Kenneth L. Gentry Jr.'s Blog, page 87

DISPENSATIONAL SCARE-MONGERING. AGAIN.

[image error]PMW 2017-053 by Gary DeMar (American Vision)

Once again, prophecy prognosticators are predicting Jesus is going to wrap up everything in our generation because things are so bad the end must be near. A recent article by Britt Gillette on the Prophecy News Watch website says as much:

“The signs of the Second Coming are all around us. When His disciples asked Jesus to describe the signs, He gave them several. The Jewish people back in possession of Jerusalem (Luke 21:24-28) … the Gospel preached throughout the world (Matthew 24:14) … the arrival of the exponential curve (Matthew 24:3-8) … and more.

“The Old Testament prophets also pointed to a number of signs. An increase in travel and knowledge (Daniel 12:4) … the rise of a united Europe (Daniel 2:42) … the rise of the Gog of Magog alliance (Ezekiel 38-39) … and more.

“Today, all these signs are either present or in the process of being fulfilled. Yet for 1,800+ years, none of these signs were present. Think about that. None of the signs. But today? Today, they’re all around us.”

These passages and “signs” have been used for centuries to prove that the end was near for their time. End-time speculation is not new. It has a long and failed history going back centuries and has led to a form of prophetic inevitability resulting in Christian passivity.

[image error]

He Shall Have Dominion

(paperback by Kenneth Gentry)

A classic, thorough explanation and defense of postmillennialism (600+ pages). Complete with several chapters answering specific objections.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

“If Jesus is coming back in my generation, then why expend time and effort to fix what can’t be fixed. Why rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic? It’s all going down.”

As Christians have waited for the soon return of Jesus, humanists, secularists, and materialists have infiltrated every part of society. Instead of fighting against the invasion, an end-time escapist eschatology was invented with disastrous results. In Hal Lindsey’s book The 1980’s: Countdown to Armageddon, he wrote, “The decade of the 1980’s could very well be the last decade of history as we know it.” In addition to his questionable interpretive claims, consider these comments from Lindsey:

“What a way to live! With optimism, with anticipation, with excitement. We should be living like persons who don’t expect to be around much longer.”1

“I don’t like clichés but I’ve heard it said, ‘God didn’t send me to clean the fish bowl, he sent me to fish.’ In a way there’s a truth to that.”2

If the end is always just around the corner based on certain prophetic texts linked to current events, then why bother or even hope to rebuild a failing and collapsing world?

We’ve seen such speculation many times before: in the French Revolution, World War I, World War II, and nearly every dramatic event throughout two millennia of history. If you want to read a chronicle of end-time speculation, take a look at Francis X. Gumerlock’s The Day and the Hour: Christianity’s Perennial Fascination with Predicting the End of the World. Send a copy to your end-time speculating friends.

I often hear, “But this time it’s different. We really are living in the last days and Jesus is coming soon.”

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Perilous Times: A Study in Eschatological Evil (by Ken Gentry)

Technical studies on Daniel’s Seventy Weeks, the great tribulation, Paul’s Man of Sin, and John’s Revelation.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

Today’s prophecy neophytes are under the false assumption that what they are reading in books and magazines, articles posted on the internet, seeing on television, and hearing on the radio and from pulpits are actually recently-discovered end-time truths of what they believe are current events that match up with particular prophetic passages. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Charles Wesley Ewing, writing in 1983, paints a clear historical picture of how prophetic interpretation based on current events turns to confusion, uncertainty, and in some people unbelief when it comes to predicting an end that disappoints:

“In 1934, Benito Mussolini sent his black-shirted Fascists down into defenseless Ethiopia and preachers all over the country got up in their pulpits and preached spellbinding sermons that had their congregations bulging at the eyes in astonishment about ‘Mussolini, the Anti-Christ,’ and to prove their point they quoted from Daniel 11:43, which says, ‘And the Ethiopians shall be at his steps.’ Later, Benito, whimpering, was hung by his own countrymen, and preachers all over America had to toss their sermons into the scrap basket as unscriptural.”3

Ewing goes on to mention how Hitler’s storm troopers took Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, North Africa, and set up concentration camps where millions of Jews were killed in what has become the modern-day definition of “holocaust.” Once again, preachers ascended their pulpits and linked these events to Bible prophecy and assured the church-going public that Hitler was the antichrist. When the allies routed the Nazis and drove them out, sermons were once again tossed out or filed away to be revised at some future date hoping people’s memories would fade.

The next end-time-antichrist candidate was Joseph Stalin, the leader of godless Communism, a movement hell-bent on conquering the world. “But on March 5, 1953, Stalin had a brain hemorrhage and preachers all over America had to make another trip to the waste basket.”4

Consider the “Signs”

Let’s take the above prophetic claims one at a time: …..

To continue reading: click

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

By Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

I have slightly re-designed my postmillennial blog, given it a new header (designed by my friend, Brian Godawa), and expanded its realm of study.

The site was originally established in 2013 at PostmillennialismToday. That was certainly an appropriate blog name, for postmillennialism has evolved over the centuries especially since the mid-1900s. I wanted to provide a site that would provide research materials and insights into modern posmillennialism in order to encourage it for our day.

I have now changed the name of the site to PostmillennialWorldview. I feel that this title lets me [image error]“wander” more freely in theological and cultural research, while keeping it in the orbit of its postmillennial core. Postmillennialism deals mainly with the course of the kingdom of God in history. But it also touches on every aspect life in that the kingdom is at working transforming those areas.

This new title allows me to provide a wider range of studies while keeping the postmillennial heartbeat going. You will see more topics dealt with, which will encourage an even fuller understanding of the implications of the postmillennial hope.

If you would like to provide articles for consideration, I would welcome your contributions. Unfortunately, I will not be able to provide remuneration for your work. But you will have an opportunity not only to promote the postmillennial worldview, but also your insights into it.

Thanks for reading. I hope you will continue to do so — and share my website with your friends.

God bless!

Ken Gentry

June 30, 2017

TRANSGENDER PROPAGANDA DISPROVEN

[image error]PMT 2017-052 by Liberty Council

A recent study released from Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science refutes propaganda from LGBT activists who detach gender completely from sex and promote that men can become so-called “women” by merely “identifying” as female, and vice-versa.

