The 5 Animals that Disproves God?

I recall one Sunday evening at Bracknell Baptist Church sometime in the late eighties. We were at that time meeting at a school assembly hall. This was due to the size of the congregation that has outgrown its old building on Church Road. Soon, a new permanent meeting place was to be built and opened, to be called The Kerith Centre. 

In the meantime, we met in a nearby school assembly hall. On the front stage stood two women who had just returned from one of the charismatic revivals that were taking place in North America. One of these I have heard about was in Toronto, Ontario, and the other one in Pensacola, Florida. Which one of the two churches these married women flew across the Atlantic to visit, at this time, I can't fully remember, but that doesn't matter. However, the effect their testimony had on us cannot be forgotten.

After several minutes of talking, all of a sudden, the whole congregation went berserk! All around me, people - fully grown adults - started to wail, to cry, to laugh, to scream, to make strange noises. There was violent body shaking, trembling of the hands, and people falling to the floor. The whole scene of pandemonium was so chaotic, any child or unchurched would have doubled up in fright.

I was the only person who sat there stone-cold sober! I looked around. If this whole scenario was a visitation of the Holy Spirit, then why did He bypass me entirely? All I did was sit there and said or done nothing but watch and listen to everything that was going on around me.

It was tempting, at the time, to believe I was ignored by the Holy Spirit because I was still in my sins. Unlikely. Even back then, I was familiar with the Bible, and I was already aware that there is nothing in Holy Scripture, whether in the Old Testament or the New, that had anything parallel to this "revival."

I recall the husband of one of the women on the stage. He didn't think of me very highly, and I doubt whether he thought highly of the senior pastor, either. But each week, he could be seen "dancing in the Spirit" at the back of the church while everyone else remained at their place during worship, thus giving the impression of being at a higher spiritual level. Then, some years later and after I left the church for the one at Ascot, I heard through the grapevine that his wife - the one who stood on the stage - attended a house party and has met another man with whom a relationship between them has begun. This led to her divorce from her husband.

As already mentioned, all this came through the grapevine and as such, I can't verify the story. But having known her husband for quite a few years, I wasn't too surprised. If a spirit of self-righteousness had developed in him, and that was something I also saw, it would come to no surprise that sooner or later, his wife would find solace in another man who showed her enough affection as not to be so judgemental over her.

If such a revival had carried with it a sense of optimism for the church - never mind the scandal that followed. At least that can be swept under the carpet. If I wish to believe that the hysteria was of God, despite having no backing from the Bible, and so, in today's Daily Mail, the Saturday Essay was about the glorious optimism for the English. After developing a successful vaccine rollout which is paving the way to freedom after sixteen months of lockdowns, everything is looking up. Then, after a quarter of a century of losing to Germany, England knocks out its enemy from the European Football championships. As we eagerly wait for the final whistle that will end tonight's game against Ukraine, the nation is optimistic enough for our team to play in the semi-finals. And who dares wins? Perhaps the Final too? After 55 years since 1966 of missing the Final altogether, England is optimistic.

England is also proud, due to Brexit, that big international firms such as the Japanese Nissan carmakers choosing to set up a factory in Sunderland, northern England, thus providing jobs for many. And so, also due to Brexit, the economy will recover at a fast rate - not that surprising really - when considering market demand. After months of not spending on non-essential items, people will be ready to open their wallets. I tend to believe that it was the mass vaccination and not Brexit, that will springboard the economy to health.

If England frees itself fully from the pandemic by mass vaccination, wins the European Cup, and experience a thriving economy mainly due to Brexit, then indeed, the nation has reasons for pride and glory! But something is missing. Just as the "revival" was raising hopes for a higher spiritual ecstasy in the church, the woman on stage who ushered in the hysteria was herself already finding godly living at home difficult.

Likewise, the hopes and dreams of a golden age for post-Brexit Britain has a gaping hole in the middle - a lack of faith in God. And as this national apostasy is accelerating, I actually dread rather than anticipate the future. Will a new variant of the virus, totally vaccine-resistant, finally wipe us all out? Or a national takeover by a foreign power so strong, all we can do is submit without a fight?

Who knows? Earlier this week, I watched a video by Harrison Cother, an ex-Jehovah's Witness. He has made only eight videos but between them, he had already collected 1,238,984 views since he joined YouTube on January 31st 2021. His latest video, 5 Animals That Disprove God, had already collected 114,000 views since it was posted just six days previously.

Harrison Cother is a very handsome young man with a gentle spirit, and I believe it's that, rather than the video's content, which drew in an audience with astonishing rapidity. An ex-Jehovah's Witness turned atheist, his growing knowledge of the natural world was not only the reason to renounce his faith but also leaves any Christian apologetic in a difficult situation. The five animals he refers to are the bed bug, the snake, the box jellyfish, the mosquito, and the human being.

Cother refers to the bed bug as a blood-sucking parasite that feeds on human blood whilst the victim is asleep. Designed by Jehovah to creep up in the darkest night, and drawn by the carbon dioxide in the exhaled breath, this bug gorges itself with blood during the night - such is God's creation - the same God who has forbidden the consumption of the blood of other animals by humans under the penalty of death (Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:11-14).

The box jellyfish is another mentioned by Cother. He even mentions a dispute between the Father and the Son on this issue! Why on earth did you create such a creature? the Son asks, Oh, because I am God, the Father answers. I can create what I like! And that is despite that many humans, whom God loves, were badly hurt by the jellyfish's ferocious sting and many had died of it, including children.

Another pest, according to Cother, is the mosquito. Whilst also sucking human blood, this insect has spread malaria throughout history. Countless people had died of malaria, especially children. Yet, God sees fit to create such an insect with the foreknowledge of the lives these creatures will take through such a horrible disease.

Harrison Cother, here on Twitter.

The snake is another. Many species of snake consume eggs laid by other animals, or if the egg is too big, then it eats the hatchling. Other species of snake strangle their prey or injected it with poison. As for egg-eating snakes, this is strange when foretold and designed by a loving God when he says that if an unborn child dies as a result of a blow to the mother's tummy, the offended must be punished by death - a life for a life -Exodus 21:22-23.

Finally, Harrison Cother ranks the human being as the number one animal that proves the non-existence of God. And the failure of God's pinnacle of Creation lies with pregnancy and childbirth. Here, he names 31 ailments that can occur during pregnancy and childbirth, along with the death rate of mothers giving birth. He quotes that in the present 21st Century estimate made by the World Health Organisation, up to 300,000 deaths occur during childbirth every year worldwide. That is one death every two minutes. He then gives an illustration of flying to Saudi Arabia to cut off a man's hand. When the innocent victim asks why his hand was severed, the explanation given was that his great, great, great...great...great...grandfather once stole something and as such, his descendant must bear the punishment. Hence Eve's sin and the punishment suffered by all her descendants.

