Things I Think…
1. My peeps bundled me up and took me to the redwoods for the 4th. There was no cell service or internet available which may have contributed to a strange phenomena….people were friendly, co-operative, and relaxed…it was as if I’d traveled back in time, not just to the woods. Perhaps our future well being depends on less information, not more…
2. I want to talk about the Gospel for a moment…actually, I want to talk about it non stop because I don’t hear it much anymore. The Gospel by definition is “good news’. It’s specifically the good news about what God has done and is doing in Christ Jesus. It’s the best news ever and it’s the hope we live in. Why then…are we continually harping on bad news?
3. I made the mistake of listening to the latest “prophecy” star, J.D. Farag. J.D. believes that the Covid 19 vaccine is part of the mark of the beast and everything has end time connotations…and he is very, very, angry. His “Gospel” is that the world is going to hell in a hand basket and only his tribe will be acceptable to God. I think J.D. Farag is nuts….I believe the world is headed to the eventual redemption of the entire creation…through the fire, so to speak, but to redemption ,indeed. That’s good news…
4. Now is a good time to remind you that the “mark of the beast” is a voluntary decision to worship someone other than the true and living God, not an attempt to survive a pandemic…
5. I have my own questions about the vaccine…I think I may have even been damaged by it. My questions are based on science, however, not my interpretation of biblical prophecy or because I think some nefarious “they” set out to do me or the society at large, harm…
6. I desperately want everyone to believe and live the Gospel…not my particular political positions or interpretations of tertiary doctrines….
7. The “prophecy update” scheme is unchanged for half a century…talk about all the bad news that is supposedly connected to the Second Coming…and hope in five years that people forget what you were spewing because they are on to different bad news that they are trying to connect to the Scripture…
8. The Gospel is the good news about Jesus…not a description of God’s enemies list…if you come away from a sermon angry or self righteous, you heard something other than the Gospel…
9. There are bad actors in the world and demons are real…but that doesn’t change the fact that we are messengers of good news…in fact, it makes the good news all the better, because Christ is victorious….
10. Our job isn’t to spread bad news…it’s to amplify the good news about Jesus Christ so that it can be heard above the din…
Excellent words, every one!
Lot of good news this week.
Great stuff, Michzel.
Good news, indeed!
Thanks, all…we need to clean our own houses so that nothing we do distracts from the good news we are bound to share…
I made the mistake of following the link and going to the forums… that’s 25 minutes of my life I’ll never get back…
#5 I think you are right, seems suspect to me.
I need to clarify…I would still get vaccinated.
I simply believe intelligent, honest discussions can and should take place about the risks…
#4—YES!
Thanks Michael for your toughts today. And good to have you with us!
#5–I kinda wonder if we have flown back to the Dark Ages. Seems to me a few months back a few people here had less than kind affections and words for experts, or “experts” – note the scare quotes.
If an expert tells me to have that lump removed and I don’t, and I die, that is not the experts fault, right?
Dan,
Thanks…it’s good to be here!
I concur with your other points…it seems to me that we responded to this pandemic the best way we knew how…and discovered some things we didn’t know along the way.
We’re still in that process…and I thank God for experts who are trying to help us get through safely.
#3. Russia Turkey Iran. A new Eurasian Model for policy.
Nope. Can’t be, because Russia was a Russian hoax. Fake news. A nothing burger. Evangelical leaders, to the last man, told us so.
#3 No. I tried to listen to the link but gave up after the prediction of impending doom, and the Eurasian Model. I think it was less then 20 min.
#1 – “Perhaps our future well being depends on less information, not more…”
Amen, and I’d say both collectively and individually. I wonder if our minds, hearts and guts were intended to withstand the onslaught of information.
Michael you are on fire.
#1- The problem is not with information per se but the challenge is actually wading through non-sense masquerading as information to find useful/good information.
#3 & 7- I have an over active mind that is pretty good at making things up. I have a long list of conspiracy theories that I have created. New ones come to me almost daily. However, at least I am acutely aware of the concept of speculative fiction. Others have no such concept and keep droning on and on and on.
I think you are right about the five-year forgetfulness concept. Do you think this kind on nonsense persists because there is a steady stream of new believers that don’t know any better? As a young believer I remember stuffing myself on prophetic turkey. These days it seems I am immune to that type of triptophan.
By the way I tried to watch Farag one time. I only made it three minutes into the “Prophecy Update” before I turned it off. Maybe I should have viewed it as a comedy instead of serious eschatology.