Professor Shmuel Pietrokovski and Dr. Moran Gershoni, both researchers from the Weizmann Institute’s Molecular Genetics Department, “looked closely at around 20,000 protein-coding genes, sorting them by sex and searching for differences in expression in each tissue. They eventually identified around 6,500 genes with activity that was biased toward one sex or the other in at least one tissue, adding to the already major biological differences between men and women.”

Pietrokovski and Gershoni found genes that were highly expressed in the skin of men relative to that in women’s skin, and they realized that these were related to the growth of body hair. Gene expression for muscle building was higher in men; that for fat storage was higher in women. Aside from the sexual organs, the researchers discovered quite a few sex-linked genes in the mammary glands, about half which were expressed in men. Because men have fully fitted but basically nonfunctional mammary equipment, the scientists believe that some of these genes might suppress lactation.[image error]

Standard Bearer: Festschrift for Greg Bahnsen (ed. by Steve Schlissel)

Includes two chapters by Gentry on Revelation and theonomy.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

The researchers also found genes “to be expressed only in the left ventricle of the heart in women. One of these genes, which is also related to calcium uptake, showed very high expression levels in younger women that sharply decreased with age; the scientists think that they are active in women up to menopause, protecting their hearts, but leading to heart disease and osteoporosis in later years when the gene expression is shut down.”

Additionally, they found another gene that was mainly expressed in women, was active in the brain, and may protect the neurons from Parkinson’s, a disease that is more prevalent in men. The researchers also identified gene expression in the liver that provides molecular evidence for the known difference in drug processing between women and men.

“This recent study from Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science further proves that you cannot fool Mother Nature,” said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “The saying, ‘I think, therefore, I am’ is best left to philosophy and not science. Gender confusion is mental, not physical or biological. God made male and female and no amount of protestation will change the natural created order. The fiction that a person can chose their gender . . . .

To read full article: click

Liberty Counsel is an international nonprofit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics.

HOMOSEXUAL DIFFERENCES UNBRIDGEABLE

[image error]PMT 2017-051 by Denny Burk (The Aquila Report)

David Gushee has a column at Religion News Service about Jonathan Merritt, Jen Hatmaker, and LGBT “inclusion” within the church. Gushee says that he exited evangelicalism 30 months ago, and since then he has concluded this:

I now believe that incommensurable differences in understanding the very meaning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the interpretation of the Bible, and the sources and methods of moral discernment, separate many of us from our former brethren – and that it is best to name these differences clearly and without acrimony, on the way out the door.

I also believe that attempting to keep the dialogue going is mainly fruitless. The differences are unbridgeable. They are articulated daily in endless social media loops.

Gushee is absolutely right about this. We have “incommensurable differences” and the differences are indeed “unbridgeable.” On the one side are the traditionalists who believe that homosexuality is a sin. On the other side are the revisionists who believe that homosexuality is not sinful. The differences between the traditionalists and the revisionists go right to the heart of what it means to be a Christian.

Openness Unhindered (by Rosaria Butterfield)[image error]

Dr. Butterfield goes to great lengths to clarify some of today’s key controversies. She also traces their history and defines the terms that have become second nature today-even going back to God’s original design for marriage and sexuality as found in the Bible. She cuts to the heart of the problems and points the way to the solution.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

If the traditionalist side is correct, then there can be no fellowship between the true church and revisionists-because the revisionists have revised themselves right out of the faith. And if the revisionists were consistent with their conclusions, they would recognize that no fellowship is possible from their point of view either. The only reconciliation is for one side or the other to repent and embrace the views of the other side.

This is why the whole Side A/Side B approach to the issue is a dead end. The Side A/Side B approach wants to convince people that differences over these issues shouldn’t really divide us. Some Christians will affirm sexual immorality and some will not. In terms of doctrinal priority, the issue is more like baptism than the deity of Christ. No big deal. We are all Christians after all. Why can’t we all just get along?

There are a number of problems with this kind of reasoning, but I will mention just two:

(1) The scripture casts sexual immorality as a first-order issue. In fact, it treats all unrepented sin as a first order issue that prevents people from entering the Kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9-11). No matter what side you come down on in this debate, there can be no question that our conclusions will define how we understand the boundaries of the church. This is not a debate about adiaphora but about the essence of our faith. A church can no more accommodate both points of view than it can accommodate both light and darkness (2 Cor. 6:14-16).

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Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert

(by Rosaria Butterfield)

Remarkable testimony of a lesbian professor who was a leading spokesperson for

the feminist movement, but whom Christ saved.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

(2) The Side A/Side B approach is functionally no different from an “affirming” approach. Here’s the bottom line. A church either will or will not accept members who are practicing homosexual immorality. A church either will or will not discipline members for homosexual immorality. A church either will or will not ordain clergy who are practicing homosexuals. There is no middle ground between these practical polarities. If you are in a church that allows both points of view (Side A/Side B), then functionally your church is no different from a fully “affirming” congregation. You accept members and clergy who are practicing homosexual immorality. Again, there is no middle ground between the polarities of these two positions. Those who attempt middle ground will eventually have to move to one side or the other….

To read rest of article: click

Denny Burk is Associate Professor of New Testament and Dean of Boyce College, the undergraduate arm of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Click on the following images for more information on these studies:

POSTMILLENNIALISM AND APOLOGETICS (5b)

[image error]PMT 2017-050 by Mike Warren (Christian Civilization Blog)

Point 5 (continued):

Postmillennialism was an important influence in the Scientific Revolution.

Postmillennialism supports the argument for the Christian basis for science since postmillennialism was an important influence in the Scientific Revolution.

The founder of British empiricism and experimentation, Francis Bacon (1561-1626), concluded his famous book on experimental method, Novum Organum, by saying:

“For man, by the fall, fell at the same time from his state of innocency and from his dominion over creation. Both of these losses however can even in this life be in some part repaired; the former by religion and faith, the latter by arts and sciences. For creation was not by the curse made altogether and for ever a rebel, but in virtue of the charter, `In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,’ it is now by various labours (not certainly by disputation or magical ceremonies, but by various labours) at length and in some measure subdued to the supplying of man with bread; that is, to the uses of human life.”[1]

Novum Organum was included in a larger work that Bacon titled Instauratio Magna, meaning the Great Restoration, referring to the restoring of Edenic peace and prosperity throughout the world with the help of the new experimental method of science. Historian Charles Webster writes that “Bacon became the most important philosophical and scientific authority of the Puritan Revolution.”[2] Bacon rejected the Aristotelian/Thomistic philosophy that short-circuited rigorous experimentation by a method in which “one hurries on rapidly from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms.”[3]

Calvin and Culture: Exploring a Worldview[image error]

Ed. by David Hall

No other Christian teachings in the past five hundred years have affected our Western culture as deeply as the worldview of John Calvin. It extends far beyond the theological disciplines.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

Likewise, the Puritans of the English Puritan Revolution rejected the Roman Catholic traditions to include monastic contemplation of the pagan Aristotle’s philosophy in favor of the holy labor of transforming the physical world into a more just and prosperous place for the glory of God and the benefit of mankind. Bacon wrote a utopian novel titled New Atlantis about an island where only devout Christians were allowed to step ashore and where the major activity on the island was a comprehensive scientific research institution with the purpose of producing useful inventions to make labor easier, increase food production, and prolong human life.

