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.