Simply-Christian

 (03/16/2007-Cleaned up grammar mistakes, and other housekeeping.)

I wanted to share my eschatology journey so as to give a background to where I have come from. This is from my memory, which my wife will tell you isn’t very good so when I discuss the Jehovah’s Witnesses doctrine, I am recalling what I remember about the teaching at that time and it is quite possible it is not exactly what they taught. There may be more, but these are the doctrines that always stood out. So with that disclaimer out of the way, let me begin.

For as long as I can remember of my youth, I attended Jehovah Witnesses(JW) meetings, assemblies and conventions up until I was 16. I was never baptized, but did go door to door in my younger years until the JW’s changed who could go door to door. What I recall believing about end-times is this: Armageddon was imminent, meaning it could happen at any moment. I recall nothing being required to occur before Christ’s Second Coming and don’t recall any sort of rapture. 144,000 JW’s would goto heaven and the rest would stay on paradise on Earth. I remember seeing pictures of children playing with animals that you would not play with today (i.e. lions, tigers, etc.) This was basically a return to the garden of Eden before the fall. This would last for 1000 years, and Satan would be loosened.

Now I distinctly remember thinking that just because you made it into the millennium by no means were you safe from death. I remember thinking that after 1000 yrs., believers would be tempted one more time of sin. I thought, man, just one sinful thought after 1000 years and that is it. I can see this being true in the JW sense because of their focus on a works-based salvation.

So that was pretty much what I thought for a long time. I had never read the bible on my own, only read verses during when I studied with JW’s so I didn’t know what was said. Around when I was 18 years old I talked to Watchman Fellowship’s Jeff Walker and there I learned the truth about the JW’s. He didn’t discuss end times issues other than with regard to their false prophecies regarding the end of the world.

Fast forward a few years and I get married and my wife and I started reading and listening to the Left Behind series. This was probably my first exposure to the pre-tribulation rapture that I can recall. I think we listened to the first book on cd, second one on tape, and then the third book we read together. We did not finish the third book because I thought the graphic description of what happened to a man’s hand when it was shot was unbecoming of a Christian novel. I don’t remember getting too much theology from these books: they seemed intent on entertainment and not education. I might have thought their has to be something wrong with these books if they are so popular but that was about it.

About a year or so later we start attending a local Baptist church on Sunday nights. I don’t recall any discussions of end times matters at that time. After I changed jobs in 2002 I was available on Sunday mornings to attend regular services. Again, the pastor rarely (and I am fairly certain never) discussed end times issues in the pulpit. The only time I remember discussing the various views of the end times was in bible study class with the pastor: and he seemed intent on not taking any sides. I think that was in 2003 which was also about the same time I started studying other biblical issues on the internet. I became a believer in March 2002.

In reading about reasons against celebrating Christmas online, I found a site that critiqued the Left Behind books. Now, this site wasn’t disputing the dispensational theology of the books but it had problems for instance with the pope being raptured, New Age elements and other issues. I too agreed with the conclusions and didn’t really care for the books or any Christian fiction in general. I still hadn’t development an end times doctrine around that time. About a year after becoming a believer I started reading the New Testament. Before that, I bought a daily reading bible based on the NIV so I could get a summary of the bible before I read it myself. I was being turned off by the comments of the authors of the study bible which I soon found were reflective of modernism. (This by the way, was a catalyst which got me into studying the bible version issue.)

I hope it is evident to this point that if anything, I did not have a firm doctrine of the end times, outside of what I had been taught by the JW’s. I didn’t have anything taught to me in Sunday school, I didn’t swallow the words of my pastor without question-I didn’t believe something because it was what I was taught without testing it by the scriptures. I didn’t believe in dispensationalism and watch A Thief in the Night every year at church.

At my last job I had a fair amount of time on the internet which I used to study different topics (I worked for extended family). Two site I can recall benefiting me are:

Last Trumpet
Truth Keepers

I will admit the historical evidence showing only one Second Coming of Christ and no secret rapture was beneficial to me. I then looked at the end time scriptures in the NT with an emphasis on the plain words of Scripture, and the truth was so clear! I remember saying stuff to myself like “Ok, Brandon, now was does this really mean?, ” “Let the plain words speak and not somebody else.” The words jumped right off the page, it is so clear. I then took my wife, who was a self-proclaimed “pan-millennialists”, meaning it will all pan out in the end, through the NT with a focus on just what is being said. She too was convinced early in the study and doesn’t understand how anyone can come to a different conclusion. I believe the reason that their is a lack of historical evidence before 1830 is because any student of the bible who read the scriptures for what they said all came to basically the exact conclusion of only one Second Coming of Christ. I firmly believe if you went into a new mission field, converted 100 heathens to Christianity from people who knew nothing of the bible, gave them a bible and asked them to tell you how many times Christ returns after his resurrection, they would all say ONCE! The only way to get more then that is to buy into dispensationalism and all it’s trappings.

I forget to mention where I am today. Well, I am wanting to studying how the NT interprets the OT in regards to prophecy. I am having a very difficult time populating people in a literal 1000 years after the second coming of Christ. If all the wicked are destroyed at his coming, and believers are given immortal bodies and are no longer given into marriage (thus not having children) who is left?

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 25th, 2005 at 6:08 pm and is filed under Christianity, Dispensationalism, End times. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.