The scientific institution was called Solomon’s House, named after King Solomon, whose God-given wisdom included a broad knowledge of biology: “He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish” (1 Kings 4:33). Bacon’s Solomon House inspired Puritans to form scientific societies, ultimately resulting in the famous Royal Society of London, of which Sir Isaac Newton was a famous member.[4] The second charter of the Royal Society established its purpose as “the study of natural things and useful arts by experimental science more faithfully promoted to the glory of God the Creator and for application to the good of mankind.”[5] While having his greatest impact in Britain, Bacon also inspired the founding of scientific societies in other European nations, such as France and Italy.[6]

Samuel Hartlib (1600-1662), an emigrant from Polish Prussia to England, was one of the leading intellectuals of the age, an ardent follower of Bacon, and a passionate postmillennialist. He, along with many other Puritans, promoted the evangelism of Jews in order to hasten the Apostle Paul’s prediction that their conversion would be “life from the dead” compared to prior world history (Rom. 11:15), i.e. usher in the greatest prosperity and peace of the Millennium. Hartlib remarked that “The world may not expect any great happiness before the conversion of the Jews be first accomplished.”[7] He established a network of correspondence to organize, encourage, and disseminate scientific discoveries.

One of the books he coordinated for publication was entitled, A free discovery of the true, lawful, holy, and divine expedient for the propagation of the gospel, and establishment of an universal peace all over the world, by the scientist John Beale, because, as Hartlib wrote to Robert Boyle, the book’s purpose “is most professedly to propagate religion and to endeavor the reformation of the whole world.”[8] The Hartlib Circle refers to all of those within his sphere of influence, which were nearly all the Baconian, scientifically-minded intellectuals of Britain plus many on the continent. Samuel Hartlib, John Dury (1596-1680), known as the father of the modern library, and John Comenius (1592-1670), known as the father of modern education, entered into a famous “fraternal pact devoutly entered into in the sight of God for mutual advancement in the promotion of the public good of the Christian Religion.”[9] Historian Hugh-Trevor Roper calls the three men “the philosophers of the Puritan Revolution.”[10]

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Greatness of the Great Commission (by Ken Gentry)

An insightful analysis of the full implications of the great commission. Impacts postmillennialism as well as the whole Christian worldview.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

John Comenius (or Jan Komensky) was from modern-day Czechoslovakia and served there as a bishop of the Unity of the Brethren church, which taught a postmillennial eschatology and was founded on the teachings of Czech reformer Jan Hus. Comenius was invited to England in 1641 by Hartlib to establish a college based on his educational methods. He left shortly after that when civil war broke out, but his writings continued to be very influential throughout England, the continent, and even America, where he was invited to be president of Harvard, although he turned down the offer in favor of writing textbooks for Swedish schools.

Comenius taught that through increased knowledge and better teaching of knowledge, humanity can gain back much of what was lost by the Fall: “All men therefore should be taught to know and understand things rightly, and they will easily learn also to use them rightly. Thereby it will come to pass that paradise lost is regained, that is to say, that the entire world will be a garden of delight for God, for people, and for things.”[11] He believed that, given the progress of the Protestant Reformation, such a golden age was not far off: “[T]he intellectual light of souls, namely Wisdom, may now at length at the approach of this eventide of the world be happily diffused through all minds and among all people.”[12]

A major component of the Puritan Revolution was the reformation of education. Webster writes that “The reformers regarded educational reconstruction as a necessary prerequisite for the creation of the millennial state.”[13] Comenius, Hartlib, and the other Puritans pushed for universal education, instruction in the common vernacular rather than exclusively Latin, and for replacing the emphasis on Aristotle’s writings with a focus on mathematics, science, and technology – what we call the STEM curriculum today (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math).

John Dury writes in the dedication to Gerard Boate’s Ireland’s Natural History (1652) that the acceleration of scientific knowledge at that time indicated that the Biblical prophecies of a golden age could be fast approaching:

“There great and mighty Changes, which God is making in the Earth, do tend to break the yokes of Vanity, and to weaken the Power, which hath wreathed the same upon the necks of the Nations, these Changes seem to me to presage the near approaches of this Liberty, and the advancement of the ways of Learning, whereby the Intellectual Cabinets of Nature are opened, and the effects thereof discovered, more fully to us, that to former Ages, seem in like manner to prepare a plainer Address unto the right use thereof for us than our forefathers have had: which will be effectual to the manifestation of Gods Wisdom, Power, and Goodness, when the great promises shall be accomplished, that the Earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea, & that we shall be taught of God, from the least to the greatest (Isa. 11:9, Heb. 8.11).”[14]

In the preface to Micrographia, one of two of the first publications of the Royal Society, Robert Hooke wrote that “The only way which now remains for us to recover some degree of those former perfections, seems to be by rectifying the operations of the Sense, the Memory, and Reason.” The way to recover these faculties to some degree is “from the real, the mechanical, the experimental philosophy.”[15] He referred specifically to the telescope and microscope as mechanical means to rectify the senses. Hooke’s views reflect the view that Adam had extraordinary powers of sight that were lost at the Fall. As mentioned before, some others like Boyle questioned whether Adam really had possessed these extraordinary powers of sense, but just the same, they saw the potential for an advance in the welfare of human civilization through these experimental instruments and Bacon’s experimental method.