As a JW, Cother used to quote Genesis 3:15 - I will greatly multiply your pain during childbirth, in pain, you shall bring forth children...and he accuses Creationists of blaming him for ranking the human being as the worst example of God's creation. He then blames God for saying, "I will multiply your pain in childbirth..." rather than merely "Your pain will merely be a consequence of your sin."

As a Christian and a creationist myself, I'll be the first to step forward and ask: how can I give an answer to such an intelligent and observing atheist? The only thing I can say is at the Edenic Curse, which is what this is, there was a dynamic anatomical change that not only took place in Eve's body, but in Adam's too, and in every animal alive at that time - on land, in the sea, and in the air. Personally, the need to defecate might have arisen from this curse, and some species of animals that were vegetarian before the Curse became carnivorous afterwards. And the Curse of Genesis 3:16 is well known by Harrison Cother.

Also, there are several things, in my mind, that's worth considering: One is the time the Curse was passed. Unfortunately, we are not told of the time-lapse between the initial creation and the Fall. And also worth considering that by comparison to what we see today, there weren't that many land animals back then, either. For example, the question of speciation. The feline family, for one, has at present, the lion, the tiger, the leopard, the cheetah, the puma, the wild cat, and the domestic cat. All these seven could have arisen from just one pair - a male and a female - during Adam's time. The Equine family is another example - the horse, the pony, the zebra, the onager, the kianger, the ass, the quagga, and the mule - all could have arisen from the one pair. The same applies to the primates, starting with just one pair of ape-like creatures. Even the elephant, the mastodon and the mammoth could have arisen from the one pair. And so, I can go on and on. For a further example, could the brontosaur, the diplodocus and the brachiosaur have arisen from just one pair? (By the way, is the Behemoth in Job 40:14-24 a description of a Brontosaur?)

We are not told how long it took for Adam to name every animal that God brought to him, but assuming it took a considerable short time may indicate that in their original state, for some to turn into carnivores most likely occurred before the birth of any of their offspring, therefore, this might not have been a big issue as one can imagine when examining speciation that exists now.

I agree with Harrison Cother that there are many bad things in the natural world. such as the Cotesia wasp which larvae burrow into a live caterpillar. By contrast, the fossil record shows how ancient organisms, including dinosaurs, died by violence and drowning. Several fossils were found of one creature in the process of eating another when it came to a sudden end. Cother even holds one such fossil up close for us to examine. Or a pregnant ichthyosaur meeting its sudden end, found, I believe, at the Jurassic Coast of Southwest England. I have visited the Natural History Museum in Oxford. At one gallery, there is a rock slab with many fish fossils preserved on it, all fully complete with their scales. Dead fish don't settle to the seafloor. Instead, they are normally eaten by scavengers, or they decompose entirely. These fossil fish were preserved intact as if met by some sudden catastrophe.

Could the record of Noah's Flood be the making of the entire fossil record?

Next, I would like to say to Cother that he was lied to by the Watchtower Society from childhood. With all matters relating to topics specified by the Watchtower, the issue with the Trinity, I feel, is of the most importance.

Jehovah's Witnesses deny the Trinity - that is, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all equal in the Godhead. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but these are not three gods but one God. This is the central doctrine of the Christian faith and sets it apart from all other religions.

Tied with the Trinity is God's plan of salvation. If the Son Jesus is not equal to the Father, then he is not capable of saving anyone completely. The Watchtower knows this and plays a very subtle psychological trick - that if Jesus Christ cannot save fully, then it's up to man to save himself. Therefore, absolute obedience to the Society - in door-to-door work (known as a Kingdom Publisher) - along with accepting everything handed down from the Society's table without ever questioning what they say. In other words, for the hope of salvation, you must be a slave of the Watchtower Society!

If Jesus was truly God and truly man - in theological circles, known as the Hypostatic Union, then He's able to save completely. And if God can save completely, then the organisation would crumble.

True salvation involves justification by faith - or imputed righteousness. That is, the Righteousness of Christ imputed into the sinner's account. That means the Father seeing the believer in exactly the same way He sees His Son! To be in Christ and Christ in you. The Watchtower doesn't teach any of this, indeed, it cannot, or it would fall to pieces. But it's clearly taught by Paul in his letter to the Romans, chapters 3, 4, and 5. Romans 8 is also worth a read - without any of the Watchtower's interference.

If this wonderful plan of salvation is to be set in motion, then Jesus had to die by crucifixion on a cross (note: not merely impaled on an upright stake!) Then He was buried and on the third day, rose physically from the tomb. The Watchtower denies a physical Resurrection. Instead, they promote only a spiritual one, the ghost of Jesus rising from his dead body. But the physical Resurrection of Jesus Christ is absolutely essential for salvation, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15. Again, that's worth reading on its own. If Christ did not rise physically, then there's no salvation.

I have a lot of respect for Harrison Cother. His gentle spirit while explaining why he has turned to atheism had earned my respect and not any form of judgement. If only he understood the very glory of God in his plan of salvation, that is way, way better than what the Watchtower can only offer. Who knows, he can see how bad our present natural world can be, and still trust in his Triune God for his wonderful salvation.

Somewhere Up There...

Although outside time, in eternity past, upon the heavenly Throne sat Father, Son and Holy Spirit. How those three in one Godhead love each other! Absolutely flawless, and prior to the Crucifixion, it was and always have been utterly impossible for any brief interruption to mar this ongoing love relationship. How joyful each of these "persons" were, each putting the welfare of the other two above his own. Therefore it can be said that because of the eternal love relationship existing between the three, God is love, not just merely the source of love. 

The reality of this eternal Trinity is so massively different from Allah of the Islamic faith, or even the Jehovah of the Watchtower Society of Witnesses, both sources depicting their God as once existing alone in the Universe before any form of creation having taken place, and incapable of love until such objects of his love came into being. Perhaps this Unitarian form of God must have felt cold and lonely from time to time in universal space and in need of a companion. At last, Jehovah of the Watchtower creates a companion for company, the archangel Michael, who would one day incarnate to become the Witnesses version of Jesus Christ. Between these two - a big God and a little god - the rest of creation got underway, spanning thousands if not millions of years. This began with the creation of all the other angelic hosts before the physical creation of all heavenly bodies including the Earth. Finally the six "days" of creation, each of a thousand years apiece, began as described in the first chapter of Genesis.

