Five Reasons Why Christians Should Reconsider Their View of the End Times
The Bible foretells an optimistic future for the church and the world
Many believers do not know there is more than one theory about the events leading up to the return of Christ at the culmination of history. The predominant view is called premillennial dispensationalism, a perspective that has been made popular in recent times by Tim LaHaye’s fictional Left Behind series.
In this model, the situation in the world continually degenerates as the forces of darkness gain power and influence. Things really go south in a final seven-year period known as the Great Tribulation. During this time, a sinister world figure, called the Antichrist, arises to take control of politics, financial markets, and religious worship. He even proclaims himself to be a god as he seeks to wipe out every vestige of true faith.
But Christians are spared from the horrors of this time because Jesus will make a mid-air return to take them out of the world just prior to the seven-year period in an event called the rapture.
At the end of the Great Tribulation, Jesus returns physically to earth, bringing all true believers with Him, to destroy the Antichrist and to set up His millennial kingdom which will last for 1,000 years.
The term “premillennial” is used because, in this model, Christ returns to rule on the earth prior to His 1000 year reign.
I became a Christian, as a teenager, in the early 1970s. A book by Hal Lindsey titled The Late Great Planet Earth was wildly popular at the time, having become a million+ best seller. In this work, Lindsey postulated that when Israel became a nation again in 1948, this started a prophetic clock that would culminate in the rapture and the beginning of the Great Tribulation.
A biblical “generation” is generally understood to be 40 years. This is important, according to Lindsey, because Jesus presumably was referring to Israel in this passage in the Olivet Discourse, a long sermon where Jesus discusses the signs of His coming and the end of the age:
From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.(Matthew 24:32–34, ESV)
Israel’s reestablishment as a nation is presumed to be the budding fig tree. A generation of 40 years means that the things Jesus discussed in the Olivet Discourse would take place before the year 1988. No wonder so many Christians in the 1970s were excited about Lindsey’s book! Jesus’ return could be very soon!
As I became older and matured in my faith, I found that most Christians held to this view of the end times. I honestly did not know there were any other end-time models…until I read two different books that espoused a view generally known as postmillennialism. These books were Paradise Restored by David Chilton, and Last Days Madness by Gary DeMar.
When Jesus rose from the dead He ascended to heaven and is now seated at the right hand of the Father where He is currently ruling over the world’s affairs and reigning over the church. Postmillennialists assert that the time period we are living in now, called the “church age,” is the 1,000-year millennial reign described in Revelation 20.
Jesus Christ is actively working through the church, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to gradually bring the fullness of His kingdom to the earth over a long time period. The number 1,000 is believed to be symbolic for this extended period of time.
A key understanding about the postmillennial view is that most of the passages premillennialists use to talk about the approaching end times were actually fulfilled when Jerusalem was destroyed and the temple was leveled by the Roman armies in 70 AD.
Jesus’ Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 and most of the book of Revelation are foretelling the events leading up to the horrible destruction of Jerusalem, the stone-by-stone demolition of the temple (which, incidentally, did occur within a 40-year generation of Jesus’ predictions), and the dismantling of the Jewish sacrificial system and the associated traditions.
This was a judgment “coming” of Jesus Christ that is not His final coming at the end of history. He judged those unbelieving Jews who rejected Him while putting a final end to the old order.
So much more could be said about the postmillennial model. I suggest you read the books mentioned above to gain a more robust knowledge of why this view is thoroughly biblical.
Leaving these details behind, here are five “big picture” reasons why an optimistic view of the future, as proposed by postmillennialism, is one that the patriarchs, Jesus, and the apostles all espoused.
‘God’s favorite Bible verse’
One verse in the Old Testament is referenced and quoted by the New Testament authors more frequently than any other OT verse. Here it is:
The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” (Psalm 110:1, ESV)
David, the author of this Psalm, states that the LORD (God the Father) commands his Lord (the coming Messiah) to sit at His right hand. This happened at Christ’s ascension. The Father tells the Christ that He is to stay put UNTIL all His enemies are made His footstool.
