Blogging through Revelation - part 3

Mid - Awakening Views

In April of 1978, I was formally recognized and ordained as the Upper Room Fellowship's lead pastor. With a little bit of theology under my belt I began to have more of an "opinion" on the end times. Whenever I spoke or taught "from the pulpit" I would advise people on adopting a post-tribulational view of the rapture for the reasons I mentioned in my previous post. Our church fellowship was also closely connected with similar fellowships that had been birthed during the Jesus Movement. Much of the teaching that we connected with supported and encouraged Christians to be prepared to go through the Tribulation.

Within the leadership of the Upper Room we learned all kind of practical things in preparing for difficult times. We bought wheat grinders and wheat and learned how make our own bread. We stored up water and food and bought water purifiers. We learned how to can and how to dry and store food. We subscribed to Mother Earth News and bought all the Foxfire books. We began to ask ourselves what we would do when we couldn't buy toilet paper and tampons. (Really! Well, what would you do if knew you were going to go through the tribulation? I remember one girl saying being without tampons would be the Great Tribulation! Even today I have a list of "Tribulation Food" - things I would only eat if I had to - oatmeal is at the top of this list for me.)

Actually all this was practical stuff which could be used in any natural or national disaster. I never regret doing any of it or learning about it. And we did it all without a sense of panic. We believed not in our resources but in One who was His people through all kinds of tribulations.

In 1988 another end time book hit the "fan". Wikipedia gives the details:

Edgar C. Whisenant (September 25, 1932 – May 16, 2001) was a Bible student who predicted the Rapture would occur in 1988, sometime between Sept. 11 and Sept. 13. He published two books about this: 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988 and On Borrowed Time. Eventually, 300,000 copies of 88 Reasons were mailed free of charge to ministers across America, and 4.5 million copies were sold in bookstores and elsewhere. Whisenant was quoted as saying "Only if the Bible is in error am I wrong; and I say that to every preacher in town," and "[I]f there were a king in this country and I could gamble with my life, I would stake my life on Rosh Hashana 88." [1]

Whisenant's predictions were taken seriously in some parts of the evangelical Christian community. As the great day approached, regular programming on the Christian Trinity Broadcast Network (TBN) was interrupted to provide special instructions on preparing for the Rapture.

I was one of the ministers that received Edgar's book for free. I only looked at it to see how many of his 88 points he got wrong (in my humble opinion). I doubted Edgar's predictions would hold true.

In 1988, September 11 came and went like normal. No rapture on the 12th or 13th either.

I became tired of predictions and charts. If people living in the first century couldn't discern Jesus coming in their day and time why did we think we would be able to figure out his second coming in ours?

Blogging Through Revelation - Part 2

In March of 1975 I traveled traveled out to Los Angeles California to enroll in the spring quarter classes of the newly forming Melodyland School of Theology. (Melodyland was an actual theater/bar across the street from Disneyland that Ralph Wilkerson had bought and converted into a church then added a school of theology where he attracted a lot of high profile charismatic teachers. Each class actually began with a period of worship and prayer and occasionally these times would preempt the planned lesson! At 18 years of age I thought this is was pretty awesome for a school.) Being in the midst of charismatic theology (if there was such a thing) "end time teaching" and charts and dispensations seemed to abound.

While I was enrolled at Melodyland I made Calvary Chapel my "home" church which featured the Marantha Singers (a name like that ought to give you a clue as to there being some end times emphasis). Chuck Smith, the founder and pastor, was a good bible teacher and espoused a pre-millennial pre-tribulational rapture view. (After only a few months in California I had some new lingo to throw around!)

My Christian Doctrine III class that quarter was the first time I heard the term "eschatology" (or at least the first time I was paying attention - there was going to be test this time!) (Eschatology means "the study of the last things" from the Greek "eschatos " meaning "last" and "-ology" meaning "study of", or more literally, "word of"). The professor of this class did a real good job in laying out the major views of the end times not only commonly held today but throughout church history. I became exposed to pre-millennial, post-millennial, and a-millennial views referring to the 1000 year reign of Christ after the "rapture". Ahhh, the rapture - when was that going occur? Before the "Tribulation" (Pre), after it (Post), or in the middle of it (Mid)? And the book of Revelation was it prophetic/apocalyptic, poetic, or historical, literal/spiritual in it's eschalogical interpretation? Our professor laid it all out there and said they all had scriptural support and different views were prevalent at different times of history. Right now it seemed apparent that in the 1970's in Southern California a Pre-tribulational Pre-millenial literalist interpretation of the book of Revelation was the happening thing!

Remember, Hal Lindsay was saying that the earth, as we know it, was doomed - real soon! here's how the thinking went: Israel received nation status in 1948; a generation was about 40 years; the world would be destroyed with fire after the Great Tribulation; if Jesus was going to come back for the church before the destruction - probably 7 years before that, maybe 3 1/2. This return was REAL close to 1975! Don't think I wasn't thinking about this stuff!