Having associated with Jehovah's Witnesses during my earliest years as a Christian believer (and nearly becoming one of them), I was able to see the commitment they had for their faith. This includes going out in all weather conditions to knock on doors in their attempt to convert, despite their full expectations of a hostile reception and having the front door slammed shut at their faces. Books, only published by the Watchtower Society, were read and studied in a group discussion, normally at a home of a Witness. And their topic was always the same - a Unitarian God, his created son Christ Jesus who was inferior to his Father, his impalement on a wooden stake (therefore not crucified), their denial of a physical resurrection, and a very dubious probational salvation offered for those who endure to the end. All this with their insistence that all churches, along with all human governments with their federal and civic institutions, are of the Devil and will all be destroyed in the coming global Battle of Armageddon. Dare to leave the organisation and eternal death by annihilation is guaranteed. With such theology, this "Maybe Salvation" was the final straw needed to repudiate the Watchtower Society entirely.

Oh, what a difference this Unitarian God is to the truth and reality of the Trinity! From eternity past, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all equal in the divine Godhead, enjoyed a love lavished between each other. It is a truth well beyond human understanding. Because of his omniscience, "before the foundation of the world" or from eternity past, he already has the Lamb's Book of Life, with all the names of everyone who will be saved written within. Yet he also knew that there will be many, many more who will be born, live and die without ever knowing their Creator. The same with his angelic hosts. God was about to create them with the full knowledge that one of them will be filled with pride and rebel, with up to a third of the entire host rebelling with him. Because from eternity past he knew all along, for me it is all a mystery. A mystery I will never get round to solve, due to my own finitude.

But with awareness of this divine foreknowledge, I have a desire to think of the likelihood that a conversation like this had taken place within the Trinity before anything was made:

Father: You both know that soon after we had created the angelic host, one will lead a rebellion.

Holy Spirit: Yes we do know. But not until after our creation of mankind's first parents.

Father: By not having physical bodies, the fallen angels will be entirely outside of redemption, neither would they want to be redeemed anyway. But after mankind has fallen through the sin of just one man, due to their genome inherited from father and mother alike, the whole of humanity will still be within redemption.

Holy Spirit: This will mean that one of us must become one of them, to be born as one of them, to have the same human genome, to live and identify as one of them, to minister to them and finally to allow them to kill as a human sacrifice to atone for their sin. And then to rise again, physically.

Father: All of this is perfectly true. Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?

Son: Here am I. Send me.

Father: Yes my beloved! Indeed, you may go. And a great joy will be set before you when you see multitudes without number redeemed, and you will be exalted above all things! Okay, let's begin with Creation, our host of angels first! And all three in the Godhead rejoiced exceedingly.

And yes, I can find a portion of Scripture which seems to back such a conversation, and I love the Authorised Version of Zechariah 2:6-11 because this is the only version that I know of which has God laughing: 

Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land of the north, saith the LORD: for I have spread you abroad as the four wings of the heaven, saith the LORD.

Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.

For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.

For, behold, I will shake my hand upon them, and they will be a spoil to their servants: and ye shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me.

Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the LORD.

And many nations shall be joined to the LORD on that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the LORD has sent me unto thee.

Zechariah 2:6-11 KJV, also Isaiah 6:8.

Here is the LORD of hosts sent by the LORD of hosts! Perhaps this is the greatest rebuke which could be given to the Watchtower Society. God sent by God. Imagine that. And therefore we have the Son crucified, buried, and resurrected, now ascended to heaven, only to return to deliver the house of Israel and establish his Kingdom in Jerusalem. Of course, Easter does not mean anything to them. To them, it's a pagan holiday with no bearing on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

Really, after Adam and Eve had sinned, God was not obliged to make any move towards redemption. Instead, to satisfy infinite justice, every single person ever born must die and be eternally lost, separated from God forever. It is hard to imagine the likes of Abel, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, along with all the prophets suffering eternally in Hell, along with the apostle Paul, all the other 1st Century disciples, together with us today - eternally separated from God.  But he made the first move towards redemption anyway because of his love and mercy. 

Oh how I am thankful for God's mercies! And that is what Easter is all about. Not about chocolate eggs, bunnies and decorated buns, but about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I guess that was the plan of God all along. To be glorified through redemption. For the whole creation to thunder praises to him for his undeserved mercy and grace, with not a single stroke of work done by anyone, other than by Jesus Christ himself, to earn this salvation. 

The idea that the Lamb's Book of life was composed "before the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8), makes ridiculous any ideas that a true Christian believer could lose his salvation and be lost again. Instead, I can see that the omniscience of God being the proper reason for believing in Eternal Security of the Believer. Once saved always saved. This is not arrogance or self assurance, this is the grace and the power of God, whose foreknowledge cannot be contradicted or able to undo.

But it still remains a mystery. All around me I see people who do not know the Lord. And this is a country which has the Christian Constitution, along with its Defender of the Faith and head of the Anglican Church, with the Archbishop of Canterbury being the top guy of the Christian faith in England. Yet the majority of the population does not know God. Indeed, this is indeed sad, and such observation has made any idea of a heavenly book sealed from before Creation rather unpalatable to believe in, to be labelled a Calvinist, to carry the idea that the reason why these people don't know the Lord is because their names are not in God's unalterable Book of Life, and therefore concluding that God has never called them. These are issues I have grappled with, and I'm still grappling with these issues at present.

Feeling sad for them gives the impression that I do love my fellow countrymen, even if I don't agree with their culture. The culture of social class division and favouritism, at the same time revelling in national pride and optimism through self effort whilst glorifying past imperialistic achievements. Much of all this based on Darwinism, with it's past (and sometimes present) Master Race mentality. Then the British bulldog spirit standing in the way between the average Brit and faith in Jesus Christ. Yet whilst I dwell on these spiritual barriers, I tend to forget that God is not obliged to save anyone. But he saves anyway, lavishing grace and mercy for his own sake.

Maybe that is where my way of thinking is awry. I'm basing my heart on my fellow man's benefit instead of God's glory. The whole purpose of salvation through unmerited grace and mercy is to bring glory to God throughout all creation, and particularly to the angelic host after the heavenly rebellion. Yet the question remains, which I once prayed desperately to God:

Why, O Lord, did you create us in the first place if all that awaits is eternal condemnation? 

Especially concerning Psalm 139, where the author specify how he was "knit together in the womb" by God, as with every pregnancy, only to be born to live a life without ever knowing God, then to suffer eternal separation. Nothing seems to make any sense. I couldn't help but feel a sense of cruelty within this whole shenanigan. Especially when I imagine with horror my nearest and dearest suffering forever in hell, a strong possibility had she been born in a non-Christian country.

However, there are three national holidays we observe here in the United Kingdom: Christmas, Easter and Whitsunday. Christmas is to do with the birth of Jesus, Easter to do with his death, burial and Resurrection, and Whitsunday is to do with the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, although it is unlikely that many here in the UK knows what Whitsunday is supposed to be about. Three Christian festivals in a year, in my mind at least, cannot be mere consequential. This seems to tie in well with the original three Hebrew festivals specified in the Old Testament: Pesach (the Passover,) Shavuot (Pentecost, the feast of Weeks), and Sukkot (Tabernacles). Always in threes, which looks to be aligned with the three persons of the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Through these holidays, is God trying to tell us something?

