The Various Views of the End Times

RV110-01

© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1993)

We are laying some groundwork in preparation for the study of the seven seals which the Lord Jesus Christ is now about to begin opening. We are on the first seal, and this is segment number two of Revelation 6:1-2.

Jesus Christ

The central issue of life facing any human being is the fact that Jesus Christ is the Lord of all creation. He is in charge. He is sovereign. He is the one to whom all must account. Most of the human race, however, is in rebellion against the authority over all mankind which has been granted to the Son of God the Father. When Jesus Christ returns to the earth to rule over the whole world from Jerusalem, His Lordship will be imposed on man and on man's culture, though today it is completely rejected. Today, Satan tries to be the Lord of God's creation, but he only brings untold misery and poverty to the human race. He is now shaping up human society all over the world through such powerful forces as the New Age movement to make one last desperate effort to exercise his lordship over human culture, and to establish a millennial condition on earth without God. That is the point of all of these efforts.

So, every person today has to recognize or reject the fact of the lordship of Jesus Christ in his own personal life. Whichever decision you make, there are temporal and eternal consequences that are enormous. You either live with Christ as the Lord, or you live as yourself as the Lord. Those are the only two options that you have. And each of you must make the decision.

The Bible spells out the lifestyle that Jesus Christ has established for the human race. It gives us the rights, the duties and the moral requirements of those who recognize Christ as Lord. The culture of man, in all of its expressions, is under the authority of Jesus Christ. We cannot evade the consequences, then, of ignoring His orders to mankind as we find them in Scripture. The doctrines of the Bible tell us how the Lord Jesus Christ wants man to function on earth. Christians are the agents of this spiritual enlightenment to a world which is has been deluded by Satan. Christians who are trained in the world are thereby equipped to serve God, and consequently, will be rewarded in heaven: training; serving; and, rewarding. If Christians do not exercise a powerful influence over human culture, there is no hope for mankind.

Man is not Neutral toward God

The tribulation is going to be God's answer to this rejection of His Son as Lord. Wherever Christians have gone, proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and societies have responded, the result has been that the lot of mankind has been elevated. Human life has been lifted from mere animal existence. History is replete with examples of societies that have responded to the message of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. When they have done that, they have moved upward toward the image of God in which they were created. All of creation, animate and inanimate, recognizes the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Humanism tries to prove that creation is neutral – that it can be made whatever man wants it to be made, and that man can use his own judgment. But that's not true. Creation is not neutral. The mind of a fallen man is not neutral for God. Deep within even fallen man, there is the consciousness that he is going to account to God. He doesn't know how to meet that problem, and he doesn't know how the accounting is going to be handled, but deep within the vilest sinner, there is the awareness that he is going to count to a higher authority someday. Man is not neutral.

God holds sovereign authority over His creation, and no effort of mankind is going to frustrate the divine objectives. Someday, all of creation will bow down to the Lord Jesus Christ; they will obey His will on earth as it is obeyed in heaven; and, His lordship will be recognized. Every believer among us today, therefore, has to do with human culture in the light of the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord. When we look upon our society and the problems that we see, it's simply summed up in that. Our society has rejected making Christ Lord.

The Monastic Response

Some have responded with the monastic mentality. The Roman Catholic Church has done this. Those seeking, within that context, the will of God, and a life under divine approval have felt that they have had to separate themselves from society. So, they cut themselves off, and they moved into the convent and into the monastery. They thought that the world which was operating under Satan's control must be abandoned, because it is irredeemable in their eyes. Protestant fundamentalism has tended to separate from efforts to influence human culture toward biblical principles under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, so they too have followed the monastic attitude.

Humanism

So, humanism has come in to fill the vacuum which has been left in a culture which lacks divine guidance, because the people who could give that guidance have cut out. Humanism makes man the Lord of human culture. So, humanism doesn't have the answers. Christians do not live in a neutral world, and they cannot act as neutrals themselves. They are witnesses of divine viewpoint, or else they are working against Jesus Christ. Christians not only have a better answer to the problems of society, but they have the only answer that there is. Humanism doesn't have it. When we cut out from our culture, we abandon it to the worst qualities in the human nature.

