The "Emerging Church" Has Some Real Problems

 

I’ve been reading an excellent book by Thomas Horn (Blood on the Altar: The Coming War Between Christian vs. Christian). I sought further help on one of his subjects, the Emerging Church, online. So I found an interview between two opposing giants about the faith:  John MacArthur (Author of 150 books, pastor, radio preacher, president of Master’s Seminary in Los Angeles) and Phil Johnson (Retired U.C.-Berkley law professor, father of the “intelligent design movement.”) They’re both died, but their words—and type of churches—live after them. I thought I would highlight part of their interview here.

From the interview, I could see that one of the biggest threats to God's church is, would you believe, a church movement called the “Emerging Church.” So let’s start by defining it. Wikipedia said, 2 years ago, that they are post-Protestant, post-evangelical, post-liberal, post-conservative, and post-charismatic. Which is radical.

Some interesting facts: the Emerging movement hates preaching; they believe instead on “conversation” with people. This is to emphasize its developing and decentralized nature, its vast range of standpoints, and its commitment to dialogue. There is no central creed in these churches. What those involved DO mostly agree on, is their disillusionment with today's church--and they support the deconstruction of modern Christian worship. They believe, instead, that there are radically diverse "perspectives" within Christianity that should be listened to--their litmus test is on social justice and environmental stewardship of the earth (which are not emphasized in the Bible). They say they are creating a “safe” environment for those with opinions ordinarily rejected by modern conservative evangelism. They believe that non-critical interfaith dialogue is preferred over "dogmatically-driven" evangelism (i.e., they reject orthodoxy. They believe that capitalism degrades society.  Marxists love that phrase.  In the past, particularly with the Catholic missionaries, such beliefs among priests had them hiding the leaders of militia gunmen to overthrow the government.

In any event, the emerging church movement “went public” in November 2004, when they were spotlighted in an article in Christianity Today. (I'm not saying Christianity Today likes their stance). But they’ve been around since at least 1996.

The second way to get to know the Emerging Church, is by a few relevant quotes from their founding father, Brian McLaren. In a separate interview, after he "mistakenly" spoke of God in the male gender, he had this to confess: “This is as good a place as any to apologize for my use of masculine pronouns for God…I avoid (their) use because they can give the false impression…that the Christian God is a male deity.” On the subject of the atonement, Jesus’ sacrifice for us, he calls it a “violent view,” because it presents God as the “greatest existential threat to humanity.” This is what God’s grace is called--allowing His Son to pay the price for our sin.  A reader from Sweden, troubled by doubts, asked him: “If Jesus isn’t coming back…what about judgment or the resurrection?” His answer was psychobabble, but you can tell he's not disagreeing with the Swede's idea that Jesus might not come back.  Get this “answer”: “Jesus does say ‘I will come again.’…but I think it’s a mistake to assume that when he says those things, he means what we mean…with all our dispensationalist, premillennialist…or whatever categories. The hyperbolic imagery of the New Testament, moon turning to blood, etc. is political language, signaling the fall of powerful political luminaries. Also…Jesus didn’t come just to evacuate us from earth to a future heaven but to show us how to live and make this world more and more beautiful by following Jesus’ example which would eventually lead to God’s “kingdom come on earth.”"

You can see the attack on foundational Scripture in those quotes. The single Scriptural belief which is above all others, is the resurrection and His promise to return.

On homosexuality, he believes there is "uncertainty" enough to call for a new belief.  (But see Romans 1:26-28, which seems rather certain of God's stance).  He twists fundamentalism (he calls it a “scatological term”), calling conservative beliefs "fundasexuality." He also says we have "heterophobia," a fear of people who are different.

Another event emphasized in Wikipedia makes us even more skeptical about their belief in the validity of Scripture:

The TCPC website (the Center for Progressive Christianity, one of their "tents") gives an analogy that symbolizes the methodology of the Progressive Christianity movement. It involves a Sunday school teacher and a class of 9 or 10-year-olds. Even at that age, some were skeptical of the inerrancy of the Bible. The teacher suggested that they read Charlotte's Web . The class enjoyed the book. The teacher interjected the thought that pigs and spiders cannot talk. The kids protested: "Well, it's a story." The teacher asked whether the story was true. They decided that it was sort of true. "In a way, it was true." So the teacher suggested: "let's look at the Bible in the same way."

Another leader of the "Emerging" movement, Rob Bell, no longer a pastor of his Mars Hill church since he no longer believes in hell (from his book "Love Wins," 2011).   He also attacks fundamental doctrine; he doesn’t believe Scripture was inerrant when he mentions his greatest “discovery”—he declares “The Bible is a human product.”  In summarizing the movement’s view, he says “This is not just the same old message with new methods. We’re rediscovering Christianity as an Eastern religion…” Mr. McLaren agrees; he believes in inclusivism--that other religions (i.e., those that deny Christ as God) lead to salvation, too. For instance, he does not think we should convert Buddhists to Christianity; we should leave them as Buddhists who are followers of Jesus. But Buddhism is usually atheistic, so to them, Jesus is not God, since there is no God; so really, a “Buddhist Christian” is an oxymoron. They need to read Acts 4:12.

Now that we’ve read a bit of this unorthodox group, let’s let John MacArthur tell what he thinks. He’s smarter than me anyway.  He first distinguishes the emerging church movement from Modernism. Modernism was a product of the Enlightenment during the Renaissance in which they made human reason, not Scripture, the determinant of ethics.  He says “out of that came the worship of the human mind, and (in effect, they were saying), “the mind trumps God.” The Emerging Church, on the other hand, is post-modernism…In both cases, they assault Scripture. (This movement) "is a denial of the clarity of Scripture....they think we can’t really know what the Bible says. Whether it’s about sin or virtue...they don’t like rules, so their ‘out’ is…(they say) “Well, it (Scripture) is not clear.” This is just another way to set the Bible aside.

Scripture claims to be clear, however, and God holds us responsible: “A wayfaring man though he be a fool need not err.” (Isaiah 35:8). Dr. MacArthur also charges their leaders that “the reason they deny Scripture (by saying it is vague) is that men loved darkness rather than light (John 3:19). The light is there, they hate the light, they run from the light. The issue is not that Scripture is not clear, it is crystal clear.” Dr. MacArthur charged them with pushing heresy—which he says later on in the interview.

I would like to take the topic of homosexuality as an example of their approach. It's part of their pride in inclusivism, not finding anything morally wrong with homosexuals. Scripture, however, won’t let us do that. It’s condemned in Leviticus 18:22, where God says to men:

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.

God does not change His mind in the New Testament.  As Romans 1 points out, it is among the worst deviations that men come down to, after God “gave them up” in their insistence to defy Him.

Scripture is crystal clear on this subject, but not according to Emerging Church leader Mr. MacLaren, who says: “Many of us don’t know what we should think about homosexuality. We’ve heard all sides but no position has yet won our confidence…that alienates us from both the liberals and conservatives who seem to know exactly what we should think…the biblical arguments are nuanced and multilayered, and the pastoral ramifications are staggeringly complex.” The phrase that sticks in my craw--"no position has yet won our confidence." Thus, they are saying, "Our judgment is the final word."  Their judgment trumps God's, evidently.

But Dr. MacArthur insists that it’s bad news for the practicing homosexual, but it’s still the truth. He says, “the truth is what I will defend. It’s not personal. I’m not mad at people. I’m not trying to protect my own little space. That doesn’t make me popular in all circles, it creates just the opposite.” He maintains that it’s impossible for Christians to agree with the latest world's view: “there is no possible accommodation …Christianity would have to be reinvented to accommodate itself to any pattern of (worldly) culture thinking.”