Contrary to believing in strict Calvinism (chosen by God's sovereignty to be saved rather than by human choice, advocated by John Calvin, a 16th Century French theologian), Scripture does indicate human choice. For example, in Luke 24:47, the resurrected Jesus informs his remaining disciples that "repentance and remission of sins must be preached to all nations everywhere, starting at Jerusalem." Then in Acts 17:30, Paul instructs the population at Athens "that in the past God winked at ignorance, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent." Then there is the testimony of Peter, who writes, "but the Lord is long-suffering to us, not willing that anyone should perish, but all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). Those three verses strongly indicate human choice. And to repent simply means a change of mind about Jesus Christ. 

Back in those days, Jesus was known to many. But the Jews wanted a political deliverer from the burden of the Romans. When he refused to deliver politically, he was seen as an impostor, possibly a madman. For the Jew to repent, he had to change his mind from believing him to be an impostor to believing in him as the risen Christ, God come in the flesh. I as a non-Jew had to change my mind from thinking Jesus as some remote teacher who lived long ago to being the Son of God who died and rose from the dead.

I'll end here with one of the most famous verse in the Bible, which reads:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16.

Wishing you a happy, God-blessed Easter.

Am I in the "Right Religion?"

I will never forget one Summer afternoon in 1973 when two young Jehovah' Witnesses called at our door. Only just been in the faith for a few months, I was still physically young, a spiritual babe, very naive, and wanted to learn what others said about the Bible. It was a time I was not affiliated with any church. To add to all this, I had already been taught that all churches were wrong, and God had withdrew his presence from them, to put it in a nice way. It was more of God had never been with them in the first place. That was what I was taught by the group I identified myself at the time, the Children of God, spawned by the American cult leader David "Moses" Berg, who founded his movement after a bitter dispute with an American Pentecostal pastor. (For the full story, see my two blogs on this site, 1973 And All That, and Signs Of The Times? both posted May 2013.)

 

I had quickly discovered that the Witnesses agreed with me of their beliefs that all the churches were wrong - forming a common ground with them. One of them took me to his home address, which was just round the corner, and serious discussions began. I quickly learned that they did not believe in the Trinity, and Jesus Christ was not equal to God but inferior to him, using John 14:28: You heard me say, 'I'm going away and I'm coming back to you.' If you love me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.'

With a statement like that coming straight out of the mouth of Jesus himself, it would be very difficult for a Trinitarian to put forth his case, especially when the whole of the New Testament appears to back it up. The method they used, and still do to this day, was that Jesus is the Son of God, not God the Son. With such an argument, it would have been easy to convince an unsuspecting listener, especially by asking how Jesus could be one of the Godhead if for example, that God has given to Jesus the scroll which he was to pass to John (Revelation 1:1.) The two Witnesses then asked me whether these were two different entities rather than one God "talking to himself" and "giving the manuscript to himself" - as they make out as what we Trinitarians believe. Then came the issue which placed the final nail in the coffin of all orthodox churches that they, and they alone were the people of God's Name. That is, the name "Jehovah" which appears in Exodus 6:3, Psalm 83:18, and Isaiah 12:2, 26:4 in the King James Version of the Old Testament, a name by which they identify themselves.

But I was not an "unsuspecting listener". Instead I had a gut feeling that something was seriously wrong with their theology, but at the time I could not counteract, as not only was I without learning and experience, but I received no help or back-up from the Children of God movement, as theology was not their strong point, but rather rebellion against the churches instead. And looking at the psychological consequence of this viewpoint, if the Jesus Christ of the Watchtower Society was an individual created by God the Father, then he could not qualify as Saviour - no matter if he was the first to be created before everything else, before all other angels and before the entire Universe, or how high in status he was after his death - if Jesus was not God himself, how could he save?

And yet despite these doubts in my mind, the Watchtower theology appeared logical and solid, and impossible to contradict, for even verses that hint on the Triune being of God, such as John 8:58, they insist that he said, "Before Abraham was born, I have been" instead of "I am." Or John 5:30, where they say that his declaration that the Father and he were one in agreement, and not one in essence. Then the classic John 1:1 when they insist that the proper translation from the Greek is "...and the Word was a god", instead of "... and the Word was God." To the unsuspecting, these were fed into the mind, converting the "goat" into a "sheep" - that is to say, a Jehovah's Witness who is in line to be saved if he remains faithful to the organisation, never dissent, and certainly never question or have doubts about what is fed from "the Lord's Table" up there in Heaven, through the Society headquarters in New York, and through all their printed literature. The convert is then convinced that he has the truth, while everyone else is living a lie and will die eternally.

It was during those days that I began to ponder: How do I know that my faith is the right one? I began to imagine what the Last Judgement will be like. I have pictured in my mind the Great White Throne with Almighty God sitting on it. In front of him are all the religious believers - Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Roman Catholic, Lutherian, Pentecostals, Baptists, Mormons, Christian Scientists, Children of God, Pagans, Anglicans, Methodists, Jehovah's Witnesses - all arrayed in their groups - some large, others small, all waiting to find out from God which group had done his will and obeyed him. Then the Almighty would single out Charles Taze Russell, founder of the Watchtower Society, and all his followers, and grant them eternal life. They then are allowed into Heaven, much to the shocking horror of all the others with their founders and leaders, who are thrown out of his presence to be cast into Hell, and that despite the Watchtower Society repudiating Hell, and only 144,000 Witnesses will enter Heaven, the rest are to enjoy eternity on the new Earth, restored to the state of the original Garden of Eden, but even then, on the principle that they remain faithful.

Watchtower Society Headquarters, New York City

Throughout my confusion I stood by the truth of the Trinity, even if I couldn't face up to a mature Witness (the young man's father), as I was still blind to the obvious - that any weakening of the Atonement achieved by Christ on the Cross renders their gospel as false. With Jesus Christ relegated to a created being, inferior to the Father, impaled on an upright pole (without the crossbar) and risen only as a spirit, and not physically, their religion is on the par with very other religion on the planet. For example, Muslims deny that it was Christ who died on the cross. Muhammad believed that it might have been Judas Iscariot instead, an idea upheld throught Islam. Both in Hinduism and Buddhism believe that Jesus was one of many good teachers who helped reform mankind, but certainly not atoned for their sin.

Paul wrote to the church in Corinth of what one could be called the plumbline to determine whether a gospel proclaimed is true or false. In 1 Corinthians 15:3-5, we read:

For what I have received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.