As for me at this time - I was still praying my same prayer "Come Lord Jesus, please, after I'm married". I also began to adopt a "Pan -millennial" view - I figured it would all pan out in the end. And since Jesus said no one knew the hour of his return I figured you better hold all of these views rather loosely.

But I remember thinking - if push came to shove - I mean if someone shoved me into a view, I would pick - I would "be" a "Post-Triber" concerning the rapture. It seemed to make the most sense from what Jesus said - if no one was going to know the exact time but we were to be prepared then why not hold to a Post-tribulational view of the rapture? If Jesus did decide to come back before the Great Tribulation then, oops, I guess I was wrong but at least I was ready. Being "right" on my end time view didn't seem to be a requirement to "make" the rapture but being "ready" did.

Blogging Through Revelation

Hello friends out there! As you can see I have been silent for some time.

I've been "challenged" - so I'm going to try to reenter the blogosphere. This post is an acceptance of the invitation issued by my friend Paul Dazet to begin a study in the book of Revelation. Along with Ben Yost we are going to be taking a fresh look at this last book of the Bible posting our thoughts and encouraging discussion as we blog along.

So my first "challenge" is to relate how my view on the "end times" have been formed, influenced and changed during my journey. And rather than post this part all at once ('cause as you can see I'm not used to writing so much at one time). I'll break it down into three sections "Pre-awakening views"; "Mid- awakening views" and "Post -awakening views.

PRE - awaking views

I made an intentional decision to follow Christ when I was 14 years old. In fact I remember the time and place where I did that - it was at an altar in the front of the Methodist Church in Columbiana on a Sunday morning in March of 1969. Prior to that time I had no real strong thought about the "end times". I know we recited a creed occasionally where we proclaimed that we believed God was going "judge the quick and the dead". I had a clear sense that God was going to someday make everything right - that love would eventually win - that doing the right thing mattered as much for now as for a future time.

But after I made this conscience decision to follow Jesus and learn and do what He taught I quickly became more aware of "end time teaching". As I began to really read the Bible for myself - apart from the verses and stories I learned in over 10 years of Sunday School (hey - how's come nobody ever got held back in Sunday School?) - I saw how the early Christians really lived with a sense that Jesus would return to earth someday. My parents began taking us to conferences and to hear speakers who spoke about things I never heard about in the church I grew up. (I had no idea I was becoming an "evangelical" at the time!) Invitations were often given to be sure we were "ready" for Christ's return and I began to seriously think about "end times stuff".

I remember actually praying something along these lines - "Jesus, I know you are going to return and I want to want you to return but if you could please wait until I got married I would appreciate that." At 14 years of age I had a real "fear" that Jesus was going to return before I had a chance to have sex - and I didn't want him to return to catch having sex before I was
married.

My first real "car" that I got to claim as my own was a two-tone brown and white Ford Econoline cargo van that happened to missing a front bumper. I got a 2 by 12 piece of wood from the lumber yard, fashioned it into a bumper and painted the words "Jesus Is Coming" in hot pink psychedelic letters. I thought it would be real cool if people saw that message coming head on down the road or in their rear view mirrors. And apparently I thought it was important that people think about Jesus return and be ready for it.

Another thing that greatly "influenced" me during this time was Hal Lindsay's book "The Late Great Planet Earth" that came out in 1970. This book pushed to the top of the nonfiction best seller list in that year and sold over 9 million copies by 1978. Focusing on apocalyptic passages in Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation, Lindsay speculated that these climatic events would take place some time in the 1980’s. A large part of this was based upon the idea of this being the length of one generation from the time of the recognition of Israel as a nation in 1948.

Now I put “influenced” in quotes because I never really ever read this book. I remember people kept talking about it but I didn’t want to read it. Partly because in 1970 I was a Freshman in High School and only read what I had to read for school. But the real inner reason was I was afraid and disappointed - I didn’t want to look at this possibility that the world was going to end before I had the chance to really experience the adult things in life like getting married, having kids, owning a house and a car – living the American Dream I was promised as a baby boomer.

This book – though I never read it – set me up for things like this... One day after school I came home and found no one in the house, which was VERY unusual as my dad had his business at home. I called all through out the house – upstairs, downstairs, in the basement. No answer from brother or sister or mom or dad. Panic flooded my mind and my heart raced – oh, no the rapture occurred and I was left behind! It was real serious panic only to be relieved by finally finding my parents.

And somehow the title of the book really influenced me though I never opened it’s intimidating cover which depicted the entire earth ablaze with fire. It became fixed in my mind - the planet earth was doomed to die and be destroyed.