Christians which are truly and thoroughly grounded upon the doctrines of Scripture should proclaim that fact, and not be intimidated. They should proclaim the fact that they have the only answer. And they should not be intimidated by the country club churches who resent, and reject, and cast recriminations upon the Christian who is out there saying, "I know the Word; I know it to be true; and, here is the answer." And you must not permit yourself to be frightened off by the superior, snobbish attitudes, even among Bible Christians, who may look down upon you because you view yourself as a soldier of Jesus Christ: who knows the story; who knows the score; and, who has a personal self-esteem that God has given you because you have been trained in the Word of God. You are not dummies. And don't apologize for the fact that you know something. The dummies are out there in the country club churches, and that's why they resent those who are standing out and saying, "Our culture is wrong. We should not be like it. We should set up rules. We should set up regulations. We should set up standards. We should separate ourselves from the evils of our society. And we should be distinct as the members of the royal family of God.

The Neutrality Response

There's another response, however, to society on the part of Christians in addition to this monastic response, and that's the neutrality response. The world system of Satan is seen as neutral in its attitude toward human conduct. Therefore, if the world is neutral, all attitudes and all conduct is acceptable. Therefore, the world is not seen by this group as a threat to Christians. It's not seen as a threat to a Christian lifestyle. It's not seen as a threat to biblical rules for personal or for national conduct. Christians believe that they can live in peace and friendship with the culture of unbelievers. But James 4:4 says, "Don't you know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." You cannot live in this world as if it's neutral. It is not neutral. It hates Jesus Christ. It holds Him in contempt. It sees Him as an enemy to human freedom, and to people enjoying doing what comes naturally.

Christians of the neutrality response are ready to accommodate their thinking to the world's anti-biblical culture as long as Christian institutions are not threatened, and as long as they can prosper. So, we get along with the world. We go along to get along. We think that as long as we can accommodate ourselves to the world, they won't bother us.

You remember in the movie Fiddler on the Roof, and Tevye explaining his relationship to the Czar and to the Russian forces which looked upon the Jews as the Christ killers. He was explaining how they could get along, and he said, "We don't bother them, and so far, they haven't bothered us." That's the neutrality mentality of some Christians. The world hasn't bothered us, and we don't bother them. We're neutral toward each other. And just as Tevye and the Jews of Russia discovered, the time came when the Czar did bother them, and the pogroms were instituted, and Jews were slaughtered by the thousands upon thousands. We don't live in a neutral world, and this idea that we can get along with the world and its institutions is satanic to the core.

This is what caused the Roman Catholic Church to become increasingly more corrupt as it sought the toleration of human society. It accepted society's evils. It went along to get along. The Protestant reformers sought the acceptance of the secular state, and Protestantism degenerated into a meaningless formalism and a bunch of church state religions. Ritual worship was the result. It was devoid of all spiritual reality. If you're going to make everybody who's a citizen of the state be a member of that particular church by birth, then you cannot criticize him for how he lives or what he does. He's in. Protestantism, which began on the high ground of the Word of God, degenerated into a formalism of a true orthodoxy without life. The Word of God is living as well as powerful.

So, the state churches of Protestantism had people in them who had no convictions. They went through the forms. They went through the ceremonies. They went through the motions. These churches depend to this day on financing through public direct public taxation in order to sustain their ministries. Unbelievers naturally and easily become a part of the local church body without being born again – without being part of the body of Christ. These Protestant groups have degenerated, consequently, into liberalism with its total compromise of New Testament Christianity, and the Bible is rejected as being the Word of God. This was the neutrality response. They accepted the ideals and principles of humanism instead of Scripture. They succumbed to the arrogance of their human intellectualism, and they devolved into a life of human good.

The Preserving Salt Response

There is one other response. Our response as Christians to our culture may be the monastic response. It may be the neutrality response: "I don't bother you, and you don't bother me. Let's get along." All you have to do is ask all those poor parents in the church in Lewisville, Nebraska how neutral our society is today toward Christians, and how that body of believers has been shredded and torn apart by the forces of the state who want to impose its curriculum; its ideas; and, its controls upon the teachers of a Christian school. You can see what those people have had to suffer. There's a third group, and this is the proper view for us as Christians. That is the response of being the preserving salt. This is the view which accepts God as the Creator of the universe, and that this universe is designed to function on His principles. Creation is not neutral. There are definite rules. You are made as a human being to operate on definite rules. If you don't, you become an animal.