Paul also emphasises that belief in the Resurrection is vital for salvation. Romans 10:9 reads:

That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

This is a physical resurrection, that of the body, and not just a spiritual one as the Witnesses insist. The death by crucifixion and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ are a combined fact - they have ocurred before now, and are just as solid historically as the sun poured its light and heat on to our planet the day before yesterday. The facts cannot be changed. They are true regardless whether one believes or not. But by believing in the heart that Jesus rose physically from the dead result in complete acquittal from all sins commited - past, present, and future. No other religious founder or leader had ever enjoyed a physically resurrected body as Jesus. This goes to show that he is Lord indeed. But not Lord in a sense of an employer or an aristocrat, but Lord in the sense that he is truly God and truly man. No other religion can confess this. And even among Christian believers, the question of eternal acquittal can be so hard to swallow! That is why "Once Saved Always Saved" does not go down well with everyone who regularly attend church. Simply put, Eternal Security is just an acknowledgement that salvation as a whole is totally dependent on whether the death and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ is historically true. If true, you as a believer is saved eternally and can never be lost again. If not historically true, then you are as equally lost as that poor soul yonder who is serving life in prison for theft and multiple murder.

Believing that salvation can be lost by a sinning or faithless believer weakens the truth of the Gospel by adding human merit or even works to the Gospel, diluting it. In other words, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ did not fully atone for one's sins, unless the sinner gives "a helping hand." All labels which claim to be Christian but believes that salvation can be lost insist that only one's past sins were forgiven at conversion, leaving "a clean slate" afterwards. The snag with that idea is that the moment a sin is committed, the slate is no longer clean, and the believer is subject to eternal judgement. As James wrote, that whoever keeps the whole Law but stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking the entire Law (James 2:10-11). Without eternal acquittal, it is impossible to keep the slate clean and then go to Heaven after death. Once saved always saved is essential for salvation.

That was the whole object of Paul's letter to the Galatians. In 1:6-10, Paul was so emphatic to drive his point home that not only did he repeat what he had already stated, but involved angels too - that if anyone preached a gospel contrary to the one he preached, let him be accursed! - Angels included. And what was this false gospel which infuriated the Apostle so severely? It was making physical circumcision mandatory for all believers, laying on them a heavy burden, as so well narrated in Galatians 5:1-6. Paul insisted that whoever advocates circumcision, or for that matter, observance of Jewish holidays, is compelled to observe the entire Law. If breached, then the advocate is subject to eternal judgement.

I can understand how those believers in Galatia fell for such ideas. In Genesis chapter 16, God himself  institiuted circumcision to Abraham and all male members of his family, to be passed down to his decendants forever. According to verse 14, if anyone fails to be circumcised, he will be cut off from his people, that is eternally separated from God and his people by death. According to the Judaists who influenced the Galatian churches, this covenant is eternal and therefore cannot be broken. The logic of all this was that the power of the Atonement made by Christ would be nullified. Hence the curse. There seems to be little difference between circumcision needed in order to be saved, and "staying faithful and abstaining from sin" to stay saved, as both puts the believer under the slavery of the Law, according to the Apostle, as both require the need of works and human merit.

But the idea of eternal acquittal from the curse of sin is virtually unknown by all religions. No matter how committed a Muslim, or Buddhist, Hindu, Roman Catholic or Jehovah's Witness may be, none would believe in Once Saved Always Saved. And if Eternal Security is untrue, the power of the cross and resurrection of Christ is weakened, a tantamount of denying the Lord.

The Church of St. Peter, Vatican City.

Yet a huge majority of religious people are devoted to their faith, giving all out commitment to their rituals and duties, with a hope that these will reconcile them to God or enter Nirvana. And each one thinks that he is in the right, and each one has a good case to argue. So how can someone like myself be so sure that I'm saved only through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ?  How can I be so sure that Muhammad does not have a case in point, or Buddha, for that matter? Or supposing the Roman Catholic Church with its Papal system had been right all along? Does the Pope really stand as mediator between mankind and God? And does the Virgin Mary really have the same role in interceding for the sin of her followers? And there are many who were, and still are, devoted to her.

There is no love lost between the Vatican and the Watchtower Society, but each believe that they are true to the Bible, both believe that they are serving God, and both deny the truthfulness of Eternal Security of the Believer. So I can I be so sure in what I believe is from God himself?

That will be for the blog for next week.

Is God Like A Computer?

I remember when I first became involved with the Internet and e-mailing. It was the beginning of an exciting chapter of my life, one like a foreign land waiting to be explored. With this, I started to email my friends who were a lot more experienced with technology, and I was amazed on how quickly the message arrived at the other end, even if it was halfway round the world.

Then not long after, I tried to send an email to someone living just a few miles away. About ten minutes later a report came back to me announcing that the message failed to reach its recipient and was returned to me. A visitor came round and I showed him the failed email. Apparently, although the recipient lived locally, the visitor showed me that the email completed a journey as far away as Germany before returning to my computer. When I spoke to the recipient in person a week later, it dawned on me that I left out a dot in his email address!

A tiny dot missing and the message endured a trip through the cables across Europe, then back to me, instead of arriving at a terminal locally. And according to forty years of my Christian experience, I tend to think that God is a bit like that when it comes to salvation and how to receive it.

What do I mean by this? I once read in a Christian booklet about how one author believed on what other churches were thinking:
We are the people. We are hearing from God. We are obeying God. We are doing his will.
So churches of all different denominations, according to the author, were at competition with each other on who was most pleasing to God. He then went on to stress that he and his group were the ones living and preaching what the Early Church practised under the Apostles.

I have seen this many times over the decades. As a young Christian, I have gotten involved with both Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons, each insisting that they, and they alone, were the true followers of God as patterned by the first church in Jerusalem. Puzzled and should I say, rather confused, in the early to mid 1970s I visited a Christian bookshop in London (right next to St. Paul's Cathedral, the city's most famous landmark) and bought and studied books on this subject. These pieces of literature revealed many more groups: Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Christian Science, Unitarianism, Christadelphians, Theosophy, to name a few. Each insisting that they are right while all others were wrong and of the devil. Then on top of this, the more "orthodox" denominations: Anglican, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Pentecostals, United Reformed - Wheeee! The list seems endless. Little wonder I was confused, after debating with Jehovah's Witnesses who insisted that they were in God's will while all other churches and groups were followers of the Devil and will be destroyed.

When I was in my twenties, as a result, I had developed an idea what the Last Judgement may be like, with all members of every group standing at the Throne, each group carefully arrayed, a bit like that of blades of a fan or propeller radiating from the Throne. Then God says, "The group who has done my will and receives eternal life is...that one." So this one group marches into Heaven while all the rest gets pushed into Hell, shouting, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? In which the reply from the Throne would be, I never knew you, depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
That was how I perceived the Last Judgement to be like back in the 1970s.