But Brian McLaren, a founding father of the Emerging movement doesn’t believe MacArthur has good motives.  "We fear that the whole issue has been manipulated…by political parties…whatever we say gets sucked into a vortex of politicized culture-wars rhetoric...  I know what you guys' motives are, and I condemn them." (If their motives are to defend Scripture, that's reprehensible, I guess).

Really, a big question he touched on is, how do you evangelize the homosexual? The Emerging Church has decided to, as Dr. MacArthur says, "capture these people by “sanctifying the (gay) culture." But the Bible doesn’t adapt to culture. It confronts culture. The Emerging Church, on the other hand, wants to let the culture define what Christianity should be.

Dr. MacArthur then talks again about big non-Biblical movements in history. He summarizes Pre-modernism: “there is truth and it comes from God; it has a supernatural source…men believed in God or they believed in the gods.” What follows is Modernism (which I’m figuring covers 1750-2000).  He summarizes it as: “there is truth and we can find it by human reason…not revelation from God, not the Bible, but human reason.” But Modernism wasn’t a good idea in practice: “the world got worse than it has ever been…the totalitarian world…fascism, Nazism, Communism, and the massacre of millions and millions of people in the name of human reason.” (For instance, most Lutherans didn’t have any trouble using a gun to obey Hitler). Getting up-to-date, he says: “Now the idea of post-modernism, which says, in effect, “We give up. There may be truth, but we can’t know it. It may be from God, but we can’t know…so we embrace mystery…you have your truth, I have my truth…truth is whatever you think it is, whatever you want it to be, it’s intuitive, it’s experiential..but it’s not universal and it’s not knowable, universally knowable.” The interviewer responds, “That’s why these days the highest values, the sole remaining virtues, are things like tolerance, ambiguity, mystery..” To me, calling this a “mystery” in post-modernism opens the door to searching in the occult; people still want plain answers to reach their loved ones who have died--but they're not getting answers in this psychobabble of Mr. McLaren. Dr. MacArthur says, “Oh, Brian McLaren says ambiguity is really a good thing (based on McLaren's quote, “Certainty is overrated”)...it gives people a license to invent their own religion, really…no one is permitted to challenge it…it is wonderful if you want to sin without any guilt. And I think that’s at the bottom of this…they hate the light because their deeds are evil.”

He also charges, “It’s not a theology; (they say they) don’t "teach"…and the word “sermon” scares them… no, we want to have a conversation. But the only part of the conversation they don’t like is when you say, “That’s wrong. That’s sinful.” So their conversation...never has an objective…that’s another way to negate the Word of God. I say, you can deny that (the plain Word) is from God. But don’t tell me God has spoken, but unfortunately He mumbled. The worst thing we could do would be to soften the edges of what really is clear in Scripture.” (They claim) “the Bible is irrelevant, you can’t stand up for an hour and exposit the Word of God, you’ve got to tell them stories… To quote one of their leaders, “The bible (small “b,” to them) is no longer a principal source of morality as a rulebook. The meaning of the Good Samaritan is more important than the Ten Commandments —even assuming the latter could be remembered in any detail by anyone…” By the way, some of the most revealing McLaren quotes are on this website: http://carm.org/brian-mclaren-quotes-ignorance-bliss-theology.

Dr. MacArthur feels that (they should say) “since we don’t know what it means, why would we teach?  Nobody has a right to impose on anybody else their ideas.” They take a sort of reverse humility in confessing their ignorance. To turn truth on its head, they believe that if someone claims to know what Scripture means, they have committed an act of pride. To quote MacArthur: “It is an attack on the clarity of Scripture and they elevate themselves as if this is some noble reality…which they call humility…(it’s) a celebration of ignorance.”

They also have this feature: “They’re really, really aggressive at tearing down the church, tearing down historic theology...that have been a part of the church’s life for centuries…but that’s the lowest level of assault there is. Anybody can shred and destroy without having to build something back in its place…(they) just shred what people believe and walk away, leaving chaos everywhere…the egotism of it is pretty frightening. And the church is filled with people who have no foundation.”

He gives a few words of warning to people out there looking for a church home: "I don’t think a person should go to a church that isn’t answerable to a doctrinal statement…(if you do), you need to get out of there because you’re at the whim of a guy who can invent anything he wants any time. This entrepreneurial approach to the church is a very serious breach…" (There) “may be Christians who are seduced by this; in their ignorance they are the children tossed to and fro, carried about by every blowing wind of doctrine.” (Ephesians 4:14). The interviewer says “And every man does what’s right in his own eyes.” (Judges 17:6). Dr. MacArthur maintains that young people from a denominational church that often lacks life and fails to exposit Scripture, these are the likely victims of this movement: “I don’t think (the Emerging Church) is nearly as appealing to the non-churched people as to the marginally churched young people."   The young are attracted to Emerging movement "are reacting to the superficiality and…the legalism of (their church).”

Dr. MacArthur speaks again to the clarity of Scripture. (Jesus) “says things to them in His day like this, ‘Have you not read? Have you not heard what Scripture says?’ He didn’t say to them, “Oh, look, I know why you’re having a tough time with Me, because the Old Testament is so hard to understand.” Then he brings up the example of the Gentiles, who were totally ignorant of the Old Testament…"Paul (who assumes the regular people are smart as he) builds these massive cases of understanding the Christian gospel based on the sacrificial system from the Old Testament…Thus, to come along and say that the Bible is not clear is then to accuse God, and (accusing) the Scripture of claiming something for itself that it can’t deliver. (Charging God like that is) “pretty serious.”

**Note: Mars Hill Churches was the focus of the Emerging movement.  But Rob Bell was removed as senior pastor of his Mars Hill church in Michigan in 2011 after his beliefs were revealed in the book Love Wins. But he has come back, preaching at sold-out conferences in the U.K. and Ireland lately.

Another important name in the movement is Mark Driscoll.  He was removed from a separate Mars Hill pastorate in October 2014, most particularly because he called women "penis homes" and other misogynist remarks--plus, he's being charged with plagiarism.  It was also revealed that church money was used to pump up his book sales so he could make the NY Times Bestseller List. But he has come back, after taking in $1.1 million in donations in 2 years, he built a $1 million church in Phoenix, and has even been called upon to evangelical conferences.

Brian McLaren is still going strong, too:  His latest book, The Great Spiritual Migration, includes the following crazy quote:

“Christianity, we might say, is driving around with a loaded gun in its glove compartment, and that loaded gun is its violent image of God. It’s driving around with a license to kill, and that license is its Bible, read uncritically. Along with its loaded gun and license to kill, it’s driving around with a sense of entitlement derived from a set of beliefs with a long, ugly, and largely unacknowledged history.”

So, let's ignore these guys.  The feeling of freedom from sin and its penalties beats whatever negative nonsense they come up with.

Acknowledgement: Thomas Horn, Blood on the Altar and Christianity Today

 

God's Love is Misunderstood

 I wrote a blog in January titled: “Is the God of the Old Testament the same as the God of the New Testament?” That blog touched on God’s character.  For more enlightenment, I would like to summarize a sermon by Rev. David Pawson.  Here we go.

A Gallup Poll in Britain recently asked people “Do you believe in God?”  Sixty seven percent said yes.  But… that’s an irrelevant and pointless statistic.  Britain is so cosmopoliton, they should have followed that question up with “Which God do you believe in?”  It could be Allah, or one of the Hindu gods, after all.  But even more important is the question “What kind of God do you or do you not believe in?” I’ve talked to a number of atheists and asked, “what kind of God that you’ve envisioned that you don’t believe in?” When they got through explaining, I was able to respond, “I could be an atheist too, because I don’t believe in that kind of God either.”

