying the Ozone Layer with his evil Republican thought-rays, the sizzling rise of a Hip & Cool Evangelical Cleric into Hollywood-sized prominence was a nightmarish sight to behold; what with his Hawaiian shirts, sockless feet and metastasizing army of slavering, gap-toothed minions ready to seize control of everything and implement who knew how many schemes to turn the free and gay-friendly United States into the Flat-Earth Christer Hate-ocrasy of America.

Right.

But Kaminer and her ilk needn’t have gotten their knickers in such an ungodly knot. Because since the November 08 election the new, hip President’s new, hip Pastor has repeatedly shown that the only people who had anything to worry about were all the genuine Christians who actually believed that Rick Warren actually believed all that Jesus stuff he’d been preaching about for all those years. From his quick and easy embrace of the Marxist, Abortion-loving Obama, to his jaw-dropping flip-flop on Gay Marriage, Rick Warren has successfully quieted every palpitating heart of the mainstream media. He really wasn’t a sheep in wolf’s clothing after all.

In actual fact, Warren’s apostasy has been suspected for some time now by those Biblical Christians who’ve never been comfortable with the Mega-church, seeker-friendly scene. With Matthew 7:13-15 branded into our psyches, we just couldn’t look at the wide gate and broad way required to get all those people through the Purpose Driven Saddleback Factory with anything but a sharp, gimlet eye. We didn’t need Warren’s recent genuflection to the Islamic Society of North America to prove that he’d fallen headlong down the dank hole of apostasy; to us, it was a foregone conclusion. The bigger they are…well, you know the rest.

Watching Saddleback Church, one of the glitzier edifices of the American Mega-Church Movement, toppling over in slow-motion this way is like watching an old Vegas casino implode: While you’re glad to finally see the end of the giant, garish monument to the Baal of Entertainment, you’re also filled with a creeping dread. You begin to wonder just what might happen next. What terrible thing will come rising up out of the mound of dead ashes left behind by that awesome, billowing gray cloud of disintegrated plaster and vainglorious overreach?

Shalom in Yeshua,
jsk

Testing RefTagger

Just added RefTagger code from Logos Bible Software:

If you've been darting around a lot of Christian sites & blogs, you're probably already familiar with it. If not, just hover over the following verses & see what happens:

John 8:32

Matthew 4:3-7; 21:13

Cool, eh? All I have to do is write the appropriate verse as normal text and RefTagger does the rest--no more long hyperlink coding to Bible Gateway!

Right.

Btw, I was thinking of blogging tomorrow on Rick Warren's latest example of shameless apostasy, because of this Open Letter to Rick Warren by Jan Markell, head of Olive Tree Ministries, that my pastor read out to us at our morning prayer group today. I just read it again a few minutes ago on Slice of Laodicea and, whilst it does sum things up fairly succinctly, I still feel moved to offer a thought or two of my own on the whole grubby affair.

From the letter:

Pastor Warren, you pleaded with 8,000 Muslim listeners on Saturday, July 4, to work together to solve the world’s greatest problems by cooperating in a series of interfaith projects. You said, “Muslims and Christians can work together for the common good without compromising my convictions or your convictions.”

Pastor Warren, you needed to compromise the convictions of the Muslims in attendance. To just say that “My deepest faith is in Jesus Christ” was not enough to a thoroughly lost crowd. The hour is too late to withhold a gospel message without which they will face a Christless eternity, and you will be held accountable. The “world’s greatest problems” will always be with us and the Bible says so in Matthew 26:11. Sin is at the root of them. I have to conclude you are more interested in ecumenical unity and solving AIDS, poverty, and other social issues. Last Saturday you were given a golden opportunity that 99.9% of American Christians could never get.

Wow, Walid Shoebat will be so NOT impressed....


Shalom in Yeshua,
jsk

In Support of a Pre-Tribulation Rapture

Just as the scriptures in the OT dealing with the Messiah paint a picture of two distinct and disparate characters (The suffering bearer of mankind’s sins; and the Conqueror-King), so too do those dealing with the End Times paint a picture of two distinct and disparate events involving Christ’s return: The Rapture and the Second Coming. In the former, Christ returns for His Bride, the Church; in the latter, He comes to “cut short the days” of the Great Tribulation, end Armageddon, cast the Antichrist and the False Prophet into the Lake of Fire, entomb and shackle Satan, then rule the Earth for a thousand years.

From this there follows an obvious question, when do these different events occur relative to one another? Of the two events, I believe that the Rapture occurs first, the Second Coming afterwards. In between these events there is a seven-year period, the second half of which Christ called “The Great Tribulation”; hence the term Pre-Tribulation Rapture”. I believe Scripture supports the case for a Pre-Tribulation Rapture and would like to illustrate this below using a large section from a single chapter of Luke’s Gospel.

However, before embarking on this, I’d like to establish a general definition of terms. No agreement of interpretation can be reached if there is a disagreement over the relevant biblical terminology.


Rapture: This is the “catching up” by the Lord of His Bride, the Church, to “meet Him in the air”. In Greek, the word used is harpazo, translated in the Latin Vulgate as rapturo; from which we get the word “rapture”.