John Beale (1608-1683), an early fellow of the Royal Society, who wrote the above-mentioned book promoted by Hartlib, also wrote that “scripture, reason and experience showing how we may be restored to paradise on Earth.”[16] He says that “the renewal, or restauration of others, and the advancement of all kinds of knowledge which hath already brake forth may raise our expectation of more than a restauration to that natural perfection, which hath been since the fall of Adam.”[17] Beale envisioned a time when efficiency of land use would advance to such a degree that around every person’s house would be planted a large variety of useful timber and fruit-bearing plants, because “then will all passengers confess and admire it, as a Land of Blessings, in which the Original Curse is reversed, to whom God has given the wisdom to dress the wilderness into a paradise.”[18] John Wilkins (1614-1672), a founding member of the Royal Society, encouraged technological innovation because by it “Men do naturally attempt to restore themselves from the first General Curse inflicted upon their Labours.”[19]

Puritans called the confusion of languages at Babel “the second General Curse,” and there were attempts by Puritans to overcome that curse as well. Some tried to find the common language used prior to Babel. Upon running into dead ends with that search, others tried to compose a universal language for use by scholars, politicians, and international businessmen that would more precisely describe the material world and avoid the arbitrary features of Latin grammar. Robert Boyle was a close associate of Hartib’s. He was one of those who expressed hope in formulating a universal language because “it will in good part make amends to mankind for what their pride lost them at the tower of Babel.”[20]

Because the Puritans took seriously the longer life spans for humans taught in Isaiah, they saw medical improvements as an important part of the progress of Christ’s kingdom. Medical practitioner George Starkey (1628-1665) put medical knowledge second only to saving knowledge of Christ:

“Now next unto that knowledge which is indeed life eternal, namely to know God the only true God, and whom he hath sent Jesus Christ; which knowledge is of everlasting concernment: the most noble is that which discovers the Creators wisdom in the Creatures, so as to be able distinguish their natures and properties, and to apply them to the use of Man, namely, to the restoring of the defects of decaying Nature, and the overcoming of Diseases.”[21]

Several recent writers have emphasized that the source of the modern idea of social and scientific progress was the biblical teaching of linear time, which contributed to technological advances during the Middle Ages.[22] The linear view of time replaced the idea of cyclical time found in all the ancient pagan cultures. According to the cyclical-time view, there are periods of social improvement, but decline and destruction inevitably follow, and this cycle repeats forever. The futility of this view is like the myth of Sisyphus, condemned by the gods to roll a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down in a cycle repeated for all eternity. A cyclical view of time is behind the idea of reincarnation. But the Bible teaches that Christ “has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time.” (Heb. 9:26-28).

The postmillennial eschatology of the Puritan Revelation was belief in linear time on steroids. Not only are events like Christ’s sacrifice and the Final Judgment unrepeatable, there is progress in knowledge and ethics as part of the advance of the kingdom of God on earth prior to the Final Judgment. Gradually, like the growth of a mustard seed and the spread of leaven through dough (Matt. 13:31-33), all nations are taught to obey Christ (Matt. 28:19-20), the meek inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5), and “they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest” (Heb. 8:11). The effects of the Puritan belief in progress can be seen today as our culture’s motivation for seeking new scientific advances, even after the Reformation faith that birthed it has been exiled from public life for over a hundred years. If secularism continued to carry out the ideas implicit in its presuppositions, it would eventually return to the pig sty of cyclical time and abandon its faith in scientific progress.[23] But if postmillennialism is what Scripture teaches, the modern decline of public acceptance of Christianity can only be a temporary anomaly in the general trend toward gradually greater and greater victory of Christ’s rule over the earth prior to His Second Coming. The Puritans of the English Puritan Revolution were overly optimistic about how quickly progress would happen, at least one the moral front – they might be impressed by our scientific advances. But if Scripture is the final authority, and if Scripture teaches that Christ’s kingdom will expand to fill the earth prior to Christ’s Second Coming, then no amount of current bad news can overturn the fact that the predictions given in the Bible will come true eventually.

No more than the pre-Fall teaching on marriage became annulled after the Fall (Gen. 1:27, 2:23-24; Matt. 19:4-6) did the pre-Fall command for man to rule over God’s creation (Gen. 1:26-28) become annulled after the Fall. Man was created for dominion, and we will either rule the earth in obedience to God, rule the earth in rebellion against God, or try to abdicate our responsibility in ascetic withdrawal from the world in rebellion against God. The added factor after the Fall is that we have to battle sin as we carry out God’s command to rule creation. The Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20) to disciple the nations is the Genesis Dominion Command renewed for the post-Fall world under the resurrected Messiah’s reign, who is the Second Adam (Rom. 5) who restores the image of God in man (Col. 3:10) so that man can effectively pursue his creational calling for exercising dominion over the earth under God’s authority.[24] Thus victory of Christ’s kingdom on earth includes progress in scientific knowledge and technological innovation. And it is this belief that played a significant role in producing the Scientific Revolution. This should do a great deal to deflate the false pride of modern atheists who equate science and progress with atheism. The historical argument that Christian beliefs produced the Scientific Revolution, along with the philosophical argument that the truth of the Christian worldview is necessary for the possibility of science, produces an apologetic program that should, and eventually will by the power of the Holy Spirit, win the argument against unbelief in every corner of the globe.[25]

Notes

[1] Bacon, Novum Organum, Book II, §LII.

[2] See Charles Webster, The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine and Reform, 1626-1660 (London: Duckworth, 1975), p. 25.

[3] Frances Bacon, Novum Organum, Book I, §XIX.

[4] Webster, The Great Instauration, p.503.

[5] Thomas Birch, The History of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 1 (London, 1756), p. 221. On the Royal Society and earlier scientific organizations, see Webster, The Great Instauration.

[6] Harrison, The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science, p. 183.

[7] John Crossley, Ed., The Diary and Correspondence of John Worthington (Chetham Society, 1847), series XIII, vol. I, p. 250, https://archive.org/details/diarycorresponde113manc. Also see Yosef Kaplan, “Jews and Judaism in the Hartlib Circle,” Studia Rosenthaliana, Vol. 38/39, 2005/2006, http://pluto.huji.ac.il/~kaplany/hartlib.pdf.

[8] Quoted in Webster, The Great Instauration, p. 87, from letter from Hartlib to Boyle 15 Nov. 1659, . .

[9] “Pact Signed By Dury, Comenius And Hartlib, And Later By William Hamilton, English Translation Of Original Latin” (3/13 March 1642), .

[10] H.R. Trevor-Roper, “Three Foreigners and the Philosophy of the English Revolution,” Encounter (Feb. 1960), http://www.unz.org/Pub/Encounter-1960feb-00003.