Thus, we see human culture as under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. There is a right way to live, and there is a wrong way to live. It makes a difference which way you do. You may get away with it for a while if you do it wrong, but the long-range implications are disastrous. You don't get away with it forever. We have entered society as the salt, proclaiming the difference between human viewpoint and divine viewpoint, and the consequences to each individual, and to the nation's personal state of freedom. We have rejected the delusion of a neutral universe that is not bound to God's divine viewpoint. In other words, we're saying that man is not the final authority. When people listen to us, we preserve their happiness. We preserve them in the best that life has to offer. We are the preserving salt when we bring that to their attention. We are to seek to bring every area of human culture into conformity with the real world which God has created. The Bible is the source book on that real world.

We have seen the world as the place of the angelic warfare. We have seen the Christian as capable, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the training in the doctrines of Scripture, of succeeding Satan's designs on society.

Premillennialism

All of this is to stress that what we are going to read, and what we're going to see in Scripture as the seven seals are broken out, are the consequences of people having failed to recognize the Lordship of Jesus Christ; and, for those who did know the truth – failing to act as the preserving salt. The view of Scripture and the view of the pattern of God's dealing, that will unfold now in the book of the Revelation, we call the premillennial view of human history. Premillennial means that Jesus Christ is going to return to this earth before the 1,000-year Millennial Kingdom on this earth begins. The Bible divides all of human existence, therefore, into two main eras.

Premillennialism has had a lot of bad copy written about it. It has had a lot of bad notices. Premillennialism has been abused; it has been discredited; and, it's held in contempt by the vast majority of churches. This is, in part, because it has been misrepresented in terms of what it anticipated for our society and for human culture. I don't know how many times I've been accused of being a pessimist because I teach premillennialism as the view of human history that is to be found in the Scripture. And there is no debate about this. Even those who hold to the amillennial view (the reform group, and the vast number of churches that hold to the amillennial view of Scripture – that there's not going to be a millennium) – none of them ever debate that this is what the Bible teaches. They all admit, "Yes, the Bible teaches premillennialism, but it only teaches that if you have to take the Bible literally, and we don't believe that you have to take the Bible literally all of the time."

So, I want to put that up front that you understand that we're not even going to discuss whether the Bible teaches that there's going to be a kingdom upon this earth ruled by Jesus Christ from the city of Jerusalem, with the Christians as His agents, ruling with Him, as a husband with his wife, ruling as king and queen – the royal family. We're not even debating that the city of Jerusalem will be the headquarters of the world. The Bible does teach that. Nobody with an ounce of brains who can read English and can read the translation of Scripture discusses that as a questionable item. They all agree to that. But they say, "Yeah, it's because you're taking the words literally, and that's not what they mean."

I want to put the premillennial view of history right up front, so that you understand that, because then what happens in the tribulation will become more significant to you. And I want to point out to you the failures of our society today, so that you will have a little idea of where the problem lies; what we can do about it now; and, why we will ultimately be where we come to in the tribulation.

The Earthly Era; and, the Post-Earthly Era

The Bible divides all of human history into two main areas: the earthly era; and, the post-earthly era. That's what the Bible deals with: life on this earth; and, life after this earth. Here are a few Scriptures that you may run down on your own. In 1 Corinthians 15:46, the earthly era is called the natural; and, the post-earthly the era is called the spiritual. In 1 Corinthians 15:48, the earthly era is called the earthy; and, the post-earthly is called the heavenly. In 2 Corinthians 4:18, we have the earthly as the temporal; and, the post-earthly as the eternal. In 1 Timothy 4:8, the earthly is described as the light that now is; and, the post-earthly as that which is to come. So, it's very clear just from these few Scriptures that when the Bible looks at human life (human society), it divides it into the earth phase and the post-earth phase. That is how we must view man's history.

Our concern is: what is the connection? Is there a connection between the phase where we have the human earth and the phase where we have been taken to heaven? Is there a link between these two? We're on the earth; and, we're up in the clouds. What's the connection? Is there a connection between the earth phase and the post-earthly phase? And this is where the problem lies.

