Sunday’s Notes
“Popular Protestant Preaching put into Proper Preterist Perspective”

A Critique of “War of the Worlds Views” By Gary West - 21 August 2005

The issue in this series of sermons is the Christian world view vs. the secular world view. Dealing with the new age humanist mindset vs. the mind of Christ. In his sermon, Pastor West uses the proper view of a “world view.”

- It is a set of suppositions that each person holds about how the world works and how we fit into it. It is what we believe to be true and untrue. It forms the basis of our values and determines how we behave.

My initial reaction to this is to want to hear how he describes the world view of a Christian and what texts he uses when discussing it. He begins by calling it a Judeo-Christian world view. He says that we both (Jews and Christians) believe in “the wisdom of God.” That Genesis 1:1 is literal and that God is responsible for this world and has created order and structure. “All meaning flows from Him.”

I agree with this definition. The proof text he uses from scripture is where I, as a preterist Christian, start to take issue with the sermon.

Initially the pastor called it a “Judeo-Christian” world view. I agree that though we both believe that all wisdom and meaning comes from God, I disagree that Jews and Christians can be on the same path of reasoning as to the outcome of Gods plan for this world. Jews believe in the success and domination of a race, they do not believe in Christ. Christians should believe in the domination of the reign of Christ through His people. Not that this is a governmental or military type reign, but that our influence is so far reaching, that the world, knowingly or ignorantly, is established in the #1 statue of Christ, to love one another.

The proof text he uses is as follows, and will go to show why a “Judeo-Christian world view” is the wrong title.

1 Cor 2:6 However, among the mature we do speak a wisdom, but not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 On the contrary, we speak God's hidden wisdom in a mystery, which God predestined before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age knew it, for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as it is written: What no eye has seen and no ear has heard, and what has never come into a man's heart, is what God has prepared for those who love Him. (Holman)

He asserts that the “rulers of this world” are the anti-Christian elements in today’s society. This is an uninformed assumption that is made by 99 percent of protestant preachers. However, this assumption cannot be correct. The historical context of this chapter is, like the entire New Testament, an encouragement for the Christian to stay on the path of Christ in spite of anti-Christian persecution from the Jews outside the church, and to refrain from the temptations of sin that are spreading in the Church.

Almost the entire New Testament was written to encourage them to not fall into the Judaism trap. This is why the text reads in (NLT) “But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would never have crucified our Lord.” This had to be speaking of the Jews, for it is they whom the Christians held solely responsible for the death of Christ. As Christ said it would be.

Matt 23:34 This is why I am sending you prophets, sages, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues and hound from town to town. 35 So all the righteous blood shed on the earth will be charged to you, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.

Christ was speaking of Himself as well as those He was sending. “All the righteous blood shed on the earth” is exactly that. The Jews even proclaimed His blood upon their own heads. This separates the idea that today’s view could be a “Judeo-Christian” one. It must be a Christian world view. It was the ideals of the law-zealous Jews that his own proof text speaks of that was in direct opposition of the ideals of Christians and the wisdom of the Spirit.

Christians must wake up to the fact that God does not have a Judeo mindset. It was this Judaist mindset that was the number one enemy of Christ in the first century. God the Father has only one covenant with man and it is the grace covenant bought by the blood of Christ.

TO BE CONTINUED…

"Remember Pella"

I can think of no more encouraging phrase to say to one of my brothers or sisters than to "remember Pella." In the surrounding of Jerusalem in AD 66, faithful Christians who remembered the words of Christ in Luke 21:20-22, fled the city of Jerusalem just in time to escape the destruction. Though under publicised, this fulfillment of prophecy in the first century was extremely significant. It signaled the on time, on target, parousia of Christ.

Some might ask why the flight of Christians from a city doomed to destruction, with nothing on their backs or in their possession other than the clothes they wore, could encourage a fellow believer. What can cause the plight of a few to uplift the hearts of the many today? The answer is "fulfilled faith."

Experiencing the fulfillment of your hopes and desires, to its utmost capacity, has got to be the most rewarding, joyful, encouraging experience that a person can go through. The Christians who fled to Pella were not simply running for their lives. Approximately 37 years removed from the blessed sermons of their Lord, Christ Jesus, these people were holding onto a faith that had been attacked, persecuted, and doubted throughout the entire Roman world. Though the Christian faith kept growing, the Christians of Jewish decent living in the capitol city of Jerusalem, were faced with the daily torment of the temple, its laws, and its leaders who sought their lives. Their battle was not just against the men who sought to kill them physically, but it was a matter of the heart. They needed to keep the faith that their Messiah fulfilled the law, and would soon come to destroy those who held the law above God. The zealous Jews who wanted the death of these few, held the power. To get caught up in the anti-Roman, pro-law wave that was sweeping over Jerusalem in the mid first century would lead to their ruin. It would lead to apostacy. The survival of these Christians, and even Christianity, rested in the faithfulness of Christ to do what He said, when He said He would do it (Matt 23:31-38, Matt 24-25, Luke 21, Matt 16:27-28). He MUST prove faithful.

So again, imagine your faith being justified, vindicated, and carried out right before your eyes. You may leave with nothing, you might have had even the closest relatives leave the faith and get swept up in the Zionist rebellion, but you have your very soul vindicated. Christ destroyed the wicked in fire in AD 70, while you observed this vindication, and showed to the entire world once and for all that the law held no power. The man who proclaimed Himself as the Son of God was for real, His voctory was complete, and His word was true. He really IS the resurrection and the life. He really DID crush the head of satan and defeat death. Everything He said MUST be true, because his prophecy of His return did occur how and when He said it would. You have life now. You have salvation. It is not a hope waited for, it is a hope realized. It is not a faith unseen, but a fact very much observed.

So if you are around a few joyful, confident Christians, and they say to you "remember Pella," then you know they have a faith that is unshaken. They have closed their eyes and imagined being the most destitute, richest men in the world. They have envisioned themselves running out of a doomed city into the hills, with no money, food, or earthly hope, and witnessing the salvation of their souls, and the defeat of death. They truly were the happiest people to ever live on the face of this earth.

So when your debts get you down, your relationships take a sour turn, a loved one dies, your car dies, your hope fades...remember Pella. You cannot be any worse off in the physical realm concerning temporal things than those Christian, but you are every bit as qualified to rejoice. You too have a fulfilled hope, a factual faith. You are not waiting for a salvation that is nearer than when you first believed, it is already accomplished. Death is powerless, the law is dead and grace abounds. When life gets you down, close your eyes, envision crossing the Jordan with nothing, yet being able to soar above the clouds with unbridaled joy, because your Lord IS God, and He has proven Himself faithful, and the gates of hell not only cannot prevail against you, they do not exist for you.