[11] Quoted by David Parry in “Exile, Education and Eschatology in the Works of Jan Amos Comenius and John Milton,” in Religious Diaspora in Early Modern Europe, Ed. Timothy G. Fehler, et al. (Pickering & Chatto, 2014), p. 54.

[12] Ibid., p. 56.

[13] Webster, The Great Instauration, p. 114.

[14] From “The Hartlib Papers,” .

[15] Quoted in Harrison, The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science, p. 200.

[16] Letter, John Beale To Hartlib, June 12, 1658,

[17] Letter, John Beale, “Tract On Eleutheropolis,” Dec. 14, 1658.

[18] John Beale, quoted in Webster, The Great Instauration, p. 482.

[19] John Wilkins, Mathematicall magick (1691), p. 2.

[20] Robert Boyle, Letter to Samuel Hartlib, March 19, 1646/7, Works, I, xxxvii.

[21] George Starkey, Natures Explication and Helmonts Vindication (London, 1657), p. 4.

[22] See Stanley Jaki, Science and Creation: From Eternal Cycles to an Oscillating Universe (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1974); Thomas Cahill, The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels, (New York, NY: Nan A. Talese, 1998); Frances and Joseph Gies, Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages (New York: Harper Collins, 1994).

[23] An example of this happening is the teaching of Nietzsche, who promoted belief in cyclical time: Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, tr. Walter Kaufman (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), pp. 273-74 (§ 341). Gary North argues that, given Marx’s godless worldview, Marx provides no reason for his economic stages not to fall back to an earlier stage of economic alienation so that the stages repeat in eternal cycles. Marx’s Religion of Revolution: Regeneration Through Chaos (Tyler, TX: ICE, 1989), pp. 87-89,170. Marx, of course, was strongly influenced in his idea of historical progress by Hegel, who was strongly influenced in his idea of historical progress by the heretical Lutheran Jakob Böhme, whose influences gets us back to more traditional Christian thought.

[24] David Chilton, Paradise Restored: An Eschatology of Dominion (Tyler, TX: Reconstruction Press, 1985); Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., The Greatness of the Great Commission (Tyler, TX: ICE, 1990).

[25] For the philosophical argument, see my essay, “Christian Civilization is the Only Civilization – In a Sense, of Course,” http://www.christianciv.com/ChristCivEssay.htm.

Full article: click

POSTMILLENNIALISM AND APOLOGETICS (5a)

[image error]PMT 2017-049 by Mike Warren (Christian Civilization Blog)

Point 5:

Postmillennialism was an important influence in the Scientific Revolution.

Postmillennialism supports the argument for the Christian basis for science since postmillennialism was an important influence in the Scientific Revolution.

The influence of the postmillennial eschatology of the Puritan Revolution in England (1626-1660) on the Scientific Revolution requires some discussion of related issues of biblical hermeneutics and belief in a literal Adam and Eve.

Beginning in the Patristic period, with such church leaders like Origen (185-254) and Augustine (354-430), the value of knowledge of the natural world was largely seen in terms of providing spiritual allegories – signs that pointed to spiritual truths.[1] This was accompanied by an allegorical interpretation of the Bible in various degrees. They accepted a literal interpretation of Adam and Eve and usually accepted the creation week as six normal-length days, although some like Augustine thought that all creation happened in an instant; but they also often held to an allegorical meaning in addition to a belief in Genesis as a literal, historical account.[2]

[image error]

As It Is Written: The Genesis Account Literal or Literary?

Book by Ken Gentry

Presents the exegetical evidence for Six-day Creation and against the Framework Hypothesis.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

The “spiritual” lesson of the allegorical meaning tended to overshadow the importance of the literal account. Several centuries of Christians were taught, for example, about the “pelican in her piety” – that if a mother pelican could not provide food for her chicks, she would tear open her own breast so that her chicks could feed on her blood. That served as a powerful sermon illustration about Christ’s vicarious sacrifice, but nobody made an effort to systematically observe pelican behavior to see whether mother pelicans really do that, which they don’t. The allegorical interpretation of nature was the original meaning of the idea of two books of God’s revelation – the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture.[3]

For the Protestant reformers, the value of the study of nature became less about finding spiritual allegories and more about learning to take dominion over nature in imitation of Adam before the Fall. The Protestant reformers’ promotion of the historical-grammatical method of interpreting the Bible required a greater emphasis on a detailed knowledge of the material facts of history in order to correctly understand the text of Scripture. This resulted in taking the teaching of Genesis about creation more seriously as a historical event, and that, in turn, led to taking more seriously the Old Testament predictions of an Eden restored on earth under the Messianic reign, such as that expressed in Isaiah 11:

3 His delight is in the fear of the Lord,

And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes,

Nor decide by the hearing of His ears;

4 But with righteousness He shall judge the poor,

He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,

And with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked.

5 Righteousness shall be the belt of His loins,

And faithfulness the belt of His waist.

6 “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,

The leopard shall lie down with the young goat,

The calf and the young lion and the fatling together;

And a little child shall lead them.

7 The cow and the bear shall graze;

Their young ones shall lie down together;

And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8 The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole,

And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den.

9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,

For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord

As the waters cover the sea.

This is not the Eternal State, after the Last Judgment when all evil is destroyed, because people still die during this time; but people generally will live much longer lives: “No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed” (Isa. 65:20).

Unlike the type of Millennialism popular among conservative Christians in our day, where a worldwide apocalypse and Christ’s physical return to earth must precede the beginning of the Millennium (the “premillennial” view), the Millennialism (or “Millenarianism”) of the Reformation generally saw the golden age arriving in continuity with our current age, prior to the return of Christ and the Last Judgment. This view is known as “postmillennialism” (Christ returns after – post – the millennium). The Puritans were church historicists with regard to their view of the Great Tribulation and the Book of Revelation, meaning that they saw those events as occurring over the course of church history. They saw the Roman Catholic Church as the Whore of Babylon, whose defeat in their day seemed imminent. Her defeat was concurrent with the beginning of the Millennium, the last thousand years of earth’s history before the Last Judgment. During the Millennium all the nations would gradually be converted to Christianity and learn to live out their Christianity, which involves the ethical reform of everybody living by God’s Law and the scientific reform of people working to produce technological advances that improve human life.