Earth as the only Reality

There are two human viewpoint attitudes toward the earthly phase. One considers life on earth as the only reality. That's all there is. There's nothing beyond this earthly phase. They scoff at life beyond one's physical death. That was the view of the ancient philosophers. Marxism has this view, and therefore, they see the earthly phase as the only one worth pursuing. The claim of this viewpoint is that there is no hope for a better life after death, because there isn't any life after death. This philosophy of this viewpoint is, "Grab all the gusto you can because there's only one time around, and it's now." If you don't grab the gusto now, you're not going to have a second shot at it. That is the view that this earth is all that there is. Consequently, there's no fear of facing a holy God, and consciously experiencing eternal punishment for unforgiven evil, because there is nothing beyond this earth. Like the communists say: "Man is simply a matter in motion. And when he dies, he's like a dog. Once you put him in a hole, he's never heard from again.

Earth as only an Illusion

There is a second attitude toward the earthly life phase, and that is the one that considers the earth life era as of no consequence whatsoever. Hinduism, as you have learned, teaches that the earth life is actually an illusion that doesn't exist. It has no reality, so it doesn't merit any concerns. Eastern mysticism teaches that salvation is to be attained by cutting loose from any concern for earth life. That's why there is such great human misery and suffering in countries under Hinduism. Those cultures are not interested in helping the sick; in helping the widow and the orphan; and, in helping human suffering to bring people to a better life, because this life is an illusion. So, there's nothing worth considering. When a person thinks that he's suffering, it's just an illusion. This is the same idea that in some ways was in the Roman Catholic monastic program, and in the Protestant separation, that centers all of life here on this earth. That's what they were doing in effect. There is no concern for where it leads beyond that.

The Biblical View

The biblical view is very distinct concerning these two eras of human life. The divine viewpoint of the Bible proclaims that there is genuine value both in life on this earth and in man's post-earthly era. Even after the fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden, mankind was responsible for subduing God's creation for the purpose of man being blessed here on this earth. It was important to God for man to be blessed here on this earth: not to suffer; but, to prosper and to enjoy life on this earth. However, man was also warned against ignoring the importance of his post-earthly life. He was not to so major on this earth as to lose his own soul after death in hell. So again, the Bible is very clear that there is a connection between earthly life and post-earthly life. In God's program, both are important.

Ho human history deals, of course, with what goes on only here on this earth. It does not include what happens in the post-earthly phase. So, when we think about life here on this earth, first of all, we have to come up with a philosophy that gives some rational meaning and purpose to this earthly life. The premillennial view that Scripture presents is the only view that gives significant meaning to man's life here on this earth. Where is human history going, and how is it related to the post earthly era?

Postmillennialism

There used to be a view of the millennium called postmillennialism. Very few people believe in that today in. Interestingly enough, here and there, even a prominent teacher (some in the field of Christian education) believe in postmillennialism. Postmillennialism saw the life on earth as going ever upward to higher stages of perfection. The said that evil was diminishing, and man was becoming master of God's creation. So, under the postmillennial view, man was going to become better and better; society was going to become better; and, finally, things would reach such a high plateau that Jesus Christ would return to this earth. But the millennium will already have been experienced. That's why it's called postmillennium – after the millennium. Man was, in effect, going to create this wonderful style of life here on this earth.

The Social Gospel

Liberalism, on the other hand, saw the gospel as proclaiming a salvation by means of human betterment. When the liberals talk about salvation, they meant getting a person out of the cold. They meant giving a person better clothes; giving him better house to live; and giving him better food to eat giving; and, giving him better medical care. They saw salvation as solving the social needs of a human being. That's why we called it "the social gospel." So, the social gospel was very definite in stressing the value of life on this earth. In their eyes, God was slowly improving man's life on earth through the natural goodness of man. Progress upward was inevitable. Science had a confident vision of its ability to improve man's life on this earth by the sheer human genius of the scientist, which was leading to peace and prosperity. The scientist was, in effect, saying that man's reason had made him lord of his world.

Optimistic Views

So, post-millennial Millennialism says, "Life on this earth is going up. It's going to get better. The liberal said, "The social gospel is God's call to us to make life better on this earth, and man has such a natural goodness about him that it's going to happen." The scientist said, "We are discovering all those things that will make life so much better that it will be impossible for a man to be evil."

