As so many Pollyannas looking through rose colored glasses here in the west, some preterists accuse "doom and gloom" of our futurist brethren, for recognizing that the scriptures call of a "Day of the Lord" which may mean a day of judgment and divine justice against all mankind.
Its a good question. I have some responses in other forums on this topic. Perhaps I'll condense them, later.
The futurw is I believe what we want it to be and believe it be as based on his statutes and revealed truths, will, way and purposes; and how we respond to and operate within those elements. Yhe contined correction of gloom and doom mentality .....
A more proper term would be empathy. Those of us that aren't reclined back in Lazy-Boy chairs in the west, still waiting for news of Christian martyrdom to be aired on the CBS news, recognize that 100,000 to 180,000 Christians are martyred around the world every year largely by Muhammadans with some help from communists. Our hearts are sickened even to the point of physical nausea, about the two million that have been killed or displaced by Muhammadans in the Sudan alone. Christians are martyred and churches burned as Islam takes over Nigeria with a thousand Christians killed in one swoop as the new Muslim government took over the Ivory Coast. Same is going on in Indonesia, Malaysia as well as around the rest of the world. With over 20,000 deadly Islamic terror attacks around the world, just since 9-11. With the western nations continuing to heal the Islamic beast, and its murder and persecution of Christians Jews and other non-Muslims on the increase, all financed by wealth transfer in oil purchase. 52 countries ban or restrict bibles Christian materials and freedoms, while the U.S. bows to China's persecution and censorship, in order to play in their Olympic games.
We can see that today, besides the tiny little strip of land of Israel, virtually 100% of the rest of John's "whole world" has already been subjugated to denying the Son of God and rejecting His shed blood, as articles of their faith in Muhammad. Is already marked by the name of the beast - Islam. Everywhere the scourge of Muhammadanism has any power, we find the murder, mayhem and misery inspired by the spirit of antichrist. All while we witness the church continuing to die in "post-Christian" Europe as churches are converted into mosques by the thousand, during this prophesied apostasy.
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/27...s-into-mosquesWith the continuing insistence on abject blindness of the 20th century preterist and futurist church, still leaving those poor deluded followers of Muhammad hanging out to dry, there is little reason to expect that on average the insular church will continue to do other than continue to apostatize as prophesied. While California protestant churches loan themselves out for Islamic services the Pope and Vatican Council proclaim that "the Moslems" "submit" to God's "inscrutable decrees", even though they prostrate themselves toward the Quraish pagan's black stone idol in Mecca five times a day while praying in the "vain repetitions of the heathen" in the names of the Arabian pagan's deity "Allah" and his "messenger" Muhammad.
Will the whole world be subjugated to denying the Son of God and rejecting His shed blood? If things were to continue at present rates, it would seem before too long indeed, since even Sweden is scheduled to be ruled by a Muhammadan majority under Sharia law within two generations. From some reports Iran already has the nuke, whose leader is committed to to creating and maximizing the greatest period of chaos, murder and mayhem in world history, as he believes is required to prepare the way for the arrival of his awaited "Mahdi" or twelfth Imam. Not long after the U.S. cuts and runs from Afghanistan expect the Taliban to be in control of Pakistani nukes. All of these Muslim states focused more than anything, on hatred of Jews, as bequeathed to them by the false prophet:
Sahih Muslim B41, #6981 Ibn 'Umar reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: You will fight against the jews and you will kill them until even a stone would say: Come here, Muslim, there is a Jew (hiding himself behind me) ; kill him.
Perhaps at the pleasure of some in this forum section.
No, not from doom and gloom, but from empathy we ask - where is the punishment and where is the divine justice against the Muhammadan persecutors of Christians? This Second Jihad in the image of the First Islamic Jihad conquest of nearly the whole known world. Where is the justice against those who snuffed out the Gospel throughout John's "whole world" while slaughtering God's people in the process. The suffering Thessalonians asked the same before us. Paul told them to rest with him, and comforted them by reminding them that when the Lord returns all persecutors living and dead, will get their just desserts during the last giant house cleaning - when divine justice will indeed be done. No more looking upon the horror as this world must appear to our sinless Messiah from His/our kingdom.
The Lord gave the Canaanites 400 years to repent, and finally rather than have them poison His people by causing them fall into the Canaanites ritualistic prostitution, bestiality, and sacrifice of children to idols, He arranged for a great big house cleaning. The Lord has given the world 2,000 years to repent during this Christian era. During that time the largest Coptic church in the world was converted and now sports minarets, in a country that is 100% Islamic. Muhammad's followers OWN John's "whole world" today. As the rest of the world entertains itself with distractions of the things of this world, including a Romanesque fascination with sports, as Christians are murdered all around the world with barely anyone noticing - even hardly Christians because they believe that "great tribulation" was all over and done with in the first century, or is yet to come during some future someday.