One place in the New Testament where this verse is referenced is in 1 Corinthians 15. Paul, the author of this letter, is clarifying what will happen in the resurrection on the final day. He says:
Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Corinthians 15: 24–26, ESV)
The last enemy, which is destroyed in the general resurrection at His coming on the last day, is death. This is the actual “rapture” of believers, and it takes place at the same time as His return.
Jesus will return to earth once He has vanquished His enemies.
This means all other enemies will have been “put under His feet” while He was/is seated at the Father’s right hand. If Christ makes a “mid-air” return in the rapture and resurrects all believers prior to defeating the Antichrist and all other enemies (as in the premillennial view), then death is the first enemy to be defeated, not the last. Premillennialists have it backward.
The Kingdom of God starts small and grows gradually
Typically, in scripture, the Kingdom of God is pictured as starting out small, almost inconspicuously, and growing over time to become prominent.
In Daniel 2, a stone that was “cut out by no human hand” smashes the image in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, as interpreted by the prophet Daniel, and becomes a great mountain that filled the entire earth and will never be destroyed. It is clear that this stone is the Kingdom of God as revealed by Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry.
This motif of the kingdom starting out very small but then growing to fill the earth was also repeated by Jesus in the parable of the tiny mustard seed that grows to become a large tree and in the parable of the tiny bit of leaven that leavened three measures of flour (Matthew 13: 31–33).
In the premillennial view, it’s the kingdom of darkness, not the Kingdom of God, that grows to fill the entire earth. Once again, the proponents of this view have it entirely backward.
The Lord’s Prayer and the Great Commission
In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught the disciples how they should pray, reciting what we now call The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9–13). In it, Jesus beseeches the Father:
Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10, ESV)
Jesus tells His disciples to pray for and work toward God’s kingdom to be realized on the earth as it is now operating in heaven. He told the disciples to pray that His kingdom would come and His will would be done now, in this time before the second coming.
Would Jesus tell the disciples to pray for something that could never happen?
Similarly, after His resurrection and just prior to His ascension, Jesus reminds His disciples that He is now in charge as He gives them their marching orders:
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. (Matthew 28:18–20, ESV)
Jesus’ followers are to go out and disciple the nations. A disciple is a “disciplined follower.” Jesus doesn’t say “Go therefore and make some converts in places all over the world.” Instead, they are to go out and win the world to the point where it can be said that the nations have become disciplined followers of the ruling and reigning Christ.
Would Jesus tell them to do something that He knew they would, eventually, fail at doing? Do you believe the church is going to be victorious in history as the Lord commanded? Not if you follow the premillennialist way of thinking!
The righteous are established and evil people are removed
All through scripture, God establishes a pattern that those who hate and rebel against Him are the ones who are taken away. The great flood of Noah’s day, the children of Israel displacing the wicked Canaanites, and later the Babylonian exile of the apostate Israelites are all examples.
The righteous, on the other hand, remain and are established so they can continue filling the earth and subduing it (Genesis 1:28).
Once again, premillennialists have things reversed. In their model, the rebellious eventually have dominance on the earth, and the righteous are taken away in the rapture. But Jesus says:
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. (Matthew 5:5, ESV)
‘But things are bad and getting worse…’
One concern typically rises above all others when I’ve discussed end-times views with Christian friends. In almost every conversation they cite Paul’s warning in his second letter to Timothy:
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless …lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. (2 Timothy 3:1–5, ESV)
Admittedly, these verses do render a fairly accurate description of the days we live in now. But they also describe many other time periods throughout church history. And the kicker…they perfectly describe the days just before Christ’s coming in judgment on the apostate Jews in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas in 70 AD.
You can’t interpret scripture using current events. This has happened hundreds of times in Christian history. Every time prognosticators have made specific predictions about the end of the world they’ve been wrong. Hal Lindsey was wrong in his timing. Tim LaHaye was wrong when he and others very strongly hinted that the time around the year 2000 could trigger “the final meltdown.”
The Bible, not the newspaper, should be used as the primary guide in our interpretations about the things to come.
I’ve given you a very brief description of an alternate way to view the future, one that is biblical and optimistic. I hope you’ve been challenged to do more study on your own!
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