Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: second coming

  • Psalm 119:123 – Patience

    Psalm 119:123 – Patience

    My eyes have failed looking for your salvation,
    and for your righteous word.

    Any number of people have told me that I shouldn’t pray for patience. If I do, God will doubtless send me all kinds of trials and keep me waiting so as to teach me patience by experience.

    I think it doesn’t matter if you pray for patience or not. You’re going to get an opportunity to learn patience by experience.

    The psalmist is living, well, life! I think we can all relate. From childhood trips when we doubtless drove our parents nuts by asking “are we there yet?” to expectations of other people, to our hopes even in old age for new blessings to come–and even to looking for the end of long sentences–we have opportunities to practice patience.

    Usually we don’t. If you keep wondering why your patience is being tested so much, you might consider whether you are actually gaining patience or just repeating our experience of extended impatience.

    But one of the experiences of Christian life, and yes, the lives of people of other faiths, is that things we hope for, whether they are secular in nature or the result of a perceived promise by God is delay.

    One of the big ones for Christians is the wait for the second coming of Jesus. How are we doing with that?

    Well, I grew up as a Seventh-day Adventist. Back in 1844 (well, first in 1843), Adventists calculated that Jesus would return on October 22, 1844. The history books, not to mention we’re still hanging out on this planet, suggest that prediction wasn’t right.

    I don’t bring up SDAs in order to laugh at them, but rather to point out just how normal is this is. People continuously set dates for the second coming. Many more don’t set dates, but come up with various reasons to declare that the second coming is “really near” now. We’re obviously in the last days, because [list of things we don’t like about the world here].

    In growing up I remember evangelists coming by regularly, and in order to provide the appearance of an audience when really very few visitors showed up, we’d all attend. After a time I started to notice a problem. At one point I remember wondering why Russia (the USSR back then) wasn’t part of the prophecies of the end, considering how much the older folks talked about it. A couple of years later, Russia suddenly appeared in one of these evangelistic meetings as a really-truly sign that the end was really near.

    Our eyes just get worn out reading all the explanations of why the end hasn’t come yet and why we ought to keep hoping for it.

    There’s a good side to staying on the watch for God’s promises. I think that’s what the psalmist is pointing out. No matter what has happened, no matter how long he has had to look, he has kept hoping. That is a good thing.

    Trying to make up the result you want–not so much. Perhaps we would be better to “evangelize” about the good news that Jesus loves you now and invites you into his family, rather than trying to pin down the time when he appears in the clouds. Making new predictions can just be wearing on our eyes and our hopes.

    And as someone pointed out to me today, the one thing we can’t do is give up. Ultimately that is what patience is about. We practice patience when we keep moving forward and don’t give up.

    What opportunities will you have to practice patience today? Will you take advantage of them, or will you just demonstrate your skill at impatience?

  • Hammering the Word SOON

    Jesus is coming soonI already mentioned that I’m in the final stages of publishing a new book Eschatology: A Participatory Study Guide by Edward W. H. Vick. One of the things that Dr. Vick emphasizes is the abuse of the word “soon” in Christian teaching and preaching. There is a problem with definitions if you repeatedly claim that something is soon and then it doesn’t happen. On the one hand, if you define “soon” so that it has meaning, you have the problem of the prediction failing. On the other, if you keep “soon” vague enough to protect yourself from the failure charge, you generally make it meaningless, “nonsense” in the technical sense, as in lacking any meaningful sense. Dr. Vick even wrote a book on precisely that topic, The Adventists’ Dilemma.

    I must confess that I suggested reducing the time spent discussing the way the word “soon” has been used in the church. It’s interesting, but just how central is it to most Christians’ thinking? Well, I don’t know about most Christians, but abuse of the word “soon” or any of its related topics, such as “knowing the times” and so forth, is rampant. We’ve just gotten over the prediction of the second coming in 2011, and now we have another one (HT: Dispatches).

    Dr. F. Kenton Beshore, of World Bible Society, doesn’t claim a specific date, but provides a range of years over which the rapture and then the second coming should be expected. (I use the title “Dr.” out of courtesy, though the bio on the World Bible Society website does not specify where any of them were earned, usually a bad sign. In addition, a couple of the degrees are normally honorary.) His claim is that the rapture should occur between now and 2021 and then the second coming seven years after that. Those who are acquainted with popular literature on Revelation will doubtless note that Beshore is pre-trib based on these numbers.

    The reasoning behind this position, such as it is, is similar to Hal Lindsey’s belief that Jesus will return before the end of the generation that saw Israel reestablished as a nation in the promised land.

    It would be hard for me to comment in detail, except to note that the entire rapture, seven-year tribulation, and second coming scheme is produced through a hodge-podge of proof-texting. It’s not even as convincing as your average proof-text usage. The relationship between the various passages involved is more than doubtful. I believe it is popular, and seems plausible to many, for the same reason that action movies are popular. They’re exciting and satisfying, with plenty of action and suspense followed by a comforting resolution. The major argument in favor of a pre-tribulation rapture is similar. It’s comforting to think that before all the bad things happen, God’s people (in which group readers confidently place themselves) are removed from the scene.

    Reality, however, even the reality of life with God, is not as satisfying to our selfish desires as an action movie. God’s people have been left to live through times of trouble many times. They are never alone, thank God, but they are often in difficulty.

    One can get great comfort from a prediction of the end. It gives one such a sense of control, and such a fine feeling of safety. Bad things will happen to others, but not to the believer. Uncertainty is for others. The believer knows.

    But over and over such “knowing” has proven to be false. There’s no more reason to believe this result than any of the preceding ones.

    The word “soon” (or various ways of saying something similar) is being abused again.