So let’s broaden this and discuss, what kind of God do Christians believe in, nowadays?  I’m afraid that over half today would immediately say, “A God of love.”  Because the majority of pastors and evangelists have been preaching a God of love for over a hundred years, in their delivery of the Gospel.  More recently, an adjective has been added to that: a majority seems to now believe in “a God of unconditional love.”  That phrase has only been popular for 30 years, yet it has been preached around the world.

But that is not our Gospel for evangelizing.  I believe we are mistaken, Biblically, to teach the unbeliever that God is love, as a feature of the Gospel.  Such is not the Gospel we have been given by God; and it is not the Gospel they preached in the New Testament days.  Such a Gospel tends to mislead.  The Bible never adds “unconditional” to God’s love, either. We all happen to love adjectives--unlike the Bible.  We sing “Amazing Grace,” yet the Bible never attaches Amazing to grace.  It simply talks about grace. There is now a chorus called “Outrageous Grace.”  Amazing must have lost its novelty, so we need a more sparkling adjective.  But these are sentimental rather than Scriptural, I’m afraid.

I’d like to give you four main reasons why the Gospel to be preached is not “the God of love.”

Reason #1:  The Bible actually says very little about the love of God. But people have cherry-picked those verses that do, and preach on them endlessly, so people think that that’s a key phrase appearing frequently in Scripture. But here are most of the Books, and their count of verses about the “love of God”:

Genesis:  0.  Exodus:  1. Leviticus and Numbers:  0. Deuteronomy:  2. Joshua, Judges, Ruth:  0 each.  I, II Samuel, I II Kings:  0 each. Psalms talks about the “loving-kindness” of God. That phrase is an English translation of a Hebrew word which really means “covenant love.”  It is never applied to people outside the Abrahamic, or Hebrew covenant. It has a strong note of loyalty in it, loyalty to the covenant.  God loves those who are within His covenant.  But there is no mention of His love for the World in the entire Old Testament. Continuing, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes:  0 each.  You’d be shocked to know that Isaiah has only one verse about God’s love.  Jeremiah and Ezekiel, one each.  Of the 12 minor prophets, only Hosea has one verse.

So, the Old Testament does not back “God is love” anywhere, except a few—and that’s not the love we were thinking about.  Song of Solomon is on love, but it’s human love.  Of course, it’s an allegory of God’s love, but it’s not directly satisfying, being that it’s an allegory. Hard to take to heart about loving God by trying to identify with Solomon’s rapture over different parts of his wives’ (or concubines’) body.

Oh, you might be saying, God’s love, then, is in the New Testament everywhere.  I’m afraid you’re wrong. You would think Jesus talks about it in the four Gospel accounts, right?  Matthew strikes out, 0. Likewise, Luke and Mark.  But John does.  Everybody knows John 3:16. But Rev. Pawson refers to a previous session where he mentions the mistranslation and misunderstanding of the verse.  Here are my words on that.  The “correctest” meaning of the Greek words in that verse, per the Pure Word translation (that translation slaughters the nice flow of words that other translations have; but it is great for analyzing details of Greek meaning—so they are for scholars, not for readers).  Here is the NKJV:

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 

Now the Pure Word translation; note all the words substituting for the word “believes:”

God has loved in such a manner the Satan’s world, so that He Gave His Son, the Only Begotten Risen Christ, in order that whoever is Continuously by his choice Committing for the Result and Purpose of Him, should not perish, but definitely should, by his choice, be Continuously Having Eternal Life.

Yes, that’s a mouthful, but carefully observe the words “continuously,” and “by his choice,” and their contexts.    This translation refines the word “belief” so that it is more than a mental assent. It expresses an ongoing need for us to choose to abide with Christ’s commands and purposes, in order to continue to have eternal life (see John 15:6’s warning too).  So this verse definitely doesn’t fit the word “unconditional” for God’s love; He has conditioned His love upon continued obedience and commitment.  We need to intentionally, day by day, strive to abide with Christ, and make our choice to be more like Him. We should choose that we want to be sanctified, and there are works to perform, and evil not to perform, to attain that likeness of His holiness. We need to be reliably doing that to obtain heaven.

It is not easy for a pastor to give the Pure Word version of the verse, and how they need to listen to a “truer explanation of Greek before they get the wrong idea.” So pastors skip the difficulty and ignore crucial details. But they go beyond that simple harm  and then preach “unconditional” when it is not.  Then too many people relax on the effort of sanctification.  So, many people, in the future, will therefore be surprised when they are denied heaven.

Even the loving apostle John only has one more verse (besides 3:16) on the love of God in the Book of John.  But the biggest surprise of all is the Book of Acts, where the Gospel that moved the world was preached several times.  I assume that the Gospel was nearest to perfection when preached evangelically then, because God enormously blessed their work with signs and miracles, and thousands were converted.  We can believe they taught it like that; they emphasized words of godliness and commitment in the Anti-Nicene Fathers albums. They must have had the right approach; they knew Greek backward and forward, they lived in the culture that understood the meaning of each word. They had the apostles right there, who had heard straight from the lips of Jesus Himself, and they got answers to the meaning of doctrines.  But here’s the shocker:  Not one verse in the whole of the Book of Acts mentions the love of God. Now a serious question arises:  Shouldn’t we follow their successful model? Do you really want to introduce a huge variant from their Gospel, when you consider how God blessed theirs? I mean, how have we improved society from preaching today’s Gospel—we still have higher crime and violence, many of us are totally confused on men and wives’s roles, and even about what gender we are; we vote extremely leftward politicians into office, favor abortion; our children at school get dumber by the year as Christianity and the Bible are banned from campuses. Compare our results with theirs.  As Acts show, they have “turned Rome over” with their preaching. Which is really best?

Continuing on preaching the love of God:  Romans:  1 verse.  I and II Corinthians:  0.  Saving space, only I John mentions God’s love more than once or twice.  Nearly at the end of I John (4:7), you find the three words, “God is love.”  Yet those words are not in a section describing God.  They are in a section exhorting believers to love one another. Finally, we come to Revelation.  The only mention of love in that book has a negative attached:

Those whom I love I rebuke and chasten (Revelation 3:19)

That’s it for God’s love in our New Testament. All that should tell us something and make us think. Flat out, the Bible cannot be described as a Book about preaching God’s love.

Point #2: Every mention about God’s love is addressed to people who are already redeemed. As far as we know, from studies about what they said, few heard about God’s love, as a theme through evangelistic preaching. By the way, I have never denied that God loves us; I am merely pushing the idea that it is not great to evangelize on it. Rev. Pawson considers that God’s love is precious, a pearl NOT to be thrown to the swine (Matthew 7:6).  Unredeemed people do not understand God’s love (more on this later). I add that the phrase about the love of God is too easily misunderstood when presented to the unsaved.  It works gets twisted, much to the delight of hell’s masters.  It often leads to “easy believism.” God’s holiness and wrath are little dwelt on, and, to them, God becomes a soft mark.

Point #3:  When Scripture uses the words “love of God,” what we are thinking of doesn’t come from Greek words for “love.”  The Greeks were far more careful than the English about the use of the word “love.”  They had different words for different kinds of love.  There were four: 1) “epithumia,” which is a love from addiction.  You need it to survive.  Nothing can get in your way to getting it; you even hurt other things or people, including yourself.   2) “Eros” is the love of sexual attraction. That would be love between two genders, as God intended.  So this attraction, say between men and women, means you want to learn everything about your lover—the opposite sex are different, right?—which is meant to take a lifetime to explore the joys of.  A marriage needs eros to survive—even beyond when sex becomes absent in old age.  3) “Philia” is affection, or deep friendship, such as what David and Jonathan had (they were not gay).