The Second Coming: When Christ comes to “cut short the days” of the Great Tribulation, end Armageddon, begin the Millennium, etc.

The Elect: These are the Jews; specifically, Jews who come to believe in Jesus during the Tribulation. Elect = Chosen = the Jews. [This term is not used in the explanation below, but it is relevant should someone wish to argue with what’s below citing Matthew 24:31 where a gathering of “his elect” occurs at the same time as the Second Coming.]

The Bride: This is the Church: all genuine believers in Jesus (the Bridegroom) as Lord and Saviour, the Son of God.

The Time of Jacob’s Trouble: This is the Great Tribulation; the time when God’s Wrath is poured out on an unbelieving Israel to punish them and refine them, so they can finally believe He is the Messiah, YHWH.

End Times: This refers to the Last Days, the period of time between the ending of the Times of the Gentiles and the beginning of the Millennium.



From the KJV of the Gospel of Luke 21:24-36

And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree…So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand…And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

In the 21st Chapter of the Gospel of Luke, the Lord lays out for the Apostles the whole prophetic picture of what’s to come after His resurrection; from the destruction of the temple, through the dispersal of Israel, right up to the Rapture and His Second Coming. The passages cited above are particularly revealing in regards to the argument for a Pre-Tribulation Rapture.

“times of the Gentiles be fulfilled”: This sets down the marker for the beginning of the End Times. Having just discussed the desolation of Jerusalem and the Jews being “led away captive into all nations” (events of 70AD), the Lord is saying that only after the Gentiles stop ruling Jerusalem and the Jews return to it (Jews recaptured all of it during the Six Day War in 1967) will the natural and political disasters He's about to describe occur; all of which end with His Second Coming (“Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory”).

“And then shall they see”: Significantly, His Second Coming is seen by “them” not “ye”. Throughout these verses the Lord uses the pronouns “you” and “them” to distinguish between Unbelievers (they/them) and Believers (ye/you), whether discussing the present or the future. Only Unbelievers, the ones who experience all the terrible events He just described, will see Jesus coming “in a cloud with power and great glory”. That is because the Pre-Tribulation Believers will already have been raptured and are coming back with Him. (Revelation 19:14)

“And when these things begin to come to pass”: The word “begin” is important to note here. The natural and political disasters are “these things” and they will “begin to come to pass” when the end of the “Times of the Gentiles” comes. Once this happens, then Believers (your) are supposed to “look up” and “lift up [our] heads” for our “redemption draweth nigh”. Our redemption is Christ’s coming to save us, the Rapture—just like redeeming a coupon, you go and present it to the shop and pick up your goods; the goods don’t come to you. We are to meet Him in the air according to Paul (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 & Philippians 3:20), so looking up is a good idea.

“a parable”: The Parable of the Fig Tree emphasizes the need for vigilance in detecting the sign of the beginning of the End Times, as well as underscores that Israel’s rebirth is that sign. It is commonly held by Biblical exegetes that fig trees refer to Israel in the Word. We cannot forget that Israel’s rebirth is itself a miraculous fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.

“So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass”: Again, the Lord is addressing Believers in Him. It is Believers (ye) who will recognize the Jews returning to Jerusalem as the marker of the beginning of the Last Days.

“day come upon you unawares” & “snare” & “all them”: Here the Lord warns Believers (yourselves) not to get involved in fleshly pleasures or “that day”(the Rapture) will affect us the same way it effects the Unbelievers (all them), as a shock (unawares = snare); suggesting that because of sinful living Believers will not be raptured!

The idea that “that day” can come upon a person “unawares” or “as a snare” because of dissipated living also supports a Pre-Trib Rapture. Once the Great Tribulation occurs—times so terrible the Lord Himself has to intervene in order to stop all of mankind from being destroyed (Matthew 24:21-22)—it’s hard to imagine any Believer being so distracted by pleasure, or any Unbeliever being so oblivious to the multiplicity of horrors, as to be surprised by something as relatively innocuous as the Rapture.

These verses also introduce obliquely what we now call the Doctrine of Imminence—that the Rapture will occur on a day and hour that no one knows and for which there are no preceding events foreshadowing it. (Matthew 24:36; 24:50; 25:13, Mark 13:32). So, we will all know when we are in the End Times (now!), when the Tribulation starts (immediately upon the Antichrist performing the Abomination of Desolation; Matthew 24:15-21) and when it ends (at the Second Coming), only God knows when the Rapture will happen. We are to expect His coming at any time after the beginning of the End Times. See also Titus 2:13, Philippians 3:20, Hebrews 9:28, 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 5:6, Revelation 22:20; et al.

“that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things”: Clearly, the word “escape” is the tantalizing aspect of this verse. Believers (ye) are to stay alert to the signs of the times and not live like Unbelievers in order to be “accounted worthy” to escape the Tribulation. The only way for all Believers to escape the Tribulation is to be raptured. This idea is echoed by Jesus in Revelation 3:10 when He says to the Church at Philadelphia, “Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth”. Also, in 1 Thessalonians 4:18, tagged onto his explication of the Rapture, Paul goes on to say, “Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” If the Rapture occurred after the Great Tribulation, this instruction would be redundant at best, unnecessary at worst. The Second Coming itself would've proven comfort enough to keep us living through the horrors of the Tribulation. Comparatively, the Rapture would be no more comforting than finding out you’re being taken to hospital in a helicopter instead of an ambulance.