Well, these optimistic views of improved earth life have been shattered by two world wars, and the brutal tyranny of communism over a helpless humanity. The First World War gave a terrible blow to this optimistic view of human history. The Second World War finished it off. People recoil from the brutality which was innate in a human being. They couldn't believe it. So, now the optimism was shattered, and a black spirit of pessimism descended upon the human race.

Communism

Communism, of course, is Satan's answer to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Communism promises a paradise here on this earth – a millennium without the authority of Jesus Christ and the Word of God. Millions of human beings today are being deceived by the communist promises of such a paradise through socialism. The determination of Russia's rulers today to create a human society on earth which provides for all human needs has led the Communists to be willing to torture and slaughter without mercy millions of human beings in order to achieve their paradise without interference from those who would resist the enslavement that's required.

Socialism

Socialism, of course, in its very nature requires the exercise of force, and the restriction of freedom to make people obey as slaves the powerful few. Unless you have a force over you, you are not going to be giving away the fruits of your labor to any joker who comes along and says, "You shouldn't have more than I have." One prominent Christian leader recently said, pointing to a tree that was bearing fruit, "Nobody has the right to eat the fruit of that tree until everybody can eat of it. Therefore, we are going to force you to stay away from that tree. If we find you've gone to the trouble to exercise the work to pick the fruits of that tree or to grow the tree, we're going to take it away from you. And we're going to spread it around, and we might leave you with a little bit." That's socialism. That's the nature of the beast.

Lenin himself, recognizing that people wouldn't act like this, came up with a solution. He said the answer for controlling people is terror. We will force submission to fear. We will put such terror upon them that they will recoil from resisting us. Hitler picked up the same concept. Hitler taught his soldiers, particularly the storm troopers, and particularly the SS, "Terror is our weapon." We must be merciless with terror. Then people will subject themselves to our authority. Well, the result of the communist terror has been the brutal slaughter of millions upon millions of helpless people in communist countries. I'm amazed at how many there are among us, including Christians, who don't think that the communist beast is this way today. How many Christians are ignorant of what communism actually does to human beings? It is Satan's expression for man's lordship on this earth in its highest expression, and they are determined to execute it.

Communist societies reject the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and consequently, they have a history of brutality because they have made man the lord of his own destiny. And when you make man the Lord of this earth: then you get brutality; then you get terror; and, then you get what turns your stomach just even to describe what human beings do to human beings. In the tribulation, that will reach its epitome. Anything happening in the world today is going to be happening in the tribulation many times over.

So, what's happening in the world today? Joseph Stalin created deliberate famines in areas of Russia in order to bring the peasants under the cooperative farming program that they resisted. This was probably the only man-made famine in the history of the world. I mean that is was man-made by man taking food and removing it when people had access to it, so that those peasants were driven to cannibalism. You can read the accounts of this. Parents in desperation finally cut off the heads of their children, and salted down their flesh, and ate them to stay alive. A wife would die, and the husband would cut her up and store her, to eat her in order to survive. This was commonplace in Russia. Joseph Stalin did it deliberately, and drove people to that kind of desperation.

There was the deliberate murder of certain classes of people who could rise up and be leaders. These were people who were thinkers, and who were in the know. In the Katyn Forest Massacre, 15,000 Polish officers and enlisted men were deliberately massacred because they were thinkers; they were anti-communists; and, they were leaders. The Russians tried to blame this on the Germans. But the Polish people, to this day, know that that's not true. And once a year, to the agony of their communist rulers, they have a commemoration remembering the Katyn Forest Massacre, and they know who was responsible for it.

From Africa, we have repeatedly received the reports of the communist forces using terror to impose their system upon the people of Africa – taking wives, and forcing them to eat parts of their husbands' bodies because their husbands opposed socialism. They would put people into freezing water, or peel their skin off to the screams and the agonies in the ears of those who were observing, so that the terror would force them to comply. This has been done in Southeast Asia again and again.

They would tie Christians to crosses, and have the soldiers urinate and defecate upon their faces, and then ridicule the person of Jesus Christ, and calling their attention to what a sweet aroma their Christ has.

In Cuba, Castro has been executing people by sending them to blood banks, and draining the blood out of the bodies, and using the blood for the Cuban blood banks to be sold to people for the financing of the government.

