A New "Left Behind" Movie? Why I'm Skipping This One...

I have no plans to see the new Left Behind movie, and it is not because one of my least favorite actors is the star (Nicholas Cage). No, I'm afraid I'm skipping out on this one for theological reasons.

First of all let me say, Yes! I believe Jesus is returning. Yes! I believe it is a literal, personal return. Yes! I believe that He is coming back to judge the living and the dead.

But not in the way that Left Behind popularly portrays the rapture. I think they've got it seriously wrong, at least judging by the first movie (did we really need a new one?) and the fictional book series by the same name.

Instead, I want to recommend a book on eschatology (study of the end times) that I think interprets the Bible's real view of the endtimes much better. (See review below).

It is taken for granted that pretribulational premillennialism (or dispensationalism) is gospel truth in most quarters of the evangelical world today. This, however, has not always been the case.

Pretribulational premillennialism, popularized by such fictional works as the Left Behind series and fantastical works as The Late Great Planet Earth--not to mention the Scofield Reference Bible--has quickly infiltrated the center of evangelicalism. This despite the fact that it is less than 200 years old!

Many evangelicals are not even aware that there are any "alternative" positions on the end times. That these alternatives held the majority consensus among the Puritans and Reformers is lost on most. If many today are aware of these other eschatological options at all, they have likely been taught that they are the positions held by liberals who do not "take the Bible literally."

In Kingdom Come: The Amillennial Alternative, Sam Storms destroys these preconceptions by powerfully asserting the Biblical force of the historic position that the millennial kingdom--mentioned explicitly only in Revelation 20:1-10--is symbolic of Christ's present reign in this age.

Storms begins the near 600-page work by advancing the hermeneutical principles on which he will build his case. In these early sections of this book, Storms makes clear that bald literalism is not always the best interpretive grid, especially for apocalyptic literature. Genre, literary conventions, and OT usage of language are also crucial factors when we interpret Scripture.

Using a redemptive-historical and grammatical-historical approach, Storms then wades through the most important Bible texts related to eschatology: Daniel's 70 weeks, Jesus' Olivet Discourse, 2 Thessalonians and the Antichrist, and of course, a volume of passages in Revelation.

While Storms works through these passages as a master exegete, he calmly (and without a divisive spirit I am glad to report!) shows how many of these texts have been misread through the dispensational lens, often without the critical reflection that the texts themselves demand. Storms reveals an absolute mastery of Biblical Greek, and employs this trade in the most intricate details of these Biblical passages.

Though most will doubtlessly disagree with at least a few of Storms conclusions (I doubt all readers will be convinced of his partial preterist interpretation of Matthew 24, for instance), it will be impossible to suggest any longer that amillennialism is built upon either a lesser view of the authority of Scripture in particular, or a liberal theological framework in general. No, it will no longer do to simply dismiss amillennialism (or postmillennialism for that matter) as though they do not take the Bible seriously enough.

On the contrary, the reader--who must do significant work alongside Storms with Bible and pencil in hand throughout--will see a cumulative case building for amillennialism. This is spelled out clearly and finally in the last chapter of the book where Storms gives 30 reasons that he believes pretribulational premillennialism is not Biblically defensible. Storms' amillennial construct (actually the simplest and cleanest of the four major end-times positions) holds up remarkably well when tested by the WHOLE of the New Testament rather than conditioned by one admittedly difficult and highly symbolic text (i.e. Revelation 20).

For me, the most compelling Biblical data summoned by Storms can be summed up in the following points:

• The NT never splits up the Return of Christ (that it, His Second Coming) from the Rapture as though they were two separate events. (Dispensationalism demands this). 
• Neither the OT nor the NT ever split up the resurrection of the dead into two events (or possibly many more!) separated by a thousand years as dispensationalism requires. 
• The NT teaching on Jesus' parousia (Greek: return, presence, coming i.e. the Second Coming) demands the end of all sin, death, and rebellion, along with the immediacy of the judgment; all of which dispensationalism denies. 
• The NT  does not make an irreconcilable distinction between the Church and Israel (which dispensationalism requires) but rather shows repeatedly that the elect people of God are made into one Body of Christ with the inclusion of the Gentiles.
• The NT does not admit of a secret pretribulational rapture, allowing Christians to escape the great tribulation mentioned in Matthew 24 (as dispensationalism holds), but rather describes the trials and tribulations of the present church age as the necessary path of all Christians, through which Christ will preserve His people. 

If one's doctrinal convictions will not allow him to fully adopt Storms' view on all of these important matters, at least the reader will grant that Kingdom Come is a paradigm shifting volume. Although most of our dispensational brothers and sisters in Christ will resist the force of Storms' arguments, they must at least return to the drawing board to patch up the holes Sam Storms has lovingly poked in their charts. 

-Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida.

