Christians, Are you ready for the Great Tribulation? This will help you, but you might not like it much!

 

I have great respect for John MacArthur although I've not been his biggest fan. However, his viewpoint on the Great Tribulation here is a grand slam home run, right out of the park. 

This should be required reading for every Christian in the world, for what he said is accurate and will happen, soon.

John MacArthur denounces Christian nationalism

as 'faulty viewpoint' linked to postmillennialism

'There is no such thing as Christian nationalism'

By Jon Brown, Christian Post Reporter Sunday, March 03, 2024

Pastor John MacArthur, above, warned Christians against believing they can help God usher in his kingdom by seizing the reins of political power. | Grace Community Church

Pastor John MacArthur denounced Christian nationalism insofar as it is defined as an attempt to usher in the Kingdom of God on Earth through political means, but exhorted Christians to care about what is happening in their nation.

"There is no such thing as Christian nationalism," MacArthur said during a question-and-answer period last month at Grace Community Church in Los Angeles. "The Kingdom of God is not of this world. Jesus said, 'My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight.' His Kingdom is not of this world. The kingdom of this world is a separate world. They're not linked together."

MacArthur explained his belief that the prevailing religion or ideology of any nation bears no relevance to whether the Kingdom of God progresses according to His sovereignty.

"Nothing that happens in any nation, whether it's a communist nation, a Muslim nation, or a quote-unquote quasi-Christian nation, or an atheistic nation, nothing in that nation — politically, socially — has anything to do with the advancement of the Kingdom of God," he said. "Because the Kingdom of God is separate from that system. God, in His sovereignty, is building His Church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it, Jesus said."

"So the idea that you should link up some political effort, some political process, some social process, some gain of power or influence in a culture as part of the advance of Christianity is alien to Christianity," he said.

"You never have our Lord approaching anything like that, nor the apostles, and particularly the apostle Paul; he sought to gain no favor with the Roman Empire whatsoever, or for that matter with any other of the rulers that he ran into during his life."

MacArthur went on to clarify that he was not saying Christians should be "indifferent to what happens in the nation," stressing that they should vote for righteous leaders when they have the opportunity, which he noted is becoming increasingly difficult.

“We have to be the people who uphold righteousness. When we come to vote, we want to vote for that which is the most righteous option. Obviously, we can't vote in righteousness, but we have to vote in a way that reflects our commitment to the righteousness of God," he said, adding that Christians ought not to elect leaders who affirm abortion, LGBT behavior, or any other form of immorality.

"It gets harder, doesn't it, nowadays? Because even sometimes, when politicians are more conservative and anti-abortion, they may be sinful and wicked in some other categories. And it's very hard to find out who is really honest and who is simply dishonest and seeking power," he said.

"But in the end, we do what we can [politically] with the understanding that the responsibility of the Church is not to advance the kingdom of this world. That's a faulty viewpoint."

MacArthur, a premillennialist, suggested that Christians who believe they can assist God in establishing His kingdom by seizing the reins of political power are misguided and often driven by a mistaken postmillennial eschatology that believes Jesus will return following an extended period of Christian political and cultural dominance.

“And that is the view that the Church — somehow by influencing the culture — can bring in the Kingdom of Christ. In other words, it's the idea not that Christ returns and sets up His Kingdom, but that the Church establishes His Kingdom and then hands it to Him. That is not what Scripture teaches," he said.

The Great Tribulation

"What Scripture teaches is what we're learning from the book of Revelation: Things are going to get worse and worse and worse, and the end of human history is not the Church triumphant, reigning in the world and taking over the structures of human kingdoms. That's not what happens. At the end of human history, the believers are persecuted and murdered. And that’s the very opposite of what Christian nationalism would anticipate."

"So we believe the Bible teaches that things get worse and worse, headed toward the wrath of God, which we're seeing in Revelation. And then our Lord returns, Himself, to establish His Kingdom," he added.

Rob Reiner's recent anti-Christian nationalist documentary "God and Country" implied MacArthur is a Christian nationalist by featuring a brief clip of him saying, "No Christian with half a brain would say, 'We support religious freedom.' We support the truth."

The full context of his January 2021 sermon that appeared in the film shows that MacArthur was saying Christians should oppose "religious freedom" to the extent that it implies all religions are equal.

In his remarks, which were given days before President Joe Biden's inauguration, MacArthur predicted American Christians will face increased persecution from the administration in the name of religious freedom. He also repudiated the idea that Christians are on track to experience a golden age before the Second Coming of Christ.

"We don’t win down here, we lose," he said. "You ready for that? Oh, you were a postmillennialist, you thought we were just going to go waltzing into the Kingdom if you took over the world? No, we lose here — get it? It killed Jesus. It killed all the apostles. We’re all going to be persecuted."

"'If any man comes after Me, let him' — what? — 'deny himself.' Garbage of prosperity gospel. No, we don’t win down here. You ready for that? Just to clear the air, I love this clarity. We don’t win. We lose on this battlefield, but we win on the big one, the eternal one."

I saw someone on FB saying they are looking forward to the Millennium Reign when there will be no more sin in the world. Nowhere does the Bible say that. At the end of the Millennium Reign part of the world rebels against God again and there is a great war. 

Sin is still there as it will be in Eternity in the New Earth. Rev 22:15 describes what lies outside of the New Jerusalem: But outside are dogs, and sorcerers, and sexually immoral, and murderers, and idolators, and whoever loves and practices a lie. Sin will not disappear because Satan has been dealt with. As long as there is free will, sin will rear its ugly head, and there will always be free will, love cannot exist without it.

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Does The Discovery of Earth 2.0 Mark The End of Religion?