The Last Judgement


So among this plethora of different faiths and beliefs came the reasoning that God would only respond and grant eternal life if I came to him in the right way, then attend a church which taught exactly the right things and conducted exactly the right form of service, or else God would shut the door on me. A bit like the email. Minus the dot and it doesn't reach its destination.
Of course, by now I have grown out of this mentality. Yet in browsing the Internet, the debate among believers rages on, and supposedly mature Christian writers and preachers denouncing the other as "devilish doctrine." I felt myself getting sucked in once again towards the 1970s mentality. But before I continue with this article, I was thinking over the past week - does the average reader understand some of the terms I use so readily in my other blogs? It's a bit like a doctor telling me that I have gastroenteritis.
"Er, what?" I asked.
"A stomach bug."

Therefore I shall give the meaning of the terms I have used so readily in my other blogs, so that the uninitiated reader will understand my jargon a lot easier (I hope!)

Eternal Security of the Believer, also Once Saved Always Saved, Calvinism.
The belief that once a person has been declared righteous by God, he is forever saved and is eternally adopted into God's family. He cannot lose his salvation regardless how much or little he falls into sin. This was highlighted by John Calvin.

Arminian, Arminianism, Arminius.
James Arminius disputed John Calvin's emphasis on the Sovereignty of God and divine grace in favour of human choice. The end result was that by human choice salvation can be lost by the believer if he either let his sins accumulate and/or turns from his faith. The conclusion from this that after believing, a Christian can still end up in Hell.

Imputed Grace
A sinner declared righteous by God without the sinner needing to first reform himself. This righteousness is a declared verdict pronounced by God the Judge in the Heavenly Court from the moment a sinner believes. It was the central truth of the Protestant Reformation.

Infused Grace
A supernatural power given by God for the sinner to reform himself to an acceptable standard of behaviour before God can declare him righteous. Committing a serious sin forfeits this power, making the believer in danger of Hell unless he undergoes penance. A central Roman Catholic teaching.

Having given a brief glossary of definitions, as a Calvinist myself, I have in the past week been reading some Internet websites, particularly by Calvinist writers. I felt my heart fall rather than feeling assured or edified. The reason being is that these writers on Eternal Security sees God like a computer, accepting those who hold certain doctrines and denouncing or rejecting those who don't. One writer denounced all Arminians as holding on to a false gospel and are heading for Hell. To be honest, I too have called forfeitable salvation a false gospel. Why was this? Because any human work done to either achieve salvation or to keep it is a denial of imputed grace. Salvation is a free gift given by God to a sinner through faith without prior reforming of himself to modify his behaviour.

But I believe that God is far more merciful than what these Calvinist writers allow. For example, in my younger days I thought that I had to believe in the Holy Trinity before I could be saved. But take a read of Acts chapter 2, and there is nothing about the Trinity in Peter's discourse to the Jews. In fact, this doctrine was vertically unknown, yet it is the central doctrine of the Christian faith.

What Peter exhorted his listeners to do was to believe in the Resurrection of the One they had crucified, this Jesus. His resurrection proved that Jesus is indeed the Christ and forgiveness of sin was available if one changed his mind (repent) and believed this truth. Paul in Romans 10:9-10 says exactly the same thing, that whoever confess with his mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in his heart that God has raised him from the dead, he will be saved. That's it. First the heart belief that God raised him from the dead. This trusting belief will cause the person to declare, "Yes, Jesus Christ is Lord." And God in Heaven declares him righteous from that moment on.

Faith in the truth of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is what saves a person. Knowledge of the Trinity comes afterwards, when he learns that the Holy Spirit is also God, in the lifelong process of sanctification, which means to modify the believer's heart after salvation. The same applies to eternal security. That is realised after one is saved. But one may be taught not to believe in eternal security. The person is still saved.

I sincerely believe that many Arminians are truly saved. Also, a proportion of Roman Catholics, despite what they are taught to believe, had enough faith for God to save them. In fact, the idea that the entire population of France, Italy and the Iberian Peninsula are totally lost without hope because of Catholicism, I find to be ludicrous. Surely, among the multitudes who attend church, there must be hearts who believe that God raised Jesus from the dead and had fully trusted in this truth. Would God really leave such a huge multitude spiritually blind, after giving of his Son to atone for their sin?

Faith here, I'm talking about trusting, not merely intellectual belief. For example, world renowned atheist Richard Dawkins is fully aware of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But he ridicules it as a fancy story, an opiate for people unenlightened by science. Dawkins believes intellectually, but he has no faith, and remains an atheist.


Richard Dawkins

Calvinist writers have no right to pass judgement upon those who don't agree with them. Nor for that matter, Arminian writers passing judgement on Calvinists. God is not a computer. Rather, he accepts anyone who has faith in Jesus Christ as saviour, regardless of background, status, dot or no dot.

"Christ Will Be Coming Back." Whoops!

There is a story of a farmer milking his cows one Sunday morning when a church vicar who was walking past the farm, paused and called out,
"Christ will be coming back!"
He then walked on, without saying anything else, towards his church to prepare for that morning's service.

Not long after the service had began, the vicar spotted the farmer, now changed into clean clothes, sitting at one of the pews, listening to the sermon. Afterwards, the farmer was asked what brought him here.
"When you reminded me that Jesus will be coming back, I wouldn't had wanted him to catch me milking cows when I should be at church, would I?"

And so says the Scripture:
But you know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.
1 John 3:2b-3.

The Second Coming of Christ, nowadays a belief held by nutters and crackpots - as the secular world regards fundamental Christians, or "fundies" as they are often known by. And little wonder. If the idea of supernatural creation has been robbed of any element of truth and relegated to that of a crackpot belief held by nutters and fundies, it would be of no surprise that any idea of the return of Christ would be regarded in the same manner. Just as Peter predicted:

First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation."
2 Peter 3:3-4.

By reading the above quote, it becomes obvious that supernatural creation is intrinsically linked to the Return of Christ. To admit one is to admit the other. To deny one also denies the other. And so the idea of supernatural creation keeps on getting stabbed in the back. At present, we are about halfway through a series of programmes broadcast on the BBC, Planet Dinosaur where the theory of evolution is "proved" over and over again. Last week we watched on the development of feathers on one species of dinosaur, allowing it to glide from tree to tree in order to catch its prey. Evolutionists then declared that by fossil evidence our modern bird species are direct descendants of these gliding lizards. Divine creation doesn't stand a chance!

Then just today, the Mail on Sunday carried it front page headline, the BBC is to jettison the initials BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini) out of political correctness, i.e. that these initials are offensive to other faiths. These will be replaced by the BBC with BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era). The scoffers, by winning the heart of such a worldwide broadcaster, had certainly won a victory.

The second coming of Christ had always been a topic of great interest to me, ever since the 1970s, when I found myself in discussions with some Jehovah's Witnesses on this subject. The Watchtower Society of Jehovah's Witnesses published books on prophecy with movable dates. When that particular day in human history came and went, it wasn't a case of "Whoops, not this time" but clear proof, so they said, that the Society is constantly revising and improving on their creeds as the Lord hands down more and more revelation from his "heavenly table." As such, the Society remains unblemished.

