Gary :
You are listening to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Still ahead, Dave and Tom continue their weekly in-depth study of the doctrine of salvation, please stay with us. We return now to our program series from 2000 and:
CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH
In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call. Here is this week’s question: Dear Dave and T. A.: “I’ve been a true Christian for about three years and I want to learn everything I can about biblical Christianity. I say ‘biblical Christianity’ because I grew up in a home that many people might consider Christian, but it was only culturally so having no real heart for the person of Jesus Christ. So I’m loving every minute learning more about the real biblical Jesus and God’s plan for mankind through reading His Word. However, among the things that I still haven’t sorted out relates to eschatology. There are quite a few views of how the last days and the millennium are supposed to go. My question is: how important is a correct biblical view of eschatology in the life of a believer?
Tom:
Dave, that’s a good question. Some people just hear the term eschatology and they go what? Eschatology just means the last days. How things are going to come about.
Dave:
Well Tom let me go back a little earlier in this question. I like very much what he said. He’s distinguishing between biblical Christianity and other kinds of Christianity, cultural or other forms of Christianity. It’s very simple. Everybody knows it’s the Bible that tells us about Christianity. The Bible tells us about Jesus Christ, the Bible gives us the words of Jesus. The Bible gives us the prophecies concerning Jesus. Well then if you are going to call yourself a Christian you are going to have to go by the Bible. We’re going to have to go by what Jesus said. We can’t make it up as we go along.
Tom:
Which a lot of people are doing these days.
Dave:
Or we’ve got these biblical scholars sitting around and saying well Jesus didn’t say that but we think he said this and so forth. If we don’t have (and we’ve said it a number of times, but I’m going to repeat it) if we do not have an eyewitness account of what Jesus said, what He did and so forth. If the Bible is not the Word of God, inspired of the Holy Spirit, forget it! We can sit around and talk about it until forever and it’s going to mean nothing. So that should settle the matter. Let’s go back to the Bible. That’s what this program is about “search the scriptures daily.” Let’s go back to the Bible and find out what is biblical Christianity, okay? Now he’s asking a specific question about eschatology. Well eschatology, what you believe about the Antichrist or the Second Coming or Pre-trib Rapture or Post trib Rapture or whatever, obviously that has nothing to do with salvation. But I think it is important in the way we view the situation today as Christians and what we should be doing. For example if I think Christ could come at any moment, then I am going to be diligently serving Him. I don’t want to be caught doing something, you know when He comes. I don’t want to be ashamed before Him at His coming as John says. I would realize that the time could be very, very short. I am going to be diligently preaching the gospel, trying to win others to Christ. On the other hand, if I think it’s a post-trib rapture, well then I’ve got at least seven years to clean up my act, or I think the Antichrist must come first, then I’m not watching and waiting for Christ—there’s no point until the Antichrist comes, because Christ couldn’t come before then. John says in 1 John 3, “Everyone who has this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” Now I think there is a big difference between—now I’m not say that other people can’t live a good Christian life, I’m not saying that. But I am suggesting as Jesus said a number of times—He said, “What and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, my Lord delayeth His coming.” So Jesus associated evil with the thought that His coming could be delayed and it’s very logical. If I’m not sure that Jesus might come at any moment I think I’m going to live a more earnest Christian life. But if I think He isn’t going to come for another 100 years or whatever, then I think that could affect the way I live.
Tom:
So there really is a practical aspect to your understanding of eschatology. Dave as you said, correctly so, the most important thing is the gospel of salvation. But after salvation is work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. That is our life, our fruitfulness in the Lord.
Dave:
We are not working FOR our salvation; we are working outwardly the salvation that He has put within us by His Holy Spirit.
Tom:
Exactly, and it’s good works. The scriptures say that we have good works to do, not for salvation, but to be fruitful and productive in the Lord. Now if I have a view of eschatology that says as the church in recent years has gone through an idea of dominion, that Jesus is held in the heavenlies until we sort of take over the earth and produce a society that’s going to reflect His truth and His light and His life. If you have that idea well it’s called dominionism; it’s called Kingdomism, Kingdom Now, it’s called Reconstructionism— if you have that idea that you are working to do something that’s not biblical, that really isn’t true to God’s Word, you are going to spend a lot of time in futility and an exercise even working against what the scriptures say if its not true to God’s Word.
Dave:
I think also if we recognize apostasy as prophesied. Paul said [in] 2 Thessalonians:2:3Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;, “…for that day” the day of the Lord that comes like a thief, I believe begins with the rapture and surprises the world) now that day will not come except the apostasy “the falling away comes first.” Then I am going to be alert to this. I am going to recognize things around. But if on the other hand I believe what some are teaching that there is this great revival. You know the Bible says that Jesus comes for a sleeping church. He raised the question (we mentioned a number of times), Luke:18:8I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? “When the Son of Man returns will He find the faith on the earth? So if I recognize that we’re heading into apostasy and that I must oppose it; that I must earnestly contend for the faith, I think that will affect the way I live, the way I act as a Christian as well. Or on the other hand, if I think wow we are just moving into this great— Christianity’s going to be popular and so forth, I could fall into an acceptance of a Christianity that isn’t really genuine, but is popular. So I think that also is going to affect the way I view things that are happening and the way I am going to respond to them.
Tom:
Dave we know that things are going to work out the way God says it’s going to come to pass. However if we know that there’s apostasy coming we’re still to take Jesus’ commandment to go out and preach the word to encourage people to try and rescue those. But we are not to put time and effort and energy into something that’s futile that is, believing that we can set up God’s kingdom on earth. People involved in that may have a heart to do things for God, but it has to be something that’s true to the scriptures.
Dave:
Amen.
