I'm finally getting the Wordpress version of Rhett's Rants looking like something I want to be associated with...
For those of you who recieve my articles via Feed Burner emails, you'll need to click here and sign up if you would like to keep up with what's going on over at the new blog.
After getting fed up with an ever increasing number of Blogger options that do not work (the latest being the spell check feature), I've decided to head over to Wordpress to see what the fuss is all about.
My new blog URL is http://rhettsrants.wordpress.com/
Please update your bookmarks and blogrolls.
You'll have to pardon my dust over there. It's still a work in progress!
This article at American Vision shows that the worst President of my lifetime isn't very good at hermeneutics either!
Of the remaining viable Republican candidates on Super Tuesday, you'll have the chance to vote for a member of an anti-Christian cult, a liberal Republican from Arizona, or a Southern Baptist preacher from Arkansas named Mike Huckabee.
Please watch some (or all) of the following speech and I think what you'll see that there's something different about this guy. My vote will be going for Mike!
This creed was adopted at the Fourth Ecumenical Council, held at Chalcedon, located in what is now Turkey, in 451, as a response to certain heretical views concerning the nature of Christ. It established the orthodox view that Christ has two natures (human and divine) that are unified in one person.
Bryan at the ἀκολουθέω Χριστόν [I Follow Christ] blog has asked this question and posted a great article on what the Bible actually teaches concering the "millennial reign of Christ." Are we waiting on Jesus to return to Earth before He can take the throne? Or does He already rule and reign? These are important questions and I think Bryan has given a solid exegetical response.
(I would also like to note that , personally, I fit in the "modern" Postmillennial camp that he's speaking of in the article.)
I have made it no secret that I'm a Partial-Preterist (and a Postmillennialist) along the eschatological lines of R.C. Sproul, Gary DeMar, and Kenneth Gentry. A quick survey of the eschatological views of American Evangelicalism would, no doubt, confirm that my position is most certainly a minority view. As such, I understand that my view is controversial and there are many good Christians who will critique my it and believe it to be aberrant -or even heretical.
Yesterday morning I was perusing a website of a certain author who has written a number of helpful books and tracts concerning the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement other cultic/abberant movements in the United States. Unfortunately, this author has also placed Partial-Preterism within his crosshairs and attacks it in several articles online.
Do you know what's ironic?
Like most Futurist scholars, this gentleman has authored an eschatological book that may be a bit embarrassing for him now. You see, the author in question once speculated that Saddam Hussein was the "little horn" of Daniel 11!
Instead of using Scripture to interpret Scripture, the author used the goings on of our modern world to be his lens for interpreting passages of Scripture written (and most likely fulfilled) thousands of years ago. As always, speculative books such as this end up worthless after time rolls by and proves them to be the rubish that they really are. There's no doubt the bottom dropped out of any market there may have been for this book when Saddam was executed on Dec. 30, 2006!
These wild futurist speculations might sell lots of books when a certain world leader can be made to fit some weird eschatological profile, but inevitably, as we have seen time and time again, these speculations will be proven wrong. What we end up with is a Christian author who is essentially tale-bearing and tarnishing the image of someone who has absolutely nothing to do with prophecies that have already been fulfilled. (I can think of numerous times I have watched Hal Lindsey, on TV, hint that various world leaders might be the Antichrist.)
The author also wants to speculate that the fulfillment of the "Abomination of Desolation" (that Jesus spoke of in Matthew 24) as being a future Islamic takeover and destruction of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Now honestly folks, could anyone in Christ's audience have possibly conceived of such a thing as he foretold those events? I doubt it.
Think about it for a second; what could have been a greater abomination to the Jews of Jesus' generation than for the Roman army to sack Jerusalem and totally destroy their beloved Temple? Certainly, an Islamic takeover and destruction of the modern Wailing Wall would cause a real ruckus, but I simply cannot see how it would be more of an "abomination" than what Titus and his legions did in 70 A.D.
It has become clear to me that Futurist authors will always end up embarrassing themselves as long as they (continue to be Futurists and) ignore the time indicators given by Christ in the Olivet Discourse and in the book of Revelation.