Shalom in Yeshua,
jsk


For more Pre-Trib Rapture info, I highly recommend you see &/or listen to Chuck Missler here or on YouTube here.

Little Green Coliseum

The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

—Matthew 24:50-1

Before my baptism with the Holy Spirit, this blog was primarily political in nature and many of my posts were inspired by discussions over at Charles Johnson’s Little Green Footballs. Most people familiar with US political commentary and/or concerned with the WOT are well aware of LGF. For years it was, quite frankly, the premier Anti-Jihad, Pro-Conservative blog on the internet. It was an inspiration to many and a personal favourite; as much for the exemplary work done to expose the scale of Islam’s danger to the world as for the Lizard Army’s unapologetically pro-Israel, pro-Western, pro-Judeo-Christian stance. It was a leading light, a trail-blazer, and a pleasure to be around.

Was.

Sadly, it’s now just a little green coliseum where the audience bays for Christian blood and anyone perceived to disagree with Johnson’s choice of “topic” is speedily attacked by a sycophantic pride of noisy, toothless lions. The operating ethos has gone from “God, Guts & Guns” to “Gaia, Guff & Gums”. It appears that Charles’ right-of-centre mask has quietly been slipped into the memory hole.

My recent foray to LGF has convinced me that, along with his conservative masquerade, Charles Johnson has ended his fight with the Global Jihad. He now spends his time trashing everything and everyone he used to support and encourage: the Republican Party, Fox News, most high-profile conservative media personalities (i.e. Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck, etc), all the other popular conservative blogs—in the process he managed to start blog-wars with many an erstwhile friend and colleague, culminating in his redirecting the LGF links from their sites to a juvenile page flashily announcing You Are A Idiot to the innocent viewer; for the “crime” of reading the site of someone Charles has fallen out with.

Tellingly, many of his long term commenters and defenders have been banned indefinitely from LGF for a catalogue of minor indiscretions, ranging from openly arguing with him, to criticising LGF unfavourably on OTHER sites. In fact, so intollerant of dissent has he become, that not only does he annul the accounts of dissenters to stop them commenting on LGF, he actually blocks their ISP’s so they can’t even open it!

His vengeance has also taken a despicable turn, as outlined by Scipio here on the Ace of Spades’ thread What’s Happened to Little Green Footballs Part II:

The problem is that Charles knows where a lot of us work (some of us in very liberal industries) and if he starts outing some people they could get in trouble on their jobs or in their business endeavors (several LGF2 and AoSHQ people work or own businesses in very liberal bastions such as LA, NY, Boston, Austin, D.C. and even S.F). CJ has already outed 3 admisntrators from LGF2 even going so far as to violate the paypal confidential presumption in the case of "m."

To me, though, the worst development at LGF (the reason I'm blogging about this) has been the shocking rise in gratuitous bigotry against Christians. Johnson has become so obsessed with championing Evolution and railing maniacally against Intelligent Design and its advocates (actual and presumed)—the dreaded “Young-Earth Creationists”—that he now devotes at least one thread a day to the topic. These threads provide the perfect echo chamber for Charles and his acolytes to share their arrogant dismissal and irrational hatred of Bible-believing Christians. If he simply disliked all believers in God, all literal “Creationists”, and treated them with equal disdain, that would be merely ignorant; but no group of believers is more disparaged, impugned and attacked as much as professing Christians. Charles and his remaining minions use the phrase “I hate Creationists” to cover their anti-Christian hatred the way anti-Semites use the term “I hate Zionists” to cover their hatred of Jews. Even Muslims are now afforded greater respect on LGF than Christians:


That warning from Charles was on this thread. Take a look and tell me how anyone could post a video like that for any other reason than to expose Fundamentalist Christians to ridicule. Charles insisted that “it never occurred to [him] that this video could possibly offend anyone”. I called him on this:


Then Charles, instead of addressing my point, implied I was an anti-Semite:


After I dispelled that nonsense, it was then up to a few other late-night posters to ignore my points, snipe at perceived disagreements and, well, simply make sure a religious kook didn’t get the last word on an LGF thread.

Today, LGF’s only redeeming quality is its continuing support for Israel, but I’m afraid even this will soon change. In avoiding criticism of the clearly anti-Israel Obama administration in favour of disparaging the largely pro-Israel Republicans as worthless, denouncing the staunchly pro-Israel right-wing bloggers as Nazis, and accusing the religiously pro-Israel Christians of being more dangerous than Jihadis, Charles Johnson’s support is looking less and less like an inviolable principle and more and more like a regretted affectation. It won’t surprise me in the least if I soon find that that mask too has been quietly dropped and another less attractive face of LGF has been revealed.


Shalom in Yeshua,
jsk