Mind My Business

I've been having dreams... Last night the Lord woke me up and brought me to His Word....

The Bible shows us the prophesy, testimony and purpose of Jesus and with that, He (Jesus) commands and shows us how we should live. We should love all those that Jesus points out. We should obey all that Jesus instructs us, and when we fall, we should repent like Jesus commands. But, there has been a skewed view that goes beyond scripture. The "REPEAT" of a liberal view that puts it's focuses on social, economic and political struggles of today. This focus has been polluting the true meanings of our sound doctrine. I can plainly see two major problems in the "Christian society" today as to why a lot of these proclamations are widely received .

1.) The absence of biblical commitment.

If we are honest with ourselves, which most of us fail to do so, we would notice in our daily, weekly, monthly and yearly lives, scripture scratches our walk maybe once a week. But not by our own efforts, but from our Pastors and Leaders we look up to and love. Scripture tells us to work out our own salvation. We are individually judged and proclaimed single runners in a race to achieve the goal. With the consistent absence of the Word of God, what is left to happen? There is only one thing, the absence of God.

2.) We lay down our daily commitments to the Word of God and pick up the words of man.

There is a pattern that is taking place with those that yearn for God. The Bible is slowly becoming a sub-doctrine to a more widely excepted Re-thought, or rather "new" teachings of the Word of God as we know it. We use the written words of these "new" teachers to define the SOUND WORDS OF GOD. We fail to see that scripture can support itself. We substitute its capability with books that, "for their readers" define what is to be true. Paul tells us to remain stable, unswayed, and pay close attention to those that can truly discern and teach by the Spirit, instead of those that fail to articulate scripture and abandon the Spirit. By staying close to this, we will see Gods' word alive more than ever before. These "new teachings" of scripture are being circulated faster than scripture itself. Many leaders of today's Churches are making quick hand offs of books full of dangerous material that promote "new conversations" and only achieve a small portion of truth. If we approach books written to compliment the Word of God, rather than reconstruct or deconstruct but teach scripture with scripture, we will with out a doubt see where the "fecal matter" of these "new teachings" cakes our eye sockets and we are only left to inhale the foul smell of false articulations of where we've supposedly missed it...

With the consistent absence of the Word of God, what is left to happen? There is only one thing, the absence of God.

This bad breath attacks mainly the thought patterns of Christians in America. The lives of those that lived in this country as believers have missed the true meanings of scripture since the day our country was birthed. The "American Christian" has widely screwed up Gods word according to the "new findings" of some. The vast majority of my generation without a blink of discernment is turning their hearts to writers like Brian McLaren and highly praised Rob Bell. Most of these books display or critique the ancient teachings passed down from generation to generation. In every attempt possible, these writers try to show us where our traditional understandings fall short of what "they" believe scripture actually tells us. Let me say this; If we approach scripture with an agenda made from our own heart, we will find it. And in that, we can venture off in our own knowledge and build a very strong analysis as to why we are correct. When we build upon our own understandings we blind ourselves from the truth. We are warned all over scripture as to how we achieve such things from our own hearts rather than the heart of Christ living in us.. We need to pay close attention to the advantage of the enemy. We need to understand that he knows scripture and has a historical view and experience that we will never achieve. The enemy was once with God, as the Angel of Light. He was the house worshiper of all worshipers. This enemy knows his stuff! Given that, we as followers of Jesus are given something the enemy doesn't have available. We are given the Holy Spirit. This is our biggest weapon that we have in our arsenal against the spiritual war that is taking place for OUR LIVES.

If we approach scripture with an agenda made from our own heart, we will find it...

I'll leave you with this thought to wrestle with:

Rev 19:11-16

I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one but he himself knows. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. "He will rule them with an iron scepter." He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:

KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

In his book "Everything Must Change", Brian McLaren shares this:

“The phrase “the Second Coming of Christ” never actually appears in the Bible. Whether or not the doctrine to which the phrase refers deserves re-thinking, a popular abuse of it certainly needs to be named and rejected. If we believe that Jesus came in peace the first time, but that wasn’t his “real” and decisive coming - it was just a kind of warm-up for the real thing - then we leave the door open to envisioning a second coming that will be characterized by violence, killing, domination, and eternal torture. This vision reflects a diversion, a return to trust in the power of Pilate, not the unarmed truth that stood before Pilate, refusing to fight...

If we remain charmed by this kind of eschatology, we will be forced to see the nonviolence of the Jesus of the Gospels as a kind of strategic fake-out, like a feigned retreat in war, to be followed up by a crushing blow of so-called redemptive violence in the end. The gentle Jesus of the first coming becomes a kind of trick Jesus, a fake-me-out Messiah, to be replaced by the true jihadist Jesus of a violent second coming.
This is why I believe that many of our current eschatologies, intoxicated by dubious interpretations of John’s Apocalypse are not only ignorant and wrong, but dangerous and immoral.” (page 144).

McLaren's newly re-imagined "Jesus" didn’t come to Earth to die for the sins of the world. (Mclaren and other emergents like him reject and ridicule the Penal Substitionary Atonement). Instead, McLaren’s "Jesus" is a blend of non-violent civil rights leaders like Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bishop Desmund Tutu. In McLaren's thinking, Jesus’ death on the cross, much like Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, exposed the brutality and injustice of the Imperial System. The mission of McLaren’s "Jesus", much like Ghandi's, was to teach us a "new framing story" that would topple imperialism through the practice of non-violence and defection from empire. Since the historic Christian teaching that Jesus 'will come again in glory to judge both the living and the dead’ requires Jesus to utilize violence and imperial tactics to establish His kingdom on Earth, McLaren concludes that the historic Christian doctrine regarding the Second Coming is a false and immoral eschatology that turns Jesus into a jihadist rather than an unarmed non-violent peace maker.

Let’s review what the scriptures teach regarding Jesus Second Coming and then we can determine which teaching is false and immoral.

Since McLaren thinks that dubious interpretations of the book of Revelation are to blame for the formation of these immoral eschatologies I’ll only quote passages from other books of the Bible and will start with Jesus’ words from the gospels.

In John 5:28-29 Jesus says,

“Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.”

In Matthew 24:27, 29-31 Jesus says,

“For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.... “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”

Jesus continues in Matthew 25:31-33 by saying:

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.”

Jesus says that He will then judge the sheep and the goats. Regarding the goats Jesus ultimately says, “And these will go away into eternal punishment”. Regarding the sheep Jesus says they will enter into ‘eternal life’ (v46).

The Apostle Paul writing about Jesus Second Coming says this in 1 Thess 4:15-18:

“For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”

Paul continues in 1 Thess 5:1-3 by saying:

“Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”

Finally, the author to the Hebrews writes, in Hebrews 9:28:

“So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”

Every one of the passages quoted above make it perfectly clear that the Historic and Biblical Jesus promises and intends to return to Earth a second time. When he appears, HE SAYS that He will come in glory with the angels and will judge the living and the dead. McLaren doesn't like this inconvenient Biblical truth. It contradicts the nature of the "Jesus Idol" that he has created for himself. That is why he attacks the Biblical Jesus by calling Him an immoral Imperialist and a Jihadist. Also McLaren bases his findings on the mere suggestion that the words "second coming" don't actually appear in the scriptures... Well, neither does the word "trinity". In a matter not to change the subject, I'll let you work that out if you want.

Question:

Who is truly being immoral here? Is it immoral for Jesus to return a second time in power and glory to judge the living and the dead (afterall, Jesus is God) Or is it immoral for Brian McLaren to refashion Jesus in such a way that he could call the Biblical doctrine of Jesus’ second coming an evil act of jihadi imperialism?