In Matthew 24:34 Jesus said "Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place." Was this some distant generation 2000+ years in the future? No! Did anyone in Christ's audience understand him to mean that the events would be thousand of years in the future? Again I say NO! (Furthermore, had you or I been in the crowd that day, we wouldn't have taken His words to mean that either!)
In the opening of the book of Revelation, John calls his book "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place." Thrice in the last chapter of Revelation, the Lord tells John he is "coming soon" (see Rev 22:7, 12, 20). I don't know about you, but when someone tells me something is "coming soon," I don't interpret it to mean 2000+ years in the future!
Did Jesus return "soon" as He told John? Yes, of course. He came in judgment upon Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Was this judgment coming the Second Advent? No it wasn't. That event is still future and will happen at a time only known to God. We have no business trying to determine when that will be...
Until then, let us refrain from wild-eyed eschatological libel against world leaders and be content to advance the Kingdom of God throughout the Earth!
Imagine the feeling...
You walk on stage, the crowd is roaring, the smoke machines billow, the lights are flashing, the girls are screaming and fainting all over the place. You are the star of the show. It's all about you! This is your moment to shine! You're about to give the audience the show of a lifetime!
Now back to reality...
What I've described seems to be what some preachers are seeking these days. I've actually seen videos and heard audio clips of certain ministers taking the pulpit while the audience cheers as if Nickelback has just taken the stage. In fact, with some preachers it's obvious, they want the spotlight on them. They want denominational fame. They desire to have all eyes on them and to be the stars of the show!
A few years ago, before I left the Pentecostal movement, I attended a service at a very progressive Pentecostal church not far from here just to see what the buzz was all about. I was amazed at what I witnessed. Though it was a small church just outside of the city limits of a rural Georgia town, it had all the trappings of a secular rock concert. It was a real circus.
They had everything a despiser of God could want: flashing lights, smoke machines, loud music, and plenty of man-centered "praise and worship" that had little to no theology or true reverence for God. It was just awful. One thing that stood out to me was how the preacher was escorted to and from the pulpit flanked by ushers sporting Secret Service type communication equipment. It was obvious that this pastor was much too important to spend any time mingling with the commoners. Needless to say, I never returned...
If you're in the ministry and you desire to be the star of the show and have church services like I described above, let me give you some candid advice. If truly want be cheered by thousands of adoring fans, then Gospel ministry is not what you need to be doing! Go buy yourself a guitar, learn to play it, and then start your own garage band. Maybe if your real lucky, you might be a rock star someday, but whatever you do, don't waste your time pretending to be a minister of God.
God has called us to preach the Word and be a servant in His Kingdom. He hasn't called us to be the stars of the show. Whenever we begin to think we're the stars of the show, we have fallen into a grievous sin. I believe any praise we receive as ministers should immediately be directed to God, we have no right to it. We have nothing in which to boast. It's all about Him. It's His show. He's the Star. He should be the main attraction.
Brothers, we are not rock stars!
photo: from wikipedia
What's more difficult to find than:
... an honest politician?
... Ergun Caner at a debate with James R. White?
... leftover fried chicken at a Baptist fellowship dinner?
... exegesis in Frank Page's book Trouble with the TULIP?
... an Arminian at the Ligonier National Conference?
Give up yet?
Here's the answer:
A Postmillennialist in the Southern Baptist Convention!
Believe it or not, there are at least a couple of these critters in existence.
One is my fellow Mafia don Gordan Runyan, the other is yours truly: Rhett Kelley. Though both Postmill, Gordan and I do have some minor differences when it comes to the interpretation of Revelation. Gordan holds to an Historicist interpretation and I hold to a Partial-Preterist view of the book. Though we differ on this, we pretty much agree on most other things regarding Postmillennial eschatology.
For those who have never been properly introduced to the Postmillennial view, I would like to encourage you to read this article by Jay Rogers. I think it's a good introduction to Postmillennialism in general and the Partial-Preterest view in particular.
I have recently come across some evidence that the SBC used to actually have some Postmillennial scholars within it's ranks long ago, however, like Reformed Soteriology and church discipline, this eschatological distinctive appears to have been largely lost also...
Post Tenebras, Lux!
I believe in one God,the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible;
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; and he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
Silas Rhett Owen Kelley