The kingdoms of this world have been Satan's legal possession ever since Adam's fall. Every time a Christian helps bring someone into the kingdom of Jesus Christ, we are plundering Satan's domain. The kingdom of Jesus Christ is not of this world. So not surprisingly the world keeps continuing to head in just the direction that we might expect fallen mankind to take it.
So is the Lord going to wait until the whole world is subjugated to denying the Son of God and rejecting His shed blood, the way John's "whole world" does today, and the rest of the whopping 1.5 billion followers of the false prophet Muhammad must, as articles of their faith in him? I don't believe He will allow that any more than He allowed the Canaanites to poison His people. Because your head is stuck in the sands of the first century desert as an ostrich to history, what you perceive as "doom and gloom", for some is a prayerful request that our Lord hasten His return before even more poor souls are claimed by the false prophet Muhammad, and more murder mayhem and misery are perpetrated by his followers. It is a request for divine justice, in the form of a massive sweeping house cleaning, as was arranged for the Canaanites.
Rev 6:10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
"How long, O Lord" indeed. With 100,000 to 180,000 Christians martyred around the world every year.
As C.S. Lewis put it: "God is going to invade this earth in force. But what's the good of saying you're on his side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else, something it never entered your head to conceive comes crashing in. Something so beautiful to us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left. This time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love, or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down, when it's become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing; it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realize it or not. Now, today, in this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever; we must take it or leave it."
We stand on the verge of the greatest tragedy in the history of mankind. One quarter of mankind in the world today must deny the Son of God and reject His shed blood as articles of their faith in Muhammad. A situation that should have the church so alarmed we are heavily mobilized around the clock to help them overcome it. Particularly those of us that still enjoy the freedom to be able to do so, unlike those in Islamic countries who get imprisoned or beheaded, for being honest about Muhammad or simply for being born again into a new life in Christ Jesus. Meanwhile, what's the so-called "church" been doing to try to help those poor deluded souls overcome THE false prophet Muhammad? In comparison to the volume of folks that proclaim themselves to be Christian - doodly squat.
"Oh gee, "the great tribulation" was all over in the first century! Didn't you know that? Oh no, I disagree, "the great tribulation" still hasn't happened yet!"
This with perhaps a hundred million casualties of war in the last century alone.
Even more horrifying to contemplate than the doctrine induced blindness, could Islam be God's punishment on a slumbering and increasingly apostate church, by rewarding it with strong delusion, for allowing the Berean spirit to yield to a loss of a love of truth?
A slumbering church awoke from the dead formalism of Roman Catholicism through the Reformation, when a spark ignited Christianity, and it flourished. Reformers were willing to sacrifice their lives for the truth by whole village fulls. Even walked voluntarily into the flames. What is the church doing to even seek out the truth? Teaching, being taught, and teaching again, the counter-reformation Roman Jesuit inspired inventions of futurism and preterism.
....... needs to be accimpanied by realization of how and why those misinterpretations came about.
I believe it is/will be important to concisely Identify those truths; purposes and way in a sort of abundant and resposible life doctinal statement from a preterist/ fulfilled; Jesus revealed and confirmed; kingdom established view. I have been working on that as well as have others and well as them being found in history past of differing opinions.
It us pissible that the ea rth, society and its people may go through or is going through a time of reaping the fruits of some of the false doctrines and interpretations that have been sown into it, especially dispensationalism and end times mania; evolution; Rom 13; Rom 11; and the futurist end of the world scheme.
not much time for more now.
A person doesn't have to be a John Darby styled dispensationalish/futurist to recognize end time prophecy suggest the end of the world. Or as preterists suggest has already happened! Through the traditional historicist view of prophecy, through which all Jews and Christians understand Old Testament prophecy was fulfilled, and up until a couple of centuries ago the church understood New Testament prophecy was being fulfilled, Christians throughout this Christian era have recognized the prophesies of a day of final judgment and God's justice on the world.
The above includes just more matter of fact reality that preterists refuse to face, like the six million Jews that rule Israel, as the focus of the whole world today. Or the imminent failure of the global economy, resulting from the ever less effective influx, of even more phony money. Some folks in this forum section so focused denigrating Jews they can't even see Islam.