Aside from all this, my keen interest on the Second Coming has its beginnings in the 1970s. This became a study known as Eschatology (knowledge of last things). This subject certainly peaked in sales at Christian bookshops within the last thirty years of the Twentieth Century, when a new Millennium was about to dawn. I have books written on the Last Things by quite a number of authors. These include:

Hal Lindsey: Late Great Planet Earth
Hal Lindsey: The 1980s Countdown to Armageddon
Hal Lindsey: The Terminal Generation
Hal Lindsey: There's A New World Coming

Hal Lindsey

Dr. De Hann: The Jew and Palestine in Prophecy.
Tim LaHaye: The Beginning of the End
Norman Robertson: Understanding End Time Prophecy
Salem Kirban: 666
Dave Hunt: How Close Are We?
Dave Hunt: Global Peace
Dave Hunt: Occult Invasion
Dave Hunt: The Cup of Trembling
Dave Hunt: A Woman Rides The Beast

More than a dozen books written by six different authors line my bookshelf, each either dealing directly with Eschatology or have some reference to it. And all agreeing with each other, one can call as truth the Pre-Trib Rapture and the Second Coming, two future events with the seven-year Tribulation period, dominated by the rule of the future Antichrist, in between. So to lay out the chronology of the Last Things as expounded by these authors, we get something like this:

1. Church Age (present)
2. Rapture of the Church (future, and on from there)
3. First 42 months after Rapture: Tribulation, Rise of the Antichrist.
4. Second 42 months: Reign of Antichrist, Great Tribulation. Total: 84 months or seven Hebrew years.
5. The Second Coming of Christ, Antichrist destroyed, wicked judged.
6. Establishment of Christ Kingdom on Earth, reigning from Jerusalem for a thousand years (hence Millennium). Israel to be the chief nation of the whole planet.
7. Final Rebellion.
8. Last Judgement.
9. Re-creation of God's eternal Kingdom.

It is important to note that the nation of Israel must be fully established before Christ can come back to reign. I believe it was first, the establishing of Israel as a nation once again in 1948 after approximately 2,530 years of non-existence - a phenomenon no other nation can claim. And secondly the winding up of the twentieth Century with the onset of the 21st Century and also the third millennium which resulted in "end-time prophecy mania" which hit the Christian bookshelf.

I for one, fully believe in a pre-Trib, Pre-Mill Rapture. But I want to base my belief in it on what the Bible has to say on it, not merely on authors' verifications, even if there is agreement between them all. First, 1 Thessalonians says this:

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.
4:16-18).

Also read Isaiah 26:16 to 27:6. Don't let the chapter break throw you. It is one passage, as it has been for the first two thousand years after it was written. The whole of Eschatology can be contained here, in a nutshell.
Breaking it down, it says first, that Israel as a nation mourns over its own history, 26:16-18.

Then the "dust of the earth gives up the dead, verse 19.
The living told to "Go, hide themselves from the wrath to come, verses 20, 21. Where they are told to hide cannot be on this planet because they could still be found by someone. This "hiding away" must be a heavenly transfer. Note that first, the dead is raised. Secondly the living saints disappear. This tallies exactly with Paul's version in his letter to the church in Thessaloniki.

27:1, Judgement of Leviathan, tallying with Revelation 20:1-3.
27:2-6, Christ's Kingdom established, as with Revelation 20:4-6.

So there is a Biblical reason on why I believe in a pre-Trib Rapture. But how did this teaching develop? Actually it comes as a surprise that some Calvinists reject this branch of Eschatology altogether. It is believed that during the Reformation started by Martin Luther and endorsed by John Calvin, many Christians who began to read and understand the Bible for themselves soon discovered that the Great Whore of Babylon of Revelation 17 was the Roman Catholic Church with its Pope as Antichrist. Both Luther and Calvin believed this, as did their followers. The Reformation, as a result, denounced the Church of Rome as counterfeit Christianity.

It was in 1590 that Jesuit Francisco Ribera, in order to protect the Papacy from these accusations, formulated the pre-Trib Rapture and the rise of Antichrist as something deep in the future. As a result, the Pope was seen as innocent from the accusations aimed at him by the Protestants. Ribera formulated a doctrine which is known by present theologians as Premillennialism.

Ribera's thesis was taken up by Cardinal Bellarmine, the same individual who convinced the scientist Galileo that the Earth could not possibly orbit the Sun. Also, Edward Irving, a Scottish Presbyterian minister, also accepted Ribera's thesis as authentic, therefore also shielding the Pope from being the beast riding the whore of Revelation chapter 17.

A leader of the Plymouth Brethren, lawyer James Darby also accepted the views of Ribera, Bellarmine and Irvine, and developed the doctrine of Dispensationalism, which features the Rapture, Tribulation, the rise and reign of the Antichrist and the Second coming of Christ, followed by his reign from Jerusalem. I feel it is necessary to expound exactly what dispensationalism is, for the reader who is not acquainted with theology or church history and teachings. In a nutshell, I could describe the dispensation system, which means that human history is divided by a series of dispensations, or time periods which were defined by James Darby. They are as follows:

1. The age of Innocence - Adam and Eve
2. The age of Conscience - from the Fall of Adam to the Flood.
3. The age of Human Government - from the Flood to Abraham.
4. The age of the Promise - from Abraham to the Exodus.
5. The age of the Law - from Mt Sinai to the death of Christ.
6. The age of Grace (Church Age)- from the Resurrection to the Rapture.
7. The age of the Kingdom - from the Second coming to the end of history.

In 1909 Cyrus Scofield published his Scofield Bible, based on Darby's work, which became central to most American seminaries. So, according to some Calvinists, the doctrine of Dispensationalism was from a Jesuit, Francisco Ribera, exonerating the Papacy from Protestant's accusations of being the Great Whore of Babylon.

The Church of Rome - exonerated from the Reformer's accusations.

There are Christians who will believe that the seven time periods are simply too many, and argue that there were only two, Law and Grace. But I dare to go a step further - the dispensation of Grace spanning the whole of human history. In reality, nobody can keep the Law of Moses perfectly. And absolutely perfect obedience is required for everlasting life. But since it's impossible to keep the Law, that's where the death and resurrection of Christ plays the major role. Eternal life is a free gift of God given through faith alone. It has always been a free gift of Grace, from the fall of Adam and Eve into sin to the very end of history. Faithful men of God were saved by Grace even before Jesus Christ came along. They were saved by faith in the promise of the coming Messiah, as depicted in Genesis 3:15. Today one is saved by looking back at the Messiah crucified.

I will ask: Is the knowing of the Return of Christ necessary for Christian living? Yes, absolutely.