The world knows and expresses those three kinds of love, but uses the same English word for all three, unfortunately.  But there was one other word for “love” in the Greek language, which was rarely used—because it expressed a love that was not common--namely, 4) “agape.” That word stressed action. You can’t have agape without acting in love.  It has an emotional connection, because it is usually born out of compassion, for someone in a desperate need. But it doesn’t become agape until you act to meet that need. That is the only word for “love” that is used of God in your New Testament. Our need is a Savior because of our sins offending a holy God.  So when you find the word love related to God, you find immediately a mention of the Cross (First John 3:16, for example). This is what God did, acting out of compassion for the human race. This is how we know God loves us, because Jesus the Christ died for the sinner and the ungodly. In I John where it says “God is love,” it goes immediately on to say, “and He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Many people are unaware of the depth our sin has been to a holy God.

Thus, you need to learn about the wrath of a holy God before you will appreciate His love. That’s why Romans begins (first two chapters) with the wrath of God rather than the love of God.

A good presentation would be the wrath of God, then the love of God--and you should linger on the first point ‘way more.  Do not give His offense at our sin short shrift--most people, by studies, give themselves a pass, and a fair certainty of heaven, because they're "better than the bad guys."  But God is not making that kind of comparison. He compares our unholiness to His demands. The current preaching, by not dwelling on that, might not change their mind from feeling “better;” they might still believe that deficient Gospel. We cannot ignore the subject of hell.  Fact is, 60% of people do not even believe that hell exists.  Emphasize that God wants to hear our expressed desire to stop offending Him and quit the sin—with help by appealing to the Holy Spirit. The point is, these ideas are seldom taught from our pastors and teachers.

Rev. Pawson’s final Point #4:  Neither Jesus, nor any of the apostles ever preached publicly about the love of God. “Check me out in your Bible,” he says. If I’m right, tell people the Bible says it, not me. Remember, for reasons we’ve brought up here, it was clearly a pearl.  Keep the concept among the Redeemed, lest it will most always be misunderstood.  You should evangelize like Paul or John did.  When Paul spoke to the Jews, he quoted their prophets or poets, the Old Testament. Then, since they already knew about God, he taught them about Jesus.  When he spoke to the non-Jews, he began with teaching them about God. They needed to understand God, or they won’t be interested in reconciling to Him in fear and worship.  (Read Acts 17 for an example of that approach).  Note also in Romans 1:16-17a:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. ¹⁷ For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith

If you start your evangelism with praising what Jesus did, they might just come to be a Jesus fan, rather than the deeper truth of thanking Him for reconciling us to His Father.  If someone is a Jesus fan, their shallow Gospel could mean their attachment might blow away in times of stress.  They, too, must ‘take up our cross’ and follow Him.  We don't want to end up, like the Buiding parable, on shallow foundation—it makes it easier to lose our salvation.

May God help us to revolutionize our evangelism and help to create a revolutionized country, eager to know Him.

 

 

Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger

 

Planned Parenthood and Margaret Sanger

Planned Parenthood is the oldest, largest, and best-organized provider of abortion, sex education, and birth control services in the world.  It now operates in 150 nations. But the story of Planned Parenthood could never have begun without the story of Margaret Sanger.  It was her impetus, her drive, her single-minded obsession that eventually gave birth to the giant baby-killer.  She died in 1966, but Planned Parenthood has grown and achieved far beyond her greatest dreams.  Yes, from 1978 til’ now, Planned Parenthood has murdered over 7 million babies. What an accomplishment. (Results prior to 1978 were not kept—typical of the organization’s sloppy accountability even until today).

Well, which side of Margaret Sanger’s story would you like to hear?  My local library has a book in the Juvenile section, no less, that is unrelenting in its praise.  She was a wonderful, progressive woman—according to them.

But my library does not have the book that I chose to review:  Killer Angel, by Dr. George Grant. He is the author of over five dozen books on American history, politics, theology, and social issues.   This book is a “Cliff’s Notes” of his great work, Grand Illusions, an even more thoroughly documented biography of her effect on mankind.  She is up there with Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler—and living in the same time period, no less—if you want to find out who was the greatest murderer of innocents the world has ever seen.   How could she be lavishly praised in most of our secular literature, while the other homicidal tyrants are vilified? I maintain that it’s because our culture has silent agreement with her.  That would be another paper.

Her story begins predictably enough.  Born in 1879 in Corning, New York, daughter of Irish Catholic parents, the sixth of eleven children, her home life was never happy.  Her father drank, beat his sons, and worked sporadically, so they suffered much from hunger and privation.  He was a radical atheist, and mocked the religious devotion of his neighbors and his wife.  Margaret was baptized and confirmed in secret in by her mother in 1893, and, for a short time, had a spark of religion; but her mother’s death and father’s cynicism turned her into hatred of religion by the time she was 17.

Grown up, at first she was a material girl.  She was bright and manipulative, pushing her way up the social ladder. She married into money at age 29 to William Sanger, an architect.   She had three children soon after.  They lived in Manhattan, but she was restless of housekeeping and kids—so she convinced William to move from their suburban neighborhood to a chic neighborhood where there was lots of shopping and a real night life.  Once they moved, her husband, a free-thinker, immediately began attending Anarchist and Communist meetings in Greenwich Village.  Margaret tagged along, unimpressed—she mocked the rag-tag revolutionaries.  But she listened to the well-honed speeches by John Reed, who learned his trade from Russian Bolsheviks, and she was suddenly tuned in.  She shed her bourgeois habits and plunged headlong into the maelstrom of rebellion and revolution.  She began farming out her kids to friends and neighbors, and went into hospitality, regularly inviting Communists and liberals into their home for meals and talk. Outside of those get-togethers, she had almost no connection with her husband.  She joined the Socialist party—a conglomeration of Mugwumps, Anarchists, Progressivists, and Communists--and volunteered to be a women’s union organizer.   She then formed a special attachment to the words of Eugene Debs, who raved about the evils of Capitalism, and who ran several times for president (though one of his campaigns was run from his penitentiary cell).  But on women’s issues, he was in favor of sexual liberation, feminism, and birth control--subjects that were right in her wheelhouse. But were brand-new for her time period.

She tried labor activism for a while, and even midwifery.  But she met Mabel Dodge, a trust socialite, and began rubbing shoulders and talking with the high-income intellectuals like Eugene O’Neil, who introduced her to free love.  As typical, she jumped in feet first.  She had already suggested to her husband that she would like to sexually experiment with different partners, but despite his puzzled hurt, she often resorted to free love to quench her hunger for meaning in life.  Her husband tried to change things by taking her to Paris, but there she spent much time in learning advanced contraceptive methods.  She abandoned her husband—and her marriage—and returned to New York now looking for income.  She decided to become a writer.  Her first issue was The Woman Rebel; its subheading, “No Gods and No Masters,” was obviously against patriarchy. This showed the darkness of her mind.  She denounced marriage as a “degenerate institution” and sexual modesty as “obscene prudery"--you don't usually see those two words together.   Two of her issues even defended political assassinations.  But she mostly wrote about contraception and sexual liberation.  One issue irresponsibly recommended “Lysol douches” and “heavy doses of laxatives” to stop pregnancy.  She was promptly served with a subpoena indicting her for lewd and lascivious--and unproven-- articles.  Five years in the federal pen awaited her.  She fled the country under an assumed name—her Socialist friends forged her a passport.  She had to get a permanent babysitter for the three inconvenient children.