Just a day after the discovery of Earth 2.0, a 'scientist' is already anticipating the death of religion. Good grief!

by Benjamin L. Corey 
Patheos Press

Image of Kepler-452b, via NASA

Yesterday NASA made the announcement that they finally discovered something many have pondered: the existence of an Earth-like planet. The above illustration shows Kepler 452b, a planet somewhat larger than Earth but within the habitable zone of its star. Its year is almost identical to that of our own planet, and the amount of energy received from its sun is near identical as well– meaning if there’s life out there similar to our own, this is the kind of place where it’s happening. This discovery tells us two things: (a) Earth-like planets that host all the building blocks for life are probably relatively common in the universe, and (b) life may very well be relatively common in the universe also.

Umm, couldn't that have been assumed before the discovery of Kepler-452b? There are an almost infinite number of stars in the sky, there must be an almost infinite number of planets as well. It only makes sense. The only real question is whether their numbers are 'almost' infinite or 'totally' infinite. Why would God create such an incredibly vast universe and leave it empty of life?

Discoveries like this are incredibly exciting, but are they bad news for God? Do they spell the end of religion? That’s precisely what scientist Jeff Schweitzer is arguing. In fact, he seems to think the discovery of extraterrestrial life would single-handedly strike down some of the world’s major religions if they were not re-written to accommodate such a discovery:

 “I would like here to preempt what will certainly be a re-write of history on the part of the world’s major religions. I predict with great confidence that all will come out and say such a discovery is completely consistent with religious teachings. My goal here is to declare this as nonsense before it happens.”

How does Schweitzer prove that extraterrestrial life is inconsistent with religion? Well, he goes straight to the Hebrew book of Genesis:

“Let us be clear that the Bible is unambiguous about creation: the earth is the center of the universe, only humans were made in the image of god, and all life was created in six days. All life in all the heavens. In six days. So when we discover that life exists or existed elsewhere in our solar system or on a planet orbiting another star in the Milky Way, or in a planetary system in another galaxy, we will see a huge effort to square that circle with amazing twists of logic and contorted justifications. But do not buy the inevitable historical edits: life on another planet is completely incompatible with religious tradition. Any other conclusion is nothing but ex-post facto rationalization to preserve the myth…”

Quoting Genesis 1:1 he notes,
“Nothing in that mentions alien worlds, which of course the ancients knew nothing about. Man was told to rule over the fish on the earth, not on other planets. But god would have known of these alien worlds, so it is curious he did not instruct the authors to include the language.”

He goes onto argue that the omission of alien life would require anyone without a closed mind to basically wash their hands of the Bible:

“None of the 66 books of the bible [sic] make any reference to life other than that created by god here on earth in that six-day period. If we discover life elsewhere, one must admit that is an oversight. So much so in fact that such a discovery must to all but the most closed minds call into question the entire story of creation, and anything that follows from that story. How could a convincing story of life’s creation leave out life? Even if the story is meant to be allegorical, the omission of life elsewhere makes no sense.”

While Schweitzer begins the piece by saying alien life would be a problem for religion in general, his entire argument is based upon the creation account in Genesis, so what he’s really saying is it is a problem for the three religions who worship the God of Abraham and share that creation account (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam). But is he right?

No, he’s not. The discovery of alien life will not be the end of any of the three Abrahamic faiths, nor will it require all but the closed-minded to leave.

If I understand his arguments, it seems he’s arguing the following: if alien life exists but is not mentioned in the creation poem, such a creation account is either (a) factually wrong or (b) contains an omission which would prove it were not inspired by God.

The irony of the argument brings up an important point that I’ve seen not infrequently: some atheists and fundamentalists often insist on reading the Bible the same way, yet both sides think the other is stupid for doing so. And this is precisely what Schweitzer is doing: he’s taking a fundamentalist view of Genesis and arguing that it would all fall apart with the scientific discovery of extraterrestrial life. (In fact, he’s actually going one step beyond fundamentalism and arguing that if the creation account omits any information, it is wrong.)

In praxis it looks like this:
Fundamentalist: This is what the text says. If it did not happen exactly the way it is recorded, it is not true. Therefore, it must be true.
Atheist: This is what the text says. If it did not happen exactly the way it is recorded, it is not true. Therefore, you’d have to be closed-minded to believe it.

It’s the same hermeneutical approach on both sides. It imports the same modern assumptions on how we tell history versus how ancients told stories, and assumes being “inspired by God” means the text must answer modern questions instead of ancient ones. Whether approaching it from the atheist side or that of the fundamentalist, it’s a rather unenlightening way to approach these ancient stories.

Most Evangelical Christians believe that Christ is returning for the Millennial Reign, soon. Events happening around the world in the past 25 years powerfully strengthen that belief. If, as so many of us believe, He returns soon, it is likely to be before intelligent life is discovered anywhere else in the universe. His presence will then supersede Scripture. Consequently, it would be completely unnecessary to include such a topic as extra-terrestrial life in Scripture because no-one would experience it during the period of the greatest influence of Scripture.

Imagine if God had included everything He created in the Creation account; it would be so large, I doubt any of us would live long enough to be able to read it.

C.S. Lewis once said, rather sarcastically, "if you don't know how to read grown-up books, then you shouldn't comment on them".

Our religion only falls apart if you hold Schweitzer’s assumptions: the creation account is a true account of creation and if something is omitted, the account is wrong. I don’t know many who actually hold to this position, so I would imagine the collapse of religion predicted would be relatively small.

In the end, I would be thrilled if they discover (as I already anticipate is true) that life is actually common in the universe. This will not shake my faith at all. This will not require me to become closed-minded and abandon the entire Christian narrative.

Instead, it would invite me to begin asking bigger questions about God and bigger questions about creation.

And as someone who loves asking questions about God, I welcome the opportunity.