The communists in Vietnam have repeatedly been known to drive bamboo sticks into the ears of children who have been taught the Word of God, and to cut out the tongues of the teachers who are exploiting the Bible to them.

Ho Chi Minh, the leader of communism in North Vietnam, had Vietnamese anti-communists buried standing up in the fields with just their heads above the ground, and then they would have a tractor pulling a harrow behind it to shred the heads of these enemies.

In Afghanistan, the Russians are using chemical and biological weapons to eliminate those who resist their invasion.

In Cambodia, three to four million people were driven from the cities into the country when the communists took over, because communist doctrine says, "People in the cities resist the new order – the new movement to the worker's paradise. So, get the people out of the cities." And, boy, they got them out. Here in this beautiful land, half of their population was slaughtered by driving them out: the sick; the elderly; or, whatever.

Communists have doctrines. At the heart of that doctrine is making man lord, and they believe it. George Orwell, in his book 1984, had one of his characters describe life under communism as a heavy boot stomping on a face forever. What an image! Communism, which makes man lord over society, is a heavy boot stomping on a face forever. I reread 1984 recently. You might like to do that, and update yourself on the world that we're living in. Communist Russia will never rule the world. The next ruler of the world will be Jesus Christ. But communism, in all likelihood will dominate the world. That is what we're talking about. The Communists are going to do the same to Americans as they've done to everyone else if they ever have the chance. So, ladies, take note. They're going to do the same.

The recent example of that heartlessness was the shooting down of the Korean Airlines flight number 7, and the murder of those innocent people. Last night on television, I saw Lech Walesa's wife giving the Nobel Peace Prize to her husband. He had stayed in Poland, because he didn't dare leave, in fear that they would never let him back in. He was given the peace prize. What a joke! What kind of peace has Lech Walesa brought to the people of Poland or to the workers of Poland? Those of you who understand communists know that, to them, peace means the removal of all opposition to socialism, even if people have to be tortured, terrorized, and exterminated like bugs to eliminate the resistance to being slaves. Peace for the communists means control. If we have to kill you to control, we'll do it.

The Polish Solidarity Union has therefore been terminated by the communist authorities. Its leaders have been driven into hiding. The action of the Communist Party was predictable. You can't have an independent labor union in a country that says, "One group of men must control everything that goes on in this country. They make all the decisions. So, what peace has Lech Walesa brought to the Polish people? There's peace in Poland alright: the peace at the end of a gun. The workers are as much slaves as they have ever been.

Walesa's wife made some courageous and noble statements about the dignity of human labor being recognized. What a joke it is to talk like that when the boot of the communist leaders of Poland is on the face of the people. It is sad to realize, having said that, that the Polish people have exactly what they deserve. We must not forget that the Polish people once knew liberty; they knew plenty; they knew prosperity; and, they had a prosperous lifestyle. They knew the prosperity of the free enterprise capitalistic system.

However, the Poles accepted Russian socialism because they wanted a government which would take the fruits of those whose labors had prosper them, and distribute them to the rest of them. They lusted for the welfare state with government care from cradle to the grave, just like Americans do today. They chose to ignore the well-known bestial nature and the murderous ways of Russian communism, of which I have summarized a few for you today. They can never again return to the freedoms they have. Now they and their children yearn for freedom. They yearn for the good life they once had. They go to the stores, and the shelves are empty because they've made man lord. They once had a life infinitely superior to that paradise which the communist system has brought upon them. They chose to ignore. The Poles cannot escape now from their party rulers; from the secret police; and, from the military forces. The boot is on their face, and it's going to stay there until the Lord Jesus Christ returns to this earth and removes it. It's going to stay there until Christ returns, and. He is recognized as Lord. Then and only then will the boot be taken off the face of the Polish people.

So, whatever peace they're rewarding to Lech Walesa, it's a peace that is hollow and pointless. Poles are religious, but they were ignorant of the clear teachings of the Bible against socialism as an economic system, and against the clear teachings of the Bible in behalf of the blessings of private ownership capitalism. If Americans persist in putting into power politicians who incorporate the concepts of Russian socialism into our nation, we too will have the boot grinding into our faces and we'll deserve it, just like the Polish people deserve it today. They knew better, and we know better. We have very little hope indeed that the forces of socialism will not be returned to power in the United States and in 1984 elections.