While she was a fugitive in England, she was fascinated by lectures on Thomas Malthus (the man is still considered an economic guru, by many).  He maintained that population would always grow faster than production of food, and land available.  This would cyclically lead to a crisis shortage of food, resulting in massive deaths—either by war or by famine, so as to reduce the population, so there would be enough food for fewer people.    Unfortunately, Malthus decided that the only responsible social policy was to managerially limit the growth in population. This idea is still very much alive in “woke” Europe. But he was totally wrong on his growth in food assumption--productivity innovation has been vastly successful in providing enough food. God has made a way, solving the growth of population. But wartime and genocide have still resulted in famine—if a nation chooses to so treat its “lesser” people. Listen to his mind-blowing suggestions to Malthus "solve" the food problem: “All children born beyond what would be required must necessarily perish…we should facilitate…this mortality…by encouraging their destruction.  Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits…we should crowd more people together, and court (encourage) the return of the plague…and build their villages near stagnant pools.  But above all, we should reprobate (disapprove of) remedies for diseases, and restrain those…much mistaken men who use charity, relief, and missionary outreaches.”  Note that most of these monstrous suggestions would kill the poor--and, by the way, he figured the well-to-do would thrive.

This unbelievable idea (the opposite of Christ, who protected the poor and sick) was destined for unpopularity in a moral culture, but…Neo-Malthusianism that arose later, developed palatable arguments that saved the day for Malthusians--i.e., they developed "better excuses” to cover up their death-theology.  The thesis was, again:  the physically unfit, the poor, and the incompetent were the ones “chosen” for suppression and isolation.  The “Neos” felt the best way to gradually eliminate them was through teaching them three things:  contraception, sterilization and abortion.  Well, Margaret agreed with this doctrine (prejudiced against the poorer blacks, by the way), and began preparations to lecture and educate the world herself.   In order to take the moral “high ground,” she reasoned that she should preach on how these three unholy solutions would lessen the threat of poverty, sickness, racial tension--all of those are "due to" over-population.  “As has been scientifically proven,” she added.  A lie. Plunging wicked literature for scientific "proof," she read up on all the quack science of the day:  Phrenology (the idea that the shape and size of the skull proves mental ability and character), craniometricism (we can determine race and gender by the shape of the skull), Oneidianism (free love), lambrosianism (the idea that criminals have low foreheads, close-set eyes, and small pointed ears), hereditarianism (the idea that heredity plays a significant role in determining character and human nature).   They also believed in the power of genetics to solve many human social problems, and in Freudianism (which they translated as free sex).

But her favorite offshoot of Malthusianism was Eugenics, the idea that while we want to control breeding, we also want to increase desirable heritable characteristics.  Let others talk about restricting immigration or cutting off welfare; let some of our others experiment with sterilization that produced nothing but sad stories that blew apart families; let others suggest an “extra-child tax,” or elimination of medical subsidies to “oversize” families, or eliminating paid maternity leave; but her thing was to help eliminate “bad racial stocks” and to “engineer the evolutionary ascent of man.”  Very noble!  In fact, many universities loved the Eugenics idea (this was in the 1920s) so much that they set up groups that were endowed with departments that taught eugenics—we’re talking Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and Stanford in particular.  (Where had the Ivy League schools gone?!) Funding was provided by the Rockefeller, Ford, and Carnegie Foundations.  Regardless of the big names, this was immoral; it was malevolent voodoo science; it was genocide, it was White Supremacy, because they zeroed in on the poor and the minority races to eliminate, as we shall see.

Hitler picked this eugenics idea up himself and interpreted it as "kill the Jews, and you have improved the Aryan race."  What is less known is that he forced sterilization, encouraged free sex among the virgin girls that looked Aryan, and also killed the mentally ill and disabled.  Genocide became the wave of the future at the time (in the early 1920s)—I’m sure Stalin wanted to achieve the same noble goals when he killed fifteen million Russian and Ukrainian kulaks (rebellious peasants who resisted forced collectivization). Mussolini killed four million Ethiopians, two million Eritreans (Russia massacred them too), and a million Serbs, Croats, and Albanians.   And I should say that Hitler didn’t stop with Jews; he killed two million Slavs and a million Poles—both “pollutants” to the Aryan race.

At this time Mrs. Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, which would in 1942 become Planned Parenthood (they went international in the late 1940s).

She also wrote a book, The Pivot of Civilization, a disgusting 284 pages of turgid, hateful words.  The book, like Malthus, hates charitable organizations—“they help spread misery and destitution…dangers which have today produced their full harvest of human waste.”   She unashamedly called for the elimination of “human weeds,” calls for the “cessation of charity,” for the segregation of “morons, misfits, and the maladjusted,” and for the sterilization of “genetically inferior races.”  (This was before abortion was legal).  Lest you question who she had in mind, she later writes that the “dysgenic races” included “Blacks, Hispanics, Amerinds” (Native Americans), and, would you believe, “Fundamentalists and Catholics.” (Such a book, if written today, it would be labeled racist and hate speech--I hope.)   But the book drew rave reviews.  If you were non-Aryan, if you were Red, Yellow, Black, or certain Whites, all were noxious in her sight—hey, a song. (She had some of Hitler’s cronies over for dinner from time to time—it was obvious she agreed with their genocidal plans.)  Later, she planned to have Planned Parenthood deliberately place the abortion clinics in particular neighborhoods with these minorities.  Or, as she called them, “these feeble-minded, syphilitic, irresponsible, and defective” people. All are real quotes she said—word for word. Abortionists! This is your polluted source!

These statements, only slightly subdued, made her a star among the influential intelligentsia in England.  With the help of Havelock Ellis, whom she adored for his radical ideas and his unusual bedroom behavior (though he was impotent, he staged orgies, established a network for homosexual liaisons, and helped provide mescaline and other psychotropic and psychedelic drugs). The two of them plotted what would be politically expedient to broaden her popularity base.  It was decided she would have to tone down her rabid pro-abortion and socialistic stance (remember, this is still only in the 1920s), and she needed to take charge of her children once again, to show that she had family values.  But she could keep pounding on Eugenics in her lectures, since it was popular.  Thus prepared, she came back to America to launch a brilliant public relations campaign.  The authorities were intimidated to drop all previous charges; then she went on a 3-month speaking tour here.  She garnered controversial press coverage everywhere she went—but the upper income crust in America loved her, as did England.  This was right after the Great War, and people were doing everything they could to remove the scars of war—they were drinking, dancing, and forgetting.  Predictions for the future of America were bright.  Racial hatred was still active (this was only 40 years after Reconstruction.)  Many theologians chimed in that we were entering in the Biblical Millennium.  But her enthusiasm and popularity led her to be too bold—and she made a mistake.  She set up an illegal birth control clinic in the Brownsville section of New York—populated, of course, by immigrant Slavs, Latins, Italians, and Jews.  But within two weeks, the clinic was shut down as illegal—but she was only sentenced to 30 days in the workhouse. No problem.  As soon as she was released, she founded a new organization, the Birth Control League, and began to publish a new magazine, the Birth Control Review.

Despite criticism from evangelist Billy Sunday, she still garnered praise from people like Theodore Roosevelt, and got her intellectual friends—H.G. Wells, Pearl Buck, Julian Huxley, and Havelock Ellis--to write articles for her.  It became a popular magazine.   By 1922, her fame was secure, and she went on a round-the-world lecture tour.  She took a less-radical stance.  She could no longer publicly talk about the “choking human undergrowth of morons and imbeciles should be segregated and sterilized” —but that statement WAS recorded in the Review and in private discussions.  But, think how all you needed to know about the mindset of Hitler was to read Mein Kampf (it was quickly translated into English), so all you needed know about the real mind of Margaret was to read the Birth Control Review.  It had articles of Fascist diatribe, of limiting immigration—by race; and Margaret herself wrote about favoring concentration camps for all “dysgenic stocks”—I guess people were all cattle.  By her estimation, as much as 70% of the population fell into her undesirables.  Margaret and her cohorts really had their work cut out for them in their goal to limit these people.