Adam in the New Testament [image error]

by J. P. Versteeg

Carefully examining key passages of Scripture, Versteeg proves that all human beings descended from Adam, the first man. He argues that if this is not true, the entire history of redemption documented in Scripture unravels and we have no gospel in any meaningful sense.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

Most modern postmillennialists are preterists with regard to the Great Tribulation (it happened in the past, particularly involving the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70) and hold that the Millennium stretches over the entire course of church history. Postmillennialism was the standard Protestant view of the Bible’s teaching on the end times during the Reformation, and continued to be the standard Protestant view into the nineteenth century in America. A.S.P. Woodhouse writes that the postmillennial expectation of a near-future golden age was so pervasive during the Puritan Revolution that it “colored the thought of many who could not be described as active adherents, so that one may speak of Millenarian doctrine as in a sense typical.”[4]

Regarding the relationship between historical-grammatical interpretation and science Peter Harrison, a professor of the history of science at Oxford, explains:

“The literal approach to texts which became increasingly dominant in the sixteenth century had the consequence that objects in the natural world could no longer be regarded as signs. As a result, those who believed that the Deity had imposed a particular order on the cosmos moved their attention away from the symbolic functions of objects and focused instead on the ways in which the things of nature might play some practical role in human welfare.”[5]

Harrison is emphatic about the importance of this in the rise of the Scientific Revolution:

“Strange as it may seem, the Bible played a positive role in the development of science. . . . Had it not been for the rise of the literal interpretation of the Bible and the subsequent appropriation of the biblical narratives by early modern scientists, modern science may not have arisen at all. In sum, the Bible and its literal interpretation have played a vital role in the development of Wester science.”[6]

Another professor of the history of science, Stephen Snobelen, agrees:

“Here is a final paradox. Recent work on early modern science has demonstrated a direct (and positive) relationship between the resurgence of Hebraic, literal exegesis of the Bible in the Protestant Reformation, and the rise of the empirical method in modern science. I’m not referring to wooden literalism, but the sophisticated literal-historical hermeneutics that Martin Luther and others (including Newton) championed.”[7]

The emphasis on the first chapters of Genesis as literal history played an important role in the new, scientific mindset that studying God’s material creation was a valuable task and that the task contributed to fulfilling man’s purpose given to Adam and Eve in Eden to rule the earth:

“The recognition that the knowledge enjoyed by our first parents was an historical reality, combined with the acceptance of the command ‘have dominion’ in its full literal sense, provided a vital impetus to the seventeenth-century quest to know and master the world. Only when the story of creation was divested of its symbolic elements could God’s commands to Adam be related to worldly activities.”[8]

When the account of Adam in paradise became emphasized as literal history, then the knowledge and attention to the natural world that Adam displayed when he named the animals (Gen. 2:19-20) and worked the garden (Gen. 2:15) became to be seen as a pattern to be imitated by Christians in order restore paradise on earth to a significant degree. The naming of the animals was seen as more than inventing arbitrary words to name each animal but was thought to involve names that accurately described each animal so that the names were part of a classification system.

The scientists of the Reformation believed that when the human mind is redeemed by Christ, it should lead to 1) submitting to the Creator’s view of His creation in Scripture rather than the vain speculation often promoted by foolish heathen; 2) submitting scientific claims to rigorous empirical testing and examination by other experts to guard against the tendencies toward deception of the human mind, which still suffers the effects of the fall after being redeemed; 3) persistent labor to understand God’s creation for the promotion of human life, as Adam was commanded to do in the state of perfection (Gen. 2:15) and after the Fall, although hindered then by “thorns and thistles” (Gen. 3:17-19); and 4) confidence that such labor would bear fruit given the promise of a golden age predicted in the Bible under the reign of the Messiah, when there will not be “an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old” (Isa. 65:20).

In short, they had faith that the Christian mind could be renewed to approach what Adam possessed in knowledge before the Fall, so that paradise could be restored to a substantial degree over the whole earth. As Peter Harrison documents in his book, The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science, a literal reading of Creation and the Fall of Man was a major rationale behind the development of the scientific method.[9]

A view that had been endorsed by various Christians through the ages prior to the Reformation was that Adam had possessed super-sensitive physical powers that he lost at the Fall when he was subjected to God’s curse. This view continued among many of the Reformation era. Martin Luther had asserted that Adam could have seen objects a hundred miles off as well as we can see things a half mile away, and his other senses were degraded to a similar degree at the Fall.[10] Joseph Hall (1574-1656) asserted that Adam had an X-ray-like vision to see inside creatures.[11] Many of the Baconian scientists of the Puritan Revolution saw the new scientific instruments, particularly the telescope and microscope, as a means to restore the extraordinary natural powers of Adam as part of the program of re-establishing paradise on earth. However, other Baconian scientists, while appreciating the value of new scientific instruments for the advancement of human welfare, including Robert Boyle (1627-1691) of the famed Boyle’s Law, doubted Adam’s prelapsarian super powers.[12]

The views of Harrison and Snobelen are built on the scholarship of Charles Webster, whose massive academic tome published in 1975, The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine and Reform 1626-1660, documents in mind-numbing detail the thesis that postmillennialism was an important factor in the Scientific Revolution. Webster writes that, even though the period was not characterized by the production of scientific classics or an increase in scientific discoveries, it “was marked by a rapid acceleration in scientific recruitment,” which trailed off after that.[13] The postmillennial vision of a world renewed by faith in Christ and new discoveries through rigorous empirical science that would improve human life inspired a generation to begin scientific pursuits that would bear fruit in the following generation: “Consequently the great productivity of science after 1660 . . . is largely attributable to the labours of intellectuals whose initiation into science occurred during the Puritan Revolution.”[14] In Part 2, I will provide individual statements by leading intellectuals of the era in support of the connection between the rise of the Scientific Revolution and postmillennial eschatology.

Full article: click

Notes

[1] Peter Harrison, The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 15-33.

[2] Benno Zuiddam, “Does Genesis allow any scientific theory of origin? – a response to J.P. Dickson,” Journal of Creation 26(1):106–115, 2012. Andrew Sibley, “Lessons from Augustine’s De Genesi ad Litteram—Libri Duodecim,” http://creation.com/lessons-from-augustine.

[3] Harrison, The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science, p. 3.

[4] Quoted in Charles Webster, The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine and Reform 1626-1660 (London: Duckworth, 1975), p. 4.

[5] Harrison, The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science , p. 205.

[6] Peter Harrison, “The Bible and the Rise of Science,” Australasian Science (2002), 23(3):14-15.

