ÒLead, follow, or get out of the way!Ó So goes the old
expression. ÒToo many chiefs and not enough Indians!Ó That statement appears
more true in our era, but a more reasonable explanation is, ÒIÕm doing right in
my own eyes, and to hell with you.Ó
On this super highway of frivolous consumption headed for
hell, followers of Jesus Christ are by definition leaders, for they are headed
in a different direction. But by your life can anyone tell which direction you
are pointed? What are the guidelines? What is the center line?
The reformers had five solas, translated from the Latin
meaning, alone, by which they could agree. Those five were, scripture, grace,
faith, Christ, GodÕs glory. As you read here almost every week, we are saved by
grace alone, through faith alone, by Christ alone, for GodÕs glory. Now IÕm
sure that most of you have gotten this by now, but I need to hear of it quite
often, so I include these in most of my articles so that I can be reminded that
it is not all about me, but all about Christ in me the hope of glory. On those
five principles however, are build the entire orthodox dogma of Protestantism.
This week we will spend more time on the doctrine of
scripture alone, as it relates to our present era, and how proper understanding
of Scripture and how certain presuppositions and other doctrines of
Christianity, are deduced. We either make Scriptures the basis by which all
other paradigms are developed, or we make manÕs wisdom supreme, and then
interpret Scripture through the
realms of science and philosophy. The two are mutually exclusive, the creation
story in the Bible is one religion, evolution, the religion of atheism and
manÕs wisdom, is the other.
Now my nonscientific empirical data indicates, that if
you were to take a human being with only a Bible as a source of truth, and
minimal outside religious influence, he would eventually become a young earth
creationist, with a quite literal interpretation of Scripture, and a premillenial
eschatology. This, who we would call a self educated (God educated) religious
person, would have to learn any finer points of their religious training from
books and other more learned fellows. Perhaps, the finest example of this God
educated person in history, was the English preacher of the mid 19th century, Charles
Spurgeon. Much of SpurgeonÕs work is found on the internet at the Spurgeon
Archive (www.spurgeon.org). We will come back to some of SpurgeonÕs thoughts
later.
Now basically from SpurgeonÕs time until the last quarter
of the twentieth century, if you were going to be a young earth creationist,
you would pretty much have to go it alone. With the rise of Darwinism and the
science of evolution, the whole church gave up its creation heritage in a vain
attempt to rectify Scripture, with manÕs wisdom and science. I was taught this
nonsense in my catechism, growing up in the Lutheran church.
When I was a senior in college I was taking a field
botany class where you are required to collect and identify a large number of
plants. Up on Mount Spokane, where I many times journeyed to collect, I watched
as the snow melted and slowly over the weeks an incredible diverse plant
community developed. One day late in the spring, I was collecting when the
whole incredible complexity and diversity of what I had witnessed was
completely overwhelming. In a brief instance, kneeling to collect a specimen, I
prayed, ÒLord, I just cannot generate enough faith to believe that this
community evolved on its own, by chance. I guess if I have to choose between
being a good scientist and believing in creation, I guess IÕm going to have to
be a bad scientist.Ó It wasnÕt until many years later that I learned that there
were others out there believing essentially the same thing. But it was still
going to be some years until I discovered what effect this would have upon my
Christianity.
The Ògap theory,Ó a period of time of millions, or
billions, of years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 is how the church decided to fix
the problem with the Bible and make it work with the newly discovered science
of evolution. The problem is with that extended time period, you must also
insert, sin and death and a whole host of other dogma to make it palatable,
before GodÕs good creation and Adam and Eve in the garden. In that context, the
redeeming work of Christ and the rest of the solas become a nice Protestant
paradigm of myths and fables. Now essentially the whole church was guilty of
this anathema, but only in the eschatology of classical dispensationalism is
the gap theory of major significance. Without that dispensation of the gap, the
perfection of the seven dispensations of GodÕs timetable, reverts to only six,
the number of man. From there the whole dispensational concept, except for the
literal interpretation of the Bible, and a premillenial return of Christ
preceded by the rapture of the church, is left. As we learned earlier, to an
isolated Bible student, only the pretribulation rapture of the church is
something that must be learned by outside revelation. As people grapple with
this unusual concept, we find this is where the term Òpan tribÓ is born. ÒI
really canÕt make up my mind, but I know it will all pan out in the end.Ó
In the Genesis Record, Dr. Henry Morris, founder of the
Institute for Creation Research, still a strong dispensationalist, finds the
whole concept of a gap theory ridiculous. So I guess you do not need to be
either a good scientist or a good disciple of proclaimed religious truth, to
have a sound understanding of what must be the rule of Biblical interpretation.
Now there is Biblical evidence that there will be a
separation of the believers and non believers at the end of this age, the sheep
and the goats. The gospels (Matthew 25:36-44, Luke 17:26-36), indicate that
this may be a time of relative calm, consistent with dispensational teaching.
