Friday.....America.....Calamity Films

Today's Wall Street Journal did an almost two page spread on the spate of new movies coming out with an Apocalypse theme. It noted that the emphasis was not on the actual calamities but on the aftermaths. According to the article, with terrorism, the financial crisis and various other possible looming disasters, people are primed to consider what life would be like in a post-catastrophic world. I want to write a little bit here on the consensus in today's Christian community on this issue. There are plenty of books around to explain what the Bible says on this topic, from all sides, for anyone interested in doing the research. The theology of the north took control of the driver's seat after the Civil War. With victory comes the spoils. Christians found themselves in a circle the wagons mentality, defending the essentials of the faith, as they saw them. Calvinist doctrine and the rigorous precision that came with it, took a back seat to the Arminian and then premillenial doctrines that emanated from the many Bible conferences of the day. The long and short of it is that the rapture doctrine has become the accepted belief. In this doctrine, the church will be raptured just before Jesus returns. Returning to today, we have potential earth-shaking calamity in many forms due to technological advances in war and knowledge of possible calamities due to increasing scientific information on passing asteroids that could very well hit this planet. Just this past week, we saw the news of how Jupiter was scarred by such an encounter. Returning to the rapture, the problem is, that there is no rapture, not before tribulation anyway. I have to repeat here that there are more Christians than you can shake a stick at who would take umbrage with that statement. Reading one or two popular books and then forming an opinion is not intellectually sound, but it's done all the time. Is it cowardice to pray Lord, give us more time, bring us back to you for another flood of your Holy Spirit's saving work among us! Maybe it is, but it's my prayer. And if the Lord should so will it, and if I'm around, I would probably be looking for the mistakes that we will eventually make and the coldness and then rebellion that will surely follow, for we are human. But many would have been brought to a saving faith and it would be a remarkable and joyful period, if only for a time. If the Lord should indeed return shortly, then the experiences ahead, that His Word surely describes, would leave no room for even the lightheartedness I tried to display in yesterday's blog. Pittsburgh will be opening a gambling casino within a few weeks. Many people will visit, most will not, for they do not consider themselves to be gamblers. Every American knows that this Christian gospel, so prevalent in America, calls people to Christ, to learn of Him in His Word, and follow. Maybe they choose not to, or maybe they choose to do so in their own way so as to hedge on the bet. Whatever the age of the individual, to put this off, to find a good excuse of the many available, me for instance, is the largest gamble that anyone could make. The easiest path is to put Christ off until later. The hard path is to first confront ourselves, who we are, and why we have not humbled ourselves before Christ up to this point. Someone once said that the worst thing about Christianity was...Christians, or words to that effect. If this is your mantra, I have two things to say to you. You can ride this horse all the way to the fair if you want, and secondly, if you would come to faith in Christ, you would find that there is truth in that mantra, in fact there would have to be truth in it for Christ came to save sinners and that sin will not vanish until Christ does indeed come again.