But they were more than up to the task. Later, in 1939, she designed a “Negro Project,” as she called it, in response to requests from Southern states’ public health officials—which she called, “men not generally known for their racial equanimity”—yet she was willing to work with them.  As she put it, “the mass of Negroes, particularly in the South, still breed carelessly and disastrously…the increase among Negroes, even more than among Whites, is from that portion of the population least intelligent and fit.”  Her group wanted to hire three or four “Colored Ministers…with engaging personalities…to propagandize for birth control.”  She wrote, “The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the Minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”  (This is the testimony of a friend and feminist, Linda Gordon, in her book, Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right, 1974, page 229ff.)  Further, she said, “Let’s appear to let the colored run it.”  Another compatriot said, “I wonder if Southern Darkies can ever be trusted with…a clinic …except under white supervision.”  (This reminds me of a quote by G.K. Chesterton, a theologian and philosopher, the only intellectual voice at the time opposed to her ravings: “Eugenics asserts that all men must be so stupid that they cannot manage their own affairs; and also so clever that they can manage each other’s”).  Thus, this was a ruse concocted to get blacks to cooperate in their own elimination.  Sadly that project was quite successful.  Margaret’s dream of discouraging “the defective…from their reckless and irresponsible swarming and spawning” was beginning to be fulfilled.

In 1925 she hosted an international birth control conference, in which the attendees for the first time were together in claiming a high goal of unrestricted abortion in every country as soon as possible.  One of their themes was captured succinctly n the following group statement: “The dullard, the gawk, the numbskull, the simpleton, the scatterbrain are amongst us in overshadowing numbers—intermarrying, breeding, inordinately prolific, threatening to overwhelm the world with their useless and terrifying gel.”

Despite her stunning success, Margaret was miserable.  During one of her many long absences, her daughter caught cold—and died of pneumonia.  Her reaction was to forget by having more sex—and she began indulging in the occult.  She attended séances, and applied into a Rosicrucian gathering (they claimed occult powers and knowledge).  She also dabbled with Theosophy (they believed in karma and reincarnation).  And she married again—in 1922—into big money; this time, to a Mr. J. Noah Slee.  But first she made him sign a prenuptial agreement that she would have her own apartment, feel free to come and go as she pleased, have friends in behind closed doors—and he would have to phone her from the other end of the apartment or seek her secretary to ask her for a dinner date.  I don’t know how he could have missed her intent here, but the milquetoast signed.  Slee never saw too much of her after that.

She may have been terribly unhappy, but she was terribly rich now too.  As befits her obsession and work ethic, she spent most of his money on her cause—traveling and getting in front of every microphone she could—day or night. She was a tenacious organizer.  She applied for every grant, appealed to every foundation, and pleaded for funds from many corporations and—from charity organizations, no less.  Planned Parenthood got its name and began reaching out for affiliates in 1942.  Her greatest coup was when her organization got a tax-exempt status from the IRS.  So she got treated as a charity.  How ironic, considering how she felt about them.

In 1938, Sweden became the first free nation to revert to abortions (Stalin and Hitler did it coercively).  The forebear of Planned Parenthood jumped into their countries with clinics.  They also persuaded Sweden to accept their sex-education programs for schools.  Knowing Mrs. Sanger’s sexual perversions, we can imagine what that might include.  More European nations allowed abortions over the next 18 years.

When Adolf Hitler’s holocaust was laid open in 1945, she backpedaled and covered up her many ties to Hitler’s cronies.  She spent strongly on a massive propaganda blitz aimed at the U.S. middle class; she emphasized patriotism, personal choice, and family values (imagine that from her). She won additional endorsements from Eleanor Roosevelt and Katherine Hepburn.  And from Albert Einstein, Nehru, John Rockefeller, Emperor Hirohito, and Henry Ford (a notorious anti-Semite).   But none of these encomiums gave her any joy.  By 1949 she became addicted to both drugs and alcohol.  She was quietly removed from the Board several times, but they found that they couldn’t survive without her.  She forced their hand by dying in 1966, at age 86.

But Planned Parenthood lived on, and carried her legacy with the same driving spirit as hers.  In the 1960’s, even the middle class loosened up its morals in the U.S.  In 1967, the American Medical Association began calling for the decriminalization of abortion.   So much for the Hippocratic Oath.  About the only powerful opposition voice in this time came from Pope Paul VI, in 1968, whose encyclical Humanae Vitae reaffirmed the sanctity of life.  But pretty much everyone ignored traditions--it was the late '60s, right?  Several states loosened restrictions on fetus-killing procedures (such as, “abortion is OK to preserve her mental health" etc.)—Colorado, California, and North Carolina for starters agreed legally to this huge loophole.  By the end of 1971, half a million legal abortions were being performed in the U.S. each year.  The rate today is higher, but we lack data. Estimates have been calculated.  Worldwide, the numbers are astronomical. Worldometer (useful in tracking the effects of Covid) has this to say:

The data on abortions displayed on the Worldometer's counter is based on the latest estimates on worldwide abortions published by various sources, including the World Health Organization (WHO). According to WHO, every year in the world there are around 73 million induced abortions. This corresponds to approximately 200,000 abortions per day.

In the USA, where nearly 30% of pregnancies are unintended and 40% of these are terminated by abortion, there still are between 1,500 to 2,500 abortions per day.

That's over 700,000 per year.  The US peaked at just over 1.5 million in 1980, right after Planned Parenthood began keeping records (they were forced to do so).  We cannot celebrate this being cut in half.  States are continuing to defy God’s will on protecting the innocent; nine states allow abortions up to the date of birth, even for “mental health” of the “mother.” Those states are: Alaska, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and D.C. Four states-- California, New York, Illinois, or Washington—are more restrictive, but allow third-trimester abortions.

The main problem we have to contend with, as real Christians, is the fact that the majority of the US public favors abortions.  60% of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. (Pew). The "pro-choice" percentage remains higher than in the decade before the 2022 Dobbs decision. (The Dobbs decision in 2022 eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion, and left it up to the states.) This clearly shows that the public supports abortion in even greater numbers, despite the decision.

The rare exceptions to abortion do not consider that even a zygote has the sacred image of God in them, and are KNOWN by medicine as having a Separate DNA from the mother, and is thus a separate human being.

Planned Parenthood also exercised Sanger's moral legacy (an oxymoron)--in 1970. Here’s how the PP did things in the Philippines, where abortion was illegal. Planned Parenthood offered “menstrual extractions” to women—which amounted to vacuuming the uterus—and their crassness was seen in that they hired people who were not medically qualified.  It was still an abortion, but a tricky play on words enabled them to still kill the baby and avoid the legalities. The authorities (more racial elitists) let them get away with this simple deception.  They were more brazen in Brazil, where they knew there was a lack of legal enforcement.  Despite sterilization being illegal, they performed it anyway—on 20 million every year at that time.  An internal directive from their office in London (this fact was uncovered in 1981), gave them the OK on deceptions like this.  It said “…action outside the law, and even in violation of it, is part of the process of stimulating change.” Bolshevik talk.

