Oblivious Eschatology?
Dr. Billy Graham, in an exclusive interview in Whistleblower magazine (Dec. 2013), just declared that the “Second Coming is near” and signs of the end of the age are “converging now for the first time since Jesus made those predictions.” For the first time, oh, really?
Graham continues, “Only Jesus Christ when he comes back again . . . . He will defeat every enemy. Sin will be eliminated. Death will be eliminated. War will be eliminated. Crime will be eliminated. The hope of the Second Coming of Christ generates energy and sacrifice and faithfulness and diligence and zeal.” Oh, really?
Whistlebower terms Dr. Graham “a prophetic voice” and “an authoritative voice.” Oh, really?
What about the signs Jesus’ 1st-century,“this generation” look for and read and then obeyed Jesus’ instruction when they left everything behind and fled Jerusalem? Yes, properly recognizing these signs and taking required action was a matter of life and death for them.
Because of their obedience, Eusebius, who is called “the father of Church history,” recorded that no Christians were trapped and killed in the siege of Jerusalem. Apparently, they had read some signs and fled to Pella, Egypt, and Asia Minor.
Eusebius further reports that “These things (signs and events of Matthew 24) took place in this manner, in the second year of the reign of Vespasian [A.D. 70], in accordance to the prophecies of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Whose reading of the signs should we believe? And who was/is sticking their head into the sand?
What do you think?
Here’s how one professor from a prominent Christian seminary explains this futuristic claim when he responded to another of my recent blogs (“What Counts as a Coming of Jesus?”). “Deceivers will come.” But the “sign of Him coming in the clouds” would be “everyone seeing Him . . . . Let us pray that this literal-physical coming of Jesus be soon (Rev. 22:20).”
I retorted with Scripture, “For in just a very very little while ‘He who is coming will come and will not delay’ (Heb. 10:37) – written circa A.D. 65. What do you think happened circa A.D. 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple?”
He replied, “Many details in Matt 24 did not occur in AD 70, including the return of Christ in the clouds, cosmic signs, the desecration of the Holy Place by the Antichrist entering it and proclaiming himself God, and the fleeing of believers from the city . . . . Certainly, the end of the age had not yet come and the gospel had not been proclaimed to all nations.
“The confusion comes due to the apostles blending their question of the destruction of these things along with what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age. . . . I see AD 70 as a foreshadowing of the Great Tribulation that is yet to come.”
Yes, that is what most Christians today have been told, taught, and conditioned to believe is true.
Yet I and others have documented – extensively, scripturally, and historically – how everything Jesus said would happen happened exactly as and precisely when He said it would and exactly as and precisely when every NT writer and the early Church expected as they were guided into all truth and told the things to come by the Holy Spirit (John 16:13). Who’s right? Who’s wrong?
Question: Are we not dealing here with a massive case of “oblivious eschatology” – i.e., with modern heads stuck deep down into the seductive sand of human traditions?
And if so, isn’t this a classic case of the traditions of men “nullifying the word of God” (Matt. 15:6; Mark 7:13).
Again, what do you think?
To learn more, click here: https://www.prophecyrefi.org/our-teachings/second-coming-return/