As with the story of the farmer at the beginning of this article, the thought of Christ's return spurs the soul to holiness and greater purity in his life. It plays a big role in Christian living, giving greater motivation to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, to reach for the lost, to encourage love and bonding between brothers. It is also an ingredient for church growth.

I could be called a preMillennialist. I could even be accused of defending Roman Catholicism, or to be tainted with the lies of a Jesuit, or even be called a Catholic and be classed as a partaker of the Whore of Babylon. But none of these are important to me. Just as I believe that there are many Catholics who have trusted in Jesus Christ and are actually saved, so it does not matter whether I believe that the Rapture will come or not, or Christ will come with another method. What is important to me is, am I reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ? Am I filled with the Holy Spirit? Do I delight in reading the Bible? Do I love the brethren? These are the most important questions we all need to look at. Getting your points in Eschatology is lower on the list, but nevertheless, knowing that Christ will come back spurs us to holiness.

Whoops! Not This Time...

Judgement is coming on May 21st, 2011. The Bible guarantees it!
That was the cry of one Californian evangelist, 89 year old Harold Camping, who by means of his followers across the United States, invested millions of dollars in billboards declaring that the Rapture of all Christian believers will take place at 6.00pm Pacific Time on Saturday May 21st. This announcement did not remain an isolated incident restrained within a few streets of a city, but rather spread right across the USA and even crossed the Atlantic to reach us here in the UK. As the radio broadcast was boldly made while I was at the gym, I would not be surprised that it was also broadcast across the Pacific Ocean to reach Australia and New Zealand too. After all, the Rapture is an event of such geographic magnitude, it had to be broadcast worldwide.
So how did this evangelist arrive at the conclusion that May 21st, 2011 was to be the day? By doing some math by deciphering certain "hidden codes" found in the Bible. This has reminded me of the time, not that long ago, when some Jewish scholars have found the name of Adolf Hitler by deciphering the codes, they say, were found in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, which forecasted the end of the world then.
Yet all this despite what Jesus Christ himself had plainly said just before he was crucified:-

No-one knows the day nor the hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father...Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. Matthew 24:36,42.

But what is exactly the Rapture? It has become quite a common word used these days. Even Richard Dawkins used it in his book, The God Delusion.
There are two passages in the New Testament which seem to teach it, both of these texts were part of Paul's letters, one to the church in Corinth and the other to the church in Thessaloniki. They describe the sudden disappearance of Christian believes to heaven, first the dead in Christ rising followed by the living, "in the twinkling of an eye" which indicates suddenness. Here are the two passages.:-

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead shall be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must be clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."
"Where, O death, is your victory?
"Where, O death, is your sting?!
1 Corinthians 15:51-55.

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede them who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself shall come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord for ever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.
I Thessalonians 4:13-18.

Thessaloniki

There are those, like myself, who believe that this event, known as the Rapture or the Translation, will occur sometime in the future, but nobody knows when. They believe that the Lord has deliberately withheld the date, to make the event always imminent, so believers should expect it to occur even in their lifetimes. This encourages the believer to "keep watch", just as Jesus himself exhorted.
There are other Christians who do not believe in the coming Rapture. Among those there are some who say that the Rapture was coined up by Jesuits Ribera and Bellarmine in 1591, after the Council of Trent. Their aim was to protect the Pope from the Protestant accusation of being the Antichrist, predicted is yet to come, in the Bible.
But which ever the case may be, now that it is at present Sunday morning of the 22nd, and not as much as a sneeze had taken place, it is of my opinion that Harold Camping has done a serious disservice to both the Bible and the Christian faith.
We are living in the days where the historicity and truthfulness of the Bible is constantly being attacked by both evolutionary scientists and atheists, and by general secularism, particularly here in the U.K.- where it has one of the lowest church attendance in population density in Europe. In other words, Christians are being made to look foolish.
This plays right into the hands of atheists. In the USA, I read online, that they were already planning parties to revel in such foolishness.
I can imagine right now Richard Dawkins smirking at the non-event, knowing full well that his scientific theories will triumph after all. And he will draw more and more disciples, eventually turning the majority in this nation into an anti-God and with a strong unbelief attitude.

Richard Dawkins

Dating prophecy is not new but it is dangerous in a way that first, it weakens the testimony of the Christian faith and makes it all the more unappealing to the unbelieving population. Secondly there is a serious loss of creditability to the one who made it, if his prediction did not come to pass by the date he had set.
Californian Bible scholar Hal Lindsey was a case in point. One of his books was The Late Great Planet Earth in which he believed that the future Antichrist was alive and feeding his soul with quests for power and knowledge as he wrote and published his book in 1970. He also believed that Armageddon would take place around 1990. Later he released another book, The 1980s Countdown To Armageddon, in which he documents on the rise of the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal, overtaking that of the United States, making the USSR a dangerous and threatening world power, with its sole aim of turning the whole planet Communist, especially the United States. That was before the collapse of Communism in the 1980s itself. So far, in 2011 we are still here. And it is my opinion that Lindsey had lost a lot of creditability, especially among the U.S. Senate, where I once read that The Late Great Planet Earth was taken notice of by them.
Then again, back in the 19th Century, a small organisation which was to call itself Zion's Watchtower Society formed in New York in between 1870 and 1875 under the tutelage of Pastor Charles Taze Russell. It began to expand across America very rapidly, and their members, Jehovah's Witnesses, won converts across the Atlantic. In fact, according to William Schnell, in his book 30 Years A Watch-tower Slave, the world was meant to end in 1914. When the Great War broke out that year, fulfilling Jesus' prediction of "Nation rising against nation" the Watchtower Society gained enough creditability to win over the population of Germany to the extent of becoming the State religion, which was only thwarted by the outbreak of World War II.
According to Schnell, the end of the world was postponed until 1924, the year the Kingdom of Christ was meant to begin. When nothing supernatural occurred, the Society re-interpreted Scripture to predict that 1924 was the beginning of "The Last Generation", mentioned by Jesus Christ in Matthew 24:34. Calculating that a generation was to last 40 years, the Battle of Armageddon should have taken place in 1964. It was after this that the "movable prophecy" teachings of the Watch-tower were put on the back shelf in order for the organisation not to crumble.
Dating prophecy in regard of when the world will end is forbidden in the Bible. Such attempts makes the Bible and the Christian faith appear ridiculous. It does not give God any glory, rather it turns agnostics in to atheists, it causes atheists themselves to smirk with satisfaction, and most seriously, it keeps many from trusting the Lord Jesus Christ to save them and receiving eternal life God gives to all who believe in him.
We as Christians need to watch and wait for his coming, which remains an ongoing process generation after generation. The formation of the state of Israel in 1948 gives a clue that the End Times is soon, according to many Bible scholars. But dating prophecy is wrong and no one, Christian, secular or of another religion should attempt at it.