#1-10- Amen to every last one of them. The Gospel is the best news. It never goes out of style and is the exactly what our world aways needs.
to go by Crawford Gribben’s book Writing the Rapture, #7 can be applied as a pattern that goes as far back as 125 years. Gribben has pointed out that there tend to be recurring patterns in end times prophecy novels and forecasts, generally they cluster around WASP anxieties that Jews, Slavs and immigrants from non-white majority lands are going to ruin WASP “civilization” over against anything remotely close to the idea of the Gospel having Good News.
#7 I’m reading Ross King’s new book, ‘The Bookseller of Florence’. In 1453, the city-states of the Italian peninsula were convinced the last days were upon us owing to the fall of Constantinople to Mehmed II, who, of course, was identified as the Anti-Christ. There was another faction, however, that prophesied that Mehmed would convert to Christianity and usher in the Millennium. Prophecy updates, indeed…
WTH,
That may explain why the standard pre-trib dispy eschatalogy and all the hype and hysteria only gained traction in North America and the British Isles (thanks to guys like Darby, Scofield, and Hal Lindsey).
I’m jealous that you guys can read so much. I’m having trouble reading now.
Dispensationism..
I would agree that Disp and Anglo immigration went hand in hand. Darby made missionary trips to the Continent but Disp never caught on. Continental anti-semitism probably was an un-crossable threshold.
In Britain there was a Jewish community, but not like the Continent. I’ve said before, Disp is founded with a conceptual Israel, not an Israel in reality.
My belief was Darby originally came to N.America to strengthen Brethren immigrants on both sides of the borders.
When Darby reached the US, especially St. Louis, Disp and former Confederates where a natural pairing. Darby’s doctrines spread throughout N.America, but seem to have found a special place in Reconstruction areas. Scofield was a Confederate, mentored by James H. Brooks, an associate and promoter of Darby. Scolfield would have been a spritual grandson of Darby.
If I where to pick to rival encampment struggling for controlling influence of the South, I would pick SBTS in Louisville, the early Disp growth in Dallas that lead to the later Dallas Theological.
Partly raised in Disp as a child, I would have to say a significant portion of Disp believers where White Supremacist. Specifically, either generic decendents of Conferates or individuals who came to find salvation in, or influenced by Southern segregationist churches.
“Do you think this kind on nonsense persists because there is a steady stream of new believers that don’t know any better? ”
No.
If you observe the crowds at these churches, they are a sea of gray.
I have no idea what their excuse is…
Michael. I’m convinced it is the work of unclean spirits and angels that have come down.
They are at work to create a hybrid Christianity. It’s angry and preparing for a violent concept of the Kingdom. They will desire to take it by force.
As a bit of historical context…i have a good friend who went to Reformed colleges, in the late 70s early 80s.
I remember him saying that they studied the works of Rushdoony in one of their classes.
His professor considered him a kook and a fringe element then. As did my friend and his classmates. I think stoning gays and drunkards may have been the tip-off!
From an article online at Reason:
“Those who would face execution include not only gays but a very long list of others: blasphemers, heretics, apostate Christians, people who cursed or struck their parents, females guilty of “unchastity before marriage,” “incorrigible” juvenile delinquents, adulterers, and (probably) telephone psychics. And that’s to say nothing of murderers and those guilty of raping married women or “betrothed virgins.”
It’s frightening to me that his stuff and similar has become much more mainstream today, at least in some fundy circles.
Never been a time when discerning the spirits is really important.
Who is in charge of my life?
Who is my enemy?
How have I been redeemed?
What is the Good News?
Who am I called to love?
When I get confused about any of the above questions is when I’m prone falter into weird things and esoteric hogwash. When I keep these answers clearly before me is when I’m most joyful and effective for His kingdom.
But that’s just me. 🙂
A lot of people have been so ingrained with futurist dispensationalism they probably literally cannot conceive of other eschatological schools of thought as even being orthodoxy in any way that matters (and postmillenialists are, frankly, frequently just as bad about that point in practice with their pessimillenialism–although it’s fascinating how reliably postmils who claim to have an optimistic eschatology and lean right are … complaining about Biden these days (Doug Wilson most notably in the PNW region)).
Great words, Michael. Also glad to hear you got out and about.
I like hearing the Gospel mentioned so frequently in this list…. keep that up and we might think you’re a preacher…. or something…. 😉