However, if this is any hope, when the United States ultimately does go down, as it will, as the result of political socialism being returned to power in this country, it will go down as God's client nation, and there's no one else to replace us. There will be no other nation after us. It'll just be the tribulation world and all that that connotes. There will be nobody to follow us.

So, the results of man's effort to be his own lord have been a total failure. Religious liberalism has not produced a better life on earth. It has destroyed people's faith in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God. Therefore, it is set people adrift without an anchor in their souls, and no authoritative guide for living. They did not solve the social ills in spite of all their human good efforts. The inevitability of human progress has not materialized. Liberalism is a total disaster. The social gospel is a bomb in terms of solving society's problems on earth, and in terms of leading mankind to eternal life in heaven after death.

Science also feels guilty now, with all of its original optimism, relative to the destructive weapons it has discovered. Man's nature takes advantage of scientific discoveries to pervert them for its own self destruction. Most scientists today are not born again people, so they have no insight to where humanity is ultimately going. They have no insight as to what is going to happen with their discoveries. But where humanity is going is to a golden age of the millennium. The scientists have not wasted their efforts. Scientists, being ignorant of Bible doctrine principles, try to control man's destructive nature with new ways of making man his own Lord. All of this talk of nuclear freeze is just another effort to make man his own lord.

Mankind has today degenerated into the neo-orthodox and the existential view of human culture. Religious liberalism has failed. Science has failed. Even the fundamentalist Christians, because we did not enter into the culture of our society forcefully, have failed. So, where are we? We have come into neo-orthodoxy, which is a view that says, "The Bible has meaning, but it is a book filled with mistakes;" or, to existentialism, which says, "The only thing that's important is now. Both are totally pessimistic about the future of mankind on earth. Everything with them is hopeless. Their leaders see little relationship between history on earth and the eternal kingdom of God beyond. What one does, therefore, on earth today is seen as having no effect on his future. So, what's the use of being good? That's why we're there. We made man lord of his culture, and he proved what a beast he could be.

Existentialism

Now, existentialism has come in and said, "What you do at this point right now in no way affects the past or the future. You can be the most immoral dog you want to be, and it'll have no effect upon your future. You can be the vilest creature on the face of the earth, and it makes no effect on your future. You can be the dirtiest thief, or you can be the foulest mouth, and it won't make any effects on your future or on your past. Just whatever you enjoy doing at the moment is what counts.

Amillennialism

The millennial view of history is another view. The amillennialist says, "There's no millennium." That's what "a" mean. They say that good and evil in human culture are continuing until there comes the crises of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ returns, there is going to be a big judgment day to wipe out all human culture; judge evil; and, usher in eternity. It envisions no extension of human history into an earthly millennial kingdom ruled by Jesus Christ in peace, righteousness, and prosperity. Under amillennialism, mankind's only hope is seen in a world which is beyond history.

So, again, we're confronted with an attitude that says, "This world is doomed. It's pointless. Turn your back on it. We can't do anything with it." Human history is seen by the amillennialist as no more than a preparatory foyer into the eternal post-earthly era. Our earth has been nothing but a weigh station. It's of little importance. Human earth history is seen a steadily degenerating and leading nowhere, finally to be abandoned for an ideal life apart from this earth.

So, every view that man has come up with is plain disaster. And what man has done, we have clearly seen, is disaster. It's horrendous. It's unbelievable.

However, there is another view. There is a view that connects what goes on here on this earth with the Kingdom of God that follows after the era of this earth. There is a view that connects the two, and the result is absolute unbridled optimism. That's the premillennial view that Scripture presents of human history. And the prevailing millennial view is what is often accused and attacked as being pessimistic, and nothing more ignorant could be said, because it is only the premillennial view of Scripture that gives man any hope. It is the most optimistic view that one could hold. Post-millennial isn't. Religious liberalism isn't. The aspirations of the scientist isn't. The establishing of socialism over mankind, in which man is made the lord – that's not the answer. There is an answer, and the dark things that we're going to see in the book of the Revelation now, on the background of what I've described for you here, are the night out of which premillennialism is going to lead mankind, and nothing else can do it. So, next time we'll look at the premillennial view of human history.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1982

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