Piecing Together Bible Prophecy

I recently read the first book in a series being written by my spiritual father Pastor Don Walton.  He is writing a series on Bible prophecy.  The first book is more explanatory and does not get into the controversial topics so much.  I found it to be informative on several areas I am at odds with, while discussing my position pretty well.  (I will not discuss my position for this post)


He has now started to supplement the book with a multi-part video series.  You can follow this series on YouTube from Time For Truth Ministries. This is a series about prophecy and how it is understood. Informative and instructional. As I said, I read the book, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.  I also recommend the video series.
Here is the first video in the series:

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Pete Garbacki is a minister with Time for Truth Ministries and Mission.Brasil. Follow him on Twitter @mission_brasil or FaceBook at http://www.facebook.com/pete.garbacki.

Reflections on the Reelection of President Obama

There we sat in the comedor (cafeteria) of the Shalom Children's Home in Santiago Texacuangos, El Salvador on November 6th. We were huddled around the dinner table around 10:30pm after a long day serving the orphans, eagerly waiting to check our smart phones on a hit-or-miss WIFI connection.  The agony of waiting for the results of the election was both thrilling and excruciating (mostly because I would not allow the mission team to check the news sites until AFTER our corporate worship and Bible study).

And then came the result: Obama Wins Reelection.

I don't think any of us will soon forget that night. Walking back to our dorm rooms on the orphanage campus, some of the team members were visibly frustrated. Some had hoped that this might be the beginning of a change of trajectory for our nation. Apparently, that moment has not yet come.

But now, ten days away from Obama's reelection, I have had time to process the result and distill my feelings into a few bullet points. Here are a few random thoughts in bullet-point format.

1). God remains sovereign over the whole course of human affairs. Scripture says, "Kingship belongs to the Lord and He rules over the nations" (Psalm 22:28). It also reminds us that God "works all things according to the council of His will" (Eph 1:1), and that "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will" (Proverbs 21:1). 

No, Obama's reelection does not mean the end of God's reign, nor the cession of Christ's Kingdom on earth. The Kingdom of God and the United States of America are NOT one and the same.

Our confession states as much about the sovereignty of God over all things (including presidential elections): "God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established" (WCF 3.1).

We may not like it: but God has ordained that this particular world leader have a second term. Note: this does NOT mean God approves of Obama's rule or policies. It only means that God has deemed it necessary to fulfill His plan.

2).  It does seem evident, now, that our children will grow up in a very different moral climate than their parents. Our children will grow up in a world very different from the one in which we grew up.

• Our children will be raised during a time when heterosexual marriage will be increasingly seen as irrelevant, puritanical, and outmoded. 
• Sexual mores will be increasingly skewed and distorted such as that no boundary lines will be visible at all (at least in the public square). 
• Even work and labor, a duty given to Adam before the fall into sin, will be increasingly viewed as optional as undesirable. 
• Public education will likely slide further and further left, as tax dollars are spent by the millions to shape children's worldviews. 
• The church will be increasingly shoved to the sidelines of public life.

All of this will demand greater diligence on our part as Bible-believing Christians to catechize our children and bring them up under the instruction of the Lord. 

3). Christianity often waxes strong where it exists as a persecuted minority, and wanes shallow when it enjoys a majority. This is counter-intuitive. For instance, while the Church was arguably strongest during first and second century times of oppression, church historians have often identified a correlation between the weakening of the Christian church in the fourth century and the ascension of the first Christian Emperor of Rome, Constantine.

The marginalization of the Christian Church today may actually result in a more vivacious, nimble, athletic, and serious brand of evangelicals. Like the "underground church" in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's day, being driven out of sight may actually strengthen the resolve of the committed believers to refuse to be co-opted by the secular state.

This is good news, if we have eyes to see it. In this coming century, the smaller confessional Church will likely have more in common with the Early Church, the Reformers, and the Puritans than the shallow evangelicalism of the late twentieth century that produced such things as televangelists, mega-churches, the seeker-sensitive movement, and Joel Osteen.

4). Viewing Obama's reelection as a "sure sign of the apocalypse" is myopic and lame. Yes, I have heard that Obama's reelection is a sure sign of the end times on more than a few occasions in the last ten days. But that seems to suggest that the United States of America is the central pin on God's eschatological map. I don't think it is.

It also seems to smack of our inextricable self-centeredness to suggest that this must surely be the end of all history because our sitting President is leading from a secular worldview. Many of our Christian brothers around the world have suffered tremendously under the brutal regimes of far worse and evil men: Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Nero, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Kim Jong Il just to name a few. 

Let's be sure not to add our names to the ever-growing list of fools who predicted the end of the world based on current events they read in the newspapers. Jesus warned us not make such predictions at all (Matt 24:36).

This point came across to me strongly on the Wednesday after the election. We went out in a pickup truck to feed the poor of a tiny village called Oasis. The community centered around one central running water connection that supplied hundreds. An octopus of hose connections ran water to some (but not all) of the dirt-floor homes. There were no working toilets to be seen. Most came filthy and dirty--yet joyful--to eat a meal consisting of rice and beans.

As I watched a people stricken by a poverty that I have never personally experienced myself, God struck me with a profound thought: Only an American would believe the whole world is ending because the stock market is down and the tax code is up. 

We press on. 


Matthew Everhard is the Senior Pastor of Faith Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Brooksville, Florida.