But still they have this great image to the public. The organization is coated with Teflon, I guess.  In a 2015 video entrapment in California, he uncovered that they violated three laws-- (1) selling dead baby’s body parts, (2) through partial birth abortion, many beyond state limits; (3) without the “mother’s” consent to the act of manipulating the abortion procedure.  They got off scot-free—despite admitting to these things on tape; then the Attorney General (who is now Michigan’s governor, which state has abortion up to birth) had the audacity to sue the video investigator.  The U.S. House found Planned Parenthood did nothing wrong, and a federal judge laid down a $2 million verdict against the videographer!  This verdict was upheld and finalized in 2023. This horror happened because the federal judge who gave the verdict had, in the past, helped open and run a Planned Parenthood clinic.  My question is: Why the silence?  Where were the Christian churches?  If we cared, giant protests should have happened.  And:  Who determined that this federal judge would decide the case?  Of course, the public knows nothing and cares nothing about this case.

Our tax money actually pays Planned Parenthood over $554 million a year to run their grisly service. They like to keep hidden how much of our tax money goes for abortions.  Despite their arguments about a range of services they provide, abortion consumes 94% of their expenses.  Let no one kid you—they are about profit. Smaller clinics are staying in business by adding chemical abortions with RU486 to their offerings, often via non-nurse presence.  I'm speaking of web-cam hookup with an abortionist at one of the larger mega-clinics. This is a cost-saver, since they don’t need local expertise.  But none of this makes abortion safer–in fact, it increases the danger to the “mother”–but it does make more centers profitable.

Why are we paying half a billion of our tax money a year to allow Planned Parenthood to kill babies?  Well, ask the 60% above. (Is it true that the majority of people claim that they are Christians?) Do we have a moral anchor anymore?! This is America now.  Why is Planned Parenthood the only organization with a tax-exempt status that is allowed to spend $12 million every two years to elect Democrats—when political bribery by charities is a violation of the law?  Nobody cares.  The unborn need a bigger voice on their behalf—like God. Since we have not defended the innocent, since we had no mercy on them, God will have no mercy on the babies' murderers—“mothers” and doctors.  We have judged the babies that they are not worth living.  So God will judge us. 

PS: There is one organization that is ready to sue abortionist “mothers” in Criminal court for her killing. This is “over the top” for some, but it is the only way that will stop the murdering of babies in the womb cold. These “mothers” are beyond evangelism now, if that is your suggestion. I’ll bet most of these anti-mothers call themselves “Christians” already.

 

 

PRE-TRIB OR PRE-WRATH RAPTURE? LOOK TO SCRIPTURE

 

PRE-TRIB OR PRE-WRATH RAPTURE? LOOK TO SCRIPTURE

 

We will assume you are familiar with the 70 “weeks” (or sevens) of Daniel 9:24-27. We believe these sevens are in years. In those verses, after the 69^th series of 7 years, Messiah is “cut off” (v.26). That means one more 7 years is yet to come. This will be future. According to Scripture, it will be the greatest persecution that God’s people will ever endure; far worse than the Holocaust. Many deaths. The Antichrist will run this death march. When will it be? Will all Christians alive at the time go through it? Pre-Tribulationists believe that Christians alive at the time are raptured before that 7. Pre-wrathers believe we will go through the last 7. An important question. So let’s do a Scripture-compare.

Start with I Thess. 5:9:

⁹ For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ

Pre-tribulationists assume that God’s Wrath at the end is all the 7 years, so Christians have to be raptured ahead of time to avoid it.

But Scripture gives a different chronology to “Wrath” in the last days:

Revelation 6:14-17:  I looked when He opened the sixth seal …. ¹⁵ And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, ¹⁶ and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! ¹⁷ For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

Thus, the Wrath of God is at the end of the 6^th seal. The seals are all in Revelation, all happen during the 7 years, and the six seals are in chronological order as follows:

1)  A deceptive person (the Antichrist) will ride a white horse with the intention of conquering.  

2)  A red horse, which means Wars, far and wide over the globe. Nothing is said about the rider, but we can easily assume it is the Antichrist.

3)  A black horse, which means scarcity and inflation. Brought by war. (Luke 21:11 adds these: great earthquakes in various places, and famines and pestilences, and fearful sights and signs from the heavens.)

4)  A pale horse (the way peoples’ skin looks when they are dead). The rider is Death, and Hades (which is like Hell) follows him.

5)  The martyrs’ cry: How long, O Lord, til’ you avenge our blood? (That suggests the Wrath has not started yet).

6)  Cosmic Disturbance, similar to Christ’s crucifixion--a great earthquake; the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. ¹³ And the stars of heaven fell to the earth. Also, great rulers know their day of judgment is to come: they said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us… For the great day of His wrath has come.”        (Luke 21:25 adds, “the sea and the waves roaring”).

The 6 seals do not speak of Christ’s return. But you can trace the very same events in order in Matthew 24, which DOES end with Christ’s return.

You can see that there was plenty of action in the 7 years before the 6^th seal. It’s easy to conclude that the 6^th seal, when the Wrath hasn’t come yet, is late in the 7 years, even AFTER of the 7 years, NOT the “entire seven years” as Pre-Tribulation rapturists say.

Pre-Tribulationers are also in effect saying, God’s wrath will kill saints. See Revelation 13:6, which shows that many Christians die in the 7 years:

 Then he (the Antichrist) opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, His tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven. ⁷ It was granted to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them…

It also shows that God’s Wrath is only on those who hate Him, not on saints. Nahum 1:2:

He reserves wrath for His enemies

So how can God’s Wrath be in the 7 years? It can’t. But Scripture says that Satan has great wrath (Rev. 12:12). That’s what this 7 years was, through His “son,” the Antichrist.

For the last days, God’s Wrath is not just persecution. If that were so, every time a Chistian is persecuted, does that mean God’s Wrath has begun? No.

Luke 21:16b, 18-19 says:

…they will put some of you to death…  ¹⁸ But not a hair of your head shall be lost. ¹⁹ By your patience possess your souls.

Does it seem odd that “not a hair of your head shall be lost,” yet in the same phrase “they will put some of you to death.” Simple explanation:

God’s Wrath means hell for those under it. Verse 17 says that God’s saints will lose their lives in the 7 years. But in eternity, they lose nothing—they gain heaven. They have not lost anything in the 7 years. We obviously lose hair in this life, but we haven’t lost any hair in eternity.

 We (if it’s us) are forced to choose between a brief time of plenty to eat and no death, for a while—by following the Antichrist’s commands. But that means rejecting belief in God’s way, and in effect, worshipping the Antichrist’s way. That way ends in God’s Wrath, which means hell (Rev. 14:9-11). Your other choice is extreme persecution--even death for a while, but it all ends in heaven--which do you choose? Hopefully you choose to follow God even through Tribulation and death, if your love for Him allowed it; and you are rewarded with heaven.

WHEN IS THE TRIBULATION

All Christians go through tribulation in their lives. But for the last days, here are the references to a greater Tribulation, from the mouth of Jesus:

Matthew 24:4-9

“Take heed that no one deceives you. ⁵ For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. ⁶ And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. ⁷ For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. ⁸ All these are the beginning of sorrows .⁹ “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.

Verses 4-8 are seals 1-3 in Rev. 6, and are clustered together and are called the “beginning of sorrows.” So it makes sense that those events are in the first half of the 7 years. Note that Tribulation is after this.

Mark 13:14,19

“So when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not… “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains…. ¹⁹ For in those days there will be tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the creation which God created until this time, nor ever shall be. ²⁰ And unless the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake, whom He chose, He shortened the days.