This is also consistent with the concept that GodÕs people are not subject to
the judgments of the world during the Great Tribulation.
In 1830 in Port Glasgow, Scotland, Margaret MacDonald, a
single woman, received a revelation that the church would not go through the
Great Tribulation. This was taken by John Darby, of the Plymouth Brethren, as a
important piece of his teaching that the church was entirely apostate and that
believers, should leave the established church of England. But since the
eschatology of Christianity for essentially 1400 years was amillennial, such
differences (between Premillennialism and Amillennialism) should be significant
in their own right, without the need to sever all ties with the established
church. Spurgeon, (in a paper on his eschatology on the website) was reported
to say something about Darby to the effect, ÒIf he would write in plain
English, people would soon realize he really did not have much to say.Ó But
Dispensationalism has become the dominate eschatology of modern Evangelicalism.
But this point remains, to paraphrase Spurgeon, from a Historic Premillenial
standpoint, ÒSo much to say about so little.Ó
The problem with the rapture is not the rapture, but in
the immortal and immoral words of Bill Clinton, the important distinction is
what your definition of rapture is. My new Bill Gates Encarta dictionary states
as the first definition of rapture: Overwhelming Happiness, an eurphoric transcendent
state in which somebody is overwhelmed by happiness or delight and unaware of
anything else. This definition is consistent with a heavenly rapture, or a
return to earth, to provide a finite to infinite witness, for at least a
portion of that impending Great Tribulation judgement. This is the historical
context of 1 Corinthians 15:50-56
Through this we see that the rapture itself is not the
significant problem with dispensationalism. The significant problem in modern
dispensationalism is poor doctrine. Its confusion of the indicative and the
imperative, law and gospel, rule and exhortation is truly where the problem
really is apparent. If the rapture is an indicative gift of God, given to the
end time believers through the imputation of ChristÕs righteousness on the
cross, then it is really no big deal, except ÒletÕs rapture.Ó However, it is
seldom presented in that light. Generally, it is proclaimed in the concept of
the exhortation to get ready, get piety. If you are in a movie theater, having
sex, or a whole host of other sins and donÕts, at the time of the rapture, you
may be left behind. Praise God, it may sell a whole lot of books, tapes, and
novels, but where do you draw the line. What this really does, is to again
institute a type of works righteousness in order to be raptured from judgement
and to substitute, the Great Tribulation for a type of purgatory. In that
regard, it exchanges the Protestant solas, with a systematic theology much more
consistent with the Roman Catholic Council of Trent, which, one could say,
makes this council doctrinally the faith of much of the Evangelical church as
well as Roman Catholicism.
Now we could have dealt with inconsistencies in
amillennial or postmillennial eschatology, and perhaps more of you would have
fun with that. Generally however, when the topic of Christian religion comes
up, the subject ÒWhat do you think Jesus did (not WWJD), is not very high on
the agenda. If you want to draw a crowd, you either need to talk about how old
the earth is, or when the rapture will happen. From one of those starting
points you may be able, by GodÕs grace, to move the conversation into a topic
of eternal significance.
In conclusion the Bible says in John 10:25-30:
Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not
believe. The works that I do in My Father's name, they bear witness of Me. But
you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you. My sheep
hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal
life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My
hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is
able to snatch them out of My Father's hand. I and My Father are one."
With such a promise to GodÕs children ,why would the next
line say of those hearing JesusÕ words need to be written:
Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. (John 10:31)
As I begin this series on the developing of Christian
leadership and explain some of the teaching we would like to perform at the
Little Dalles community, it seemed as a good time to do an additional chunk of
editorial commenting. My
philosophy professor in
college said of this type of endeavor, if you change anyoneÕs opinion, it
really does not speak to how true your reasoning is, but how weak theirs is. In
that regard the truth in the first principle of leadership, is that you have to
stand for something, or you will fall for anything. Leaders can agree to
disagree. As was once pointed out to me, in GodÕs providence, if we were to
agree on everything, then one of us is not needed. At the time that really made
me mad, but now I can certainly see a lot of truth in those words.
The developing of leadership in the Christian sense, is
really moving someone out of their comfort zone into a dependence upon God
alone, for everything. I have heard it said many ways but essentially, you must
attempt things that only God can do, then you are were He wants you to be. But
at the same time He expects you to contribute, beyond what you ever knew you
could accomplish. Somewhat to that end, in the signature of this weekÕs message
you will see some changes and new
email addresses. By the time you receive this they should be active, if
not then shortly. The first step in creating a new web presence will be to
catalog some of this material to make these editorial comments more useful, in
case you ever need anyone to agree with or disagree with. From there some
programs grounded in a creation experience in a new desert wilderness location
at the Little Dalles, or as the Lord provides, will be established. Please
continue to intercede for this work, the finances, personnel and other
resources, to bring glory to God.