[7] Stephen Snobelen, “Isaac Newton and Apocalypse Now: a response to Tom Harpur’s ‘Newton’s strange bedfellows,’” https://newtonprojectca.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/reply-to-tom-harpur-2-page-full-version.pdf.

[8] Harrison, The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science., p. 207.

[9] Peter Harrison, The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 51.

[10] Ibid., p. 175.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid., pp. 218-19.

[13] Webster, The Great Instauration, p. 484.

[14] Ibid.

POSTMILLENNIALISM AND APOLOGETICS (4)

[image error]PMT 2017-048 By Mike Warren (Christian Civilization Blog)

Point 4:

Postmillennialism is the biblical anecdote to failed predictions of Christ’s Second Coming.

Postmillennialism, with a preterist view of the Great Tribulation, refutes the numerous failed predictions, which have undermined the credibility of the modern evangelical church, that Jesus is coming soon to rapture Christians out of the world.

There have been declarations by Christians at various times over the past two thousand years that Christ’s return was near. However, those predictions have escalated since the invention of Dispensational theology in the 1830’s, adopted by many orthodox Christians as well as by cults like Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses in modified versions. Here is a list of some of these failed predictions:

William Miller, founder of Seventh Day Adventism, fixed Christ’s coming at 1843, or October 22, 1844 at the latest.
Charles Taze Russell, founder of the Watchtower Society (Jehovah’s Witnesses), said that Christ returned invisibly in 1873 and the end would come in 1914.
When World War I began The Weekly Evangel (April 10, 1917) wrote, “We are not in the Armageddon struggle proper, but at its commencement, and it may be, if students of prophecy read the signs aright, that Christ will come before the present war closes, and before Armageddon..The war preliminary to Armageddon, it seems, has commenced.”
In 1970 Hal Lindsey predicted the rapture to come in 1981. (Birth of Israel in 1948 + a generation [40 yrs.] – 7 years for pretrib. rapture ` 1981).
In April of 1975 The Jack Van Impe Crusade Newsletter declared: “Messiah 1975? The Tribulation 1976?”
Edgar C. Whisenant wrote 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Is in 1988.
Chen Heng-ming of Taiwan, predicted that God would arrive March 31, 1998. He was so sure of this date that he guarantee it on his life. At least he admitted he was wrong when God failed to show. He told his 140 followers, who quit their jobs in anticipation of the end, that his predictions “can be considered nonsense.”

Since the Bible gives fulfillment of prophecy as a test of whether a prophecy is truly from God (Deut. 18:21-22), these false predictions undermine the credibility of the Bible. Of course, these false predictions can be attributed to faulty interpretations of the Bible rather than the Bible itself; but even with that, the false predictions shows to non-Christians that Christians are not very good students of the book that they want everyone to believe and obey. Whether the Bible or modern Christians are to blame, it is one more reason for non-Christians to think that Christians and their religion shouldn’t be taken seriously. As I showed in the last post, the preterist view, that the Great Tribulation occurred in the first century A.D., has abundant evidence for it. Since such awful destruction is in our past, it supports the postmillennial position that the predictions of worldwide conversions to Christianity and material prosperity are in our future.

The Beast of Revelation[image error]

by Ken Gentry

A popularly written antidote to dispensational sensationalism and newspaper exegesis. Convincing biblical and historical evidence showing that the Beast was the Roman Emperor Nero Caesar, the first civil persecutor of the Church. The second half of the book shows Revelation’s date of writing, proving its composition as prior to the Fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. A thought-provoking treatment of a fascinating and confusing topic.

For more study materials, go to: KennethGentry.com

Amillennialists will argue that their view also avoids the embarrassment of setting failed dates for Christ’s return because they teach that the return of Christ has been “imminent” over the entire course of church history, meaning that Christ could return at any time in history. The problem with this is that it misinterprets Christ’s statements that the Kingdom of God was “imminent.” Those passages are not talking about God’ kingdom coming and Christ’s return happening at any unpredictable moment over the next thousand years. Jesus said the coming of His kingdom was “at hand” (Matt. 3:2, 4:17, 10:7; Mark 1:15; Luke 10:9, 10:11, 21:31) but this means “close” or “soon” – not at an unpredictable time over the next several thousand years (compare to Matt. 26:45, 46). Christ came to establish His kingdom at His first coming, and He came in judgment against Jerusalem in the first century, culminating with the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in A.D. 70., although this was not a bodily coming to earth.

Full article: click

POSTMILLENNIALISM AND APOLOGETICS (3)

[image error]PMT 2017-047 by Mike Warren (Christian Civilization Blog)

Point 3:

Postmillennialism refutes the skeptics’ claim that Jesus broke His promise to return.

Postmillennialism, with a preterist view of the Great Tribulation, refutes the claim of skeptics that Jesus was a false prophet because He did not return to earth within a generation as He predicted and as His apostles expected.

A hurdle that the argument that I gave in the last post regarding Christ’s legitimacy faces is noted by the famous philosopher Bertrand Russell, in his lecture, later produced as a pamphlet, titled Why I am not a Christian. He cites the passages that I quoted in a previous post in this series about Jesus coming in judgment within a generation , such as “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew 16:28). He concludes that Jesus falsely claimed that He would physically return to earth within a generation. The idea that “the Great Tribulation” is when Christ’s Second Coming occurs is also a view that is popular among many Christians currently, although they put it in the future. These Christians and the liberals are both wrong to connect the Great Tribulation to Christ’s physical Second Coming.

Russell is right that Jesus was speaking of a first century coming, but wrong that it is a physical appearance to people on earth. Modern Christians who hold to the futurist view are wrong that the Great Tribulation is in the future rather than the first century, and wrong that the Great Tribulation involves Christ Second Coming and the Rapture (bodily translation of living believers to heaven and physical resurrection of dead believers). There is a two-fold coming of Christ taught in the Bible: 1) a first century (A.D. 70) coming in judgment against Jerusalem in the form of the Roman army destroying the city and Temple (“the Great Tribulation”), and 2) at the end of history in the bodily Second Coming of Christ. The Second Coming is when Jesus physically appears in the sky, as angels told the disciples when Jesus physically ascended to heaven (Acts 1:10-11). But the Second Coming and Rapture occur at the end of history, after all nations have chosen to worship Him (cf. Isa. 2:2-4), with the last enemy destroyed being death, resulting in the resurrection:

“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 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 15:22-26)

[image error]

Matthew 24 Debate: Past or Future?

