A brother wrote:
"The evangelical world has focused too much on the 2nd coming (movies, the Left Behind series of books, etc.) Many Christians (myself included) failed to take advantage of the opportunities available to them, and looked away from a lot of situations we should have fixed or at least worked on. For many of us the attitude has been; 'Why work on poverty or inequality or AIDS; the world is going to hell and we are going to be raptured out of here anyway'. In response to this some of us would say: 'Whether or not Jesus comes back tomorrow, next week or 100 years from now is not the point of our being here. There is work that needs to be done and God has put us here. Let's concentrate on the work at hand and if Jesus comes back this year; Good. If he doesn't: That's OK too."
I agree.
As a premillenialist, I don't really expect anything short of Our Lord's second coming to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth, but we should be found doing our Lord's work when He comes. Consider the following:
And the Lord said, `Who, then, is the faithful and prudent steward whom the lord shall set over his household, to give in season the wheat measure? Happy that servant, whom his lord, having come, shall find doing so; truly I say to you, that over all his goods he will set him. `And if that servant may say in his heart, My lord doth delay to come, and may begin to beat the men-servants and the maid-servants, to eat also, and to drink, and to be drunken; the lord of that servant will come in a day in which he doth not look for [him], and in an hour that he doth not know, and will cut him off, and his portion with the unfaithful he will appoint. `And that servant, who having known his lord's will, and not having prepared, nor having gone according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes, and he who, not having known, and having done things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few; and to every one to whom much was given, much shall be required from him; and to whom they did commit much, more abundantly they will ask of him. (Luke 12:42-48, Young's Literal Translation.)
There is nothing about eternal torment in this passage, but it does speak of judgment, and it's clearly speaking of believers.
Before going further, I must say that I still see no truth in preterism or amillennialism. Our Lord said that His Kingdom was not of this age, and the mistaken idea that the age had come (called Amillennialsm) is what led to the inquisitions and crusades of the past. This view was championed by Augustine, who also championed eternal torment, the damnation of infants, and the torture of heretics. Augustine lived under the reign of Constantine (who called himself a Christian, and favored the Church), the imperial persecutions were past, and it may well have looked as though the earthly kingdom had arrived--But I believe history shows this to have been a false hope (and it was Augustine's view of the Church as the kingdom on earth that led him to justify the persecution of heretics, and provided a later generation with a rationel for the inquistion.) It is certain that the nations of earth have yet to turn all their resources to peaceful purposes, and to cease to learn war (as we're told they will in Isaiah 2:4), so it's both certain that we're not now living in the millennium, and that the millennium is not in our past. What is perhaps not so certain is how it will come. The coming of Our Lord on a white horse (followed by the armies of heaven--Rev. 19) could be metaphorical, but we're clearly told that Our Lord will one day return in the same way He left (Acts 1:11.)
The belief that this literal second coming is what ushers in His earthly Kingdom is called premillennialism, and the belief that it follows the millennium is called postmillennialism.
While I remain a premillennialist, I believe the postmillennial interpretation is more plausible than either amillennialism. or preterism (and whichever view is true, we should be found doing Our Lord's work when He comes.)
God Bless.
Return Home
Note: Most dispensational pre-millennialists (myself included) take Ezekiel's Temple literally, and believe the sacrifices Ezekiel spoke of will be memorials of Christ's sacrifice offered in the millennial Temple. That is my understanding (and perhaps this is why Paul spoke of the Christian communion service as picturing Christ's sacrifice only "until He comes"--1 Cor. 11:26.). That said, there is an alternate interpretation that is perhaps more compatible with a post-millennial view. This interpretation is based on Ezekiel 43:10-11, and regards the details of the Temple as meant to be taken literally by Ezekiel's generation, even though the Temple itself would never be built (God knowing that all Israel would not return to Him with all their heart at that time, and that there would be no place for such a Temple by the time they did.) Time will tell which interpretation is correct, and until then we all see through a glass darkly (1 Cor. 13:12.)