Mark mentions ‘abomination of desolation,’ which is in the middle of the 7 (Daniel 9:27). Tribulation follows this too. So Tribulation is after seals 1-3, the first half of the 7; and even after the middle. So Tribulation is the second half of the 7 years. But death and martyrdom (seals 4 and 5 in Rev. 6) are what follows seals 1-3. It makes sense, then, that Tribulation means the death and martyrdom of the saints. This, logically, would happen in the second half of the 7 years, since those acts of violence are after Antichrist reveals himself and shows his hate for Christians and Jews.  

Thus, we conclude that the meaning of Tribulation in the Last Days is limited to the extreme persecution and killing of the Jews and Christians and is limited to the last half of the 7 years.

WILL ALL CHRISTIANS BE IN THE TRIBULATION?

Saints, which refers to Christians, are referred to 14 times in Revelation, so yes, for them. But Pre-Tribulationists say that Christians went through a rapture before, so the only Christians hanging around would be those saints who got saved during the 7.  

I would like to dispute a related Pre-trib argument first: the word “church” is used in chapter 3, but not later. So Pre-tribulationists conclude that that means church members are raptured. But please humor me for a moment that ALL the Christians are still there, no rapture yet. Why, indeed, does God use the word “saints” and not “churches” after Rev. 3? I suspect because many people in many churches will go apostate (Matthew 24, II Thess. 2, and I Timothy 4). Consider Matthew 7:14, which says that “few” would be saved. So it would be improper, after church populations have been decimated by apostasy, to call the remaining faithful “churches;” call them “saints,” because the winnowing of the tares through their apostasy has partly gone on, and mostly saints are what you have left (many of them would be immediately killed by the enemy if they showed up in a church building anyhow, so the word “churches” doesn’t work there either).

For those who argue that John is called up to heaven in Revelation 4:1-2 as a symbol of a pre-Trib rapture, I have one answer: he comes back down to earth in Rev. 13:1. Where does that fit in your future doctrine? No, it’s just a vision mixed with a reality God was showing just him.

FURTHER PROOF THAT ALL CHRISTIANS WILL BE IN THE TRIBULATION

First, a background comment. An advent is defined as “a coming into being or use.” Since Pre-Tribulationists do not believe the rapture is the Second Coming, they must accept that Jesus has three advents. The first one ended in Crucifixion. His next advent was the rapture, a “silent” advent (with cars colliding, planes falling from the sky); then the third one will be His Second Coming—wait, you mean the Third Coming. But Scripture only mentions Two Comings. A problem here for the Pre-Tribs.

ANOTHER PROOF: NOTE THE ITEMS ACCOMPANyING  THE FAVORITE RAPTURE VERSES:

I Thessalonians 4:16-17:

¹⁶ For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

1.   The items: A shout, the voice of the archangel b. Trumpet sounds  c. Christians caught up in the clouds

I Corinthians 15:51-52:

 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— ⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

1.   Trumpet sounds 2. Christians shall be raised (caught up) and changed

COMPARE THIS TO ACKNOWLEDGED SECOND COMING VERSES

Mattthew 24:30-31, which Pre-Tribulationists admit are Second Coming verses:

 ³⁰ Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, 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 His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Note how this mentions a cloud, the gathering together of His elect, with angels, and a trumpet, which are the exact items mentioned in I Thessalonians 4:16-17 and I Corinthians.  But this is at the end of Matthew 24, which has already featured a tribulation in v9. I maintain that the Rapture verses represent the same event as the Second Coming verses. They are one and the same. There is no rapture separate from the Second Coming. Second coming—or rapture--is after Tribulation, just before the Wrath of God.

 

HOW DOES NOAH STILL TIE INTO THE RAPTURE?

Pre-Tribulationists like to say that Noah escaped the Wrath by being in the Ark; therefore, we should “escape the Wrath” as well. But Noah did not take a space ship, he took a boat. The boat tossed him about in all the turmoil of the Flood. They were right there; they could see people dying. Noah suffered through the tribulation, not out away from it.

Considering all the suffering by EVERYBODY, saved and unsaved, I consider it AWOL for God’s “soldiers” (II Timothy 2:3, 4) to fly away from all the suffering and make everybody else go through the tribulation alone. No, they should be there, praying for people, helping people, suffering persecution gladly, death with dignity. Much evangelism will save many more for God’s glory. Especially explaining to them how God should let them suffer so.

IMMINENCE

PreTribulationists believe no event separates us from Rapture, so it is imminent. But consider Matthew 24:32, during the same Olivet Discourse:

“Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. ³³ So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near—at the doors! 

This does not speak of imminence. It says there are hints of other events first. Our hints are: watching the writing of the 7-year Covenant (I assume it will be a global event); and the middle of the 7 years when Antichrist is revealed. Presumably, from those you could count to the end of 7 years and know the day we’re to be raptured. But neither of those will tell the exact day (which is forbidden anyhow). Because the 7 years is cut short to keep us all from being killed--so the rapture date is unknown. See Mark13:19-20:

For in those days there will be tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the creation which God created until this time, nor ever shall be. ²⁰ And unless the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake, whom He chose, He shortened the days.

 

LASTLY, THE ONLY VERSE THAT CONNECTS THE RAPTURE WITH ANOTHER END-TIMES EVENT

Paul was making every effort in Thessalonians to explain the rapture. The people were confused, thinking even that a fake letter from “him” meant the rapture was past. Here he connects the rapture to another important event from II Thess. 2:1-3:

Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, ² not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. ³ Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition…

This says quite clearly that rapture must come AFTER the man of sin, the Antichrist, is revealed. If you see my writing above, that event happens at the middle of the 7 years. That is clear that there will be no pre-trib rapture. It must wait until after the middle of the 7. Based on what we’ve proven, the rapture will be at the end of the 6^th seal, at least.

So after all this, I have a chronology.

1.   The Antichrist makes a covenant with Jews (and possibly others) that will last for 7 years. But in the middle, he breaks it. Daniel 9:27:

Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one seven;
But in the middle of the seven
He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.
And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate

2.   After the “beginning of sorrows” (Matthew 24:8 agrees with Revelation 6’s first 3 horses and first 3 seals—deception, wars, famine, pestilences, earthquakes) for the first half of the 7, then in the middle he reveals himself as a hater and blasphemer and begins to kill Jews and Christians (seals 4-5) in the last half of the 7 years.

Note that no rapture has taken place yet.

3.   Late in the second half, when the Antichrist threatens to kill ALL, Jesus is set to arrive. His arrival has just-preceding signs; Revelation 6:12-13, 17:

…was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. ¹³ And the stars of heaven fell to the earth…¹⁷ For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

4.  Jesus intervenes the Antichrist’s killing for His Second Coming (He advents twice, not three times) and raptures the Christians left alive, in the 6^th seal, before the 7 years are finished. (As Mark 13:20 says He shortened the days).

5.  His Wrath will then begin immediately, as the doomed men in Matthew 24:17 say.

 

So His Second Coming has two purposes; to rapture Christians and believing Jews out (Revelation 6), before He begins the Wrath upon the unbelieving nations (Revelation 8-9). The Wrath of God is different than the wrath of Satan, which is what we see in the 7 years (Revelation 12:12).

 

THE PURPOSE OF THIS PAPER is not to dispute or quarrel; all Christians are brothers. It is to steer you to the possibility that you may indeed go through the tribulation. THERE ARE MANY THINGS YOU COULD DO TO PREPARE FOR THAT POSSIBILITY…A lack of preparation, a mindset too unconcerned, too often means feeling panicky and confused (and open for deception), when the Antichrist reveals himself and it doesn’t “happen as planned.” You could feel betrayal that you were not getting the facts from your pastor or friends.

It seems to be that the opportunity for apostasy is far greater for those people feeling secure by the Pre-tribulation teachers.

by Ron Burnette

6/23/2026