(DVD by Ken Gentry and Thomas Ice)

Two hour public debate between Ken Gentry and Thomas Ice on the Olivet Discourse.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

The New Testament contains language about Jesus coming in judgment in the first century, but that has to be interpreted in accordance with how the rest of the Bible uses that kind of language. In the Old Testament, God is often said to be “coming on the clouds” in judgment against a nation, but there is no appearance of God Himself. Those texts make clear that God is coming in judgment by sending an army to destroy the nation. For example, in this passage God comes against Egypt through a civil war in that nation: “Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt; and the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence, and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them. And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will fight, each against another and each against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom” (Isaiah 19:1-2 ). Micah records this threat of judgment against Israel: “The Lord is coming out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will split open, like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place” (Micah 1:3-4 ). But it was the nation of Assyria who would literally carry out the judgment (Micah 7:12 ). Nahum talks about God’s wrath as God coming in stormy clouds against an evil nation: “His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet” (Nahum 1:3 ).

Then in the New Testament, passages that talk about Jesus coming in clouds of judgment in the first century also describe Jesus seated on His throne in heaven at the same time. When being questioned by the High Priest Caiaphas, Jesus tells him, “But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matt. 26:64). The Son of Man is seated on His throne in heaven while, at the same time, He is coming in clouds of judgment to destroy Jerusalem and its corrupt religious establishment.

In Matthew 24:30, just before saying that this event and all the others that He mentions in this speech will come upon “this generation” (Matt. 24:34), Jesus says, “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” Notice the first sentence. The verb is “appears.” The verb can apply only to the subject of the sentence, which is “the sign.” So the sign is appearing, and according to this translation, the Son of Man is heaven when this happens. Nevertheless, the word translated “heaven” can also be translated “sky,” and it is possible that this sentence can be understood to mean that the sign that appears is “the Son of Man in the sky,” as in “the sign of circumcision” where circumcision is the sign (called the “genitive of apposition”).[1]

But since Jesus just said that this event will occur in “this generation,” we are compelled to adopt the first view, that Jesus is seated in heaven when the sign appears on earth. The phrase “of the Son of Man in heaven” serves to further explain the sign, not be the sign (called the “genitive of epexegesis”). This interpretation is also consistent with Jesus’ statement to the High Priest in Matthew 26:64. It is also consistent with 1 Corinthians 15:25 and several Old Testament prophecies on which 1 Corinthians 15:25 is based, in which the Messiah is sitting on His heavenly throne while He brings judgment on nations (Ps. 2, Ps. 110:1, Dan. 7:13-14). Psalm 110:1, the Old Testament verse most quoted in the New Testament, says, “The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’” The second Lord stays seated in heaven while engaged in the process of making the nations submit to Him.

[image error]

Olivet Discourse Made Easy (by Ken Gentry)

Verse-by-verse analysis of Christ’s teaching on Jerusalem’s destruction in Matt 24. Show the great tribulation is past, having occurred in AD 70.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

The sign that the Son of Man was reigning in heaven was that He was sending the Roman army to destroy His enemies in Jerusalem. The next sentence is standard coming-in-clouds-of-judgment language from the Old Testament. The judgment on Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and the civil war that raged in Rome around the same time were but the first of the risen Messiah’s acts while sitting on His heavenly throne to bring judgment on nations until the time comes that “all the nations . . . say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths’” (Isa. 2:2 ,3). Only after that happens will Jesus come a second time in a physical appearance, at the time of the resurrection of the dead (“rapture”) and the Last Judgment, as Paul states in 1 Corinthians 15.

Postscript on the Apostolic Teaching and the Book of Revelation:

The Apostolic Teaching:

Here the passages from the letters of the New Testament (except Revelation, which I address separately below) about the teachings of the apostles on the subject of the Last Days:

“. . . but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.” (Heb. 1:2)

“Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days.” (Jam. 3:5)

“You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door.” (Jam. 5:8-9)

“. . . who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Pet. 1:5)

“He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you.” (1 Peter 1:20)

“The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.” (1 Pet. 4:7).

“For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God.” (1 Pet. 4:17)

“. . . you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, 3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.” (2 Pet. 3:2-3)

“Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.” (1 John 2:18)

“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.” (1 Tim. 4:1)

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.” (1 Tim. 3:1)

“Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation . . . .” (Jude 3-4)

“But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, ‘In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.’” (Jude 17-18)

“For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh . . . .’” (Acts 2:15-17)

Some of these passages speak of “the last days” as something future and without defining how far in the future. But several of them say that the last days, and even the hour, are upon them. In Acts 20:28-31 Paul applies his previous warnings communicated to the elders of the church at Ephesus, which would include the letters to Timothy since Timothy had been the pastor of the church at Ephesus, to heretics who will arise soon after Paul’s death. And Jude quotes Peter’s warnings about the last days as applying to the situation that existed when Jude writes his letter (Jude 3, 17-18).

The Book of Revelation:

In addition to Jesus’ lecture about “the Great Tribulation” in the gospels, the book of Revelation is also concerned with the first century events of the destruction of Jerusalem and the events in Rome around that time (except, of course, the part about the Last Judgment said last a “a millennium” in the future). This is stated clearly several times in several ways at the beginning and end of the book so it can’t be missed: “the things that must soon take place” (Rev. 1:1), “what must soon take place” (Rev. 22:6); “for the time is near” (Rev. 1:3 , 22:10), “Behold, I am coming soon,” (Rev. 22:7 ,10), and “Surely I am coming soon” (Rev. 22:20). The letter is written by John who is “your brother and partner in the tribulation” (Rev. 1:9), to seven real churches that existed in the latter part of the first century to prepare them for a tribulation whose “time is near” and “soon.” Jesus tells the church in Pergamum that “I will come to you soon” (Rev. 2:16). He tells the church in Thyatira to “hold fast what you have until I come” (Rev. 2:25). He tells the church in Sardis that “I will come like a thief” (Rev. 3:3). And He tells the church in Philadelphia that “I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. I am coming soon” (Rev. 3:10-11).

John says that he writes the book during the reign of the sixth emperor of Rome (Rev. 17:10). Counting from Julius Caesar, that would be during Nero’s reign (A.D. 54-68). And the name Nero Caesar happens to add up to 666 when written in Hebrew letters. [17] Since Nero is the Beast (or, more precisely, the sixth head of the Beast), Revelation is written during the early period of his reign and written about Nero’s reign and the time shortly thereafter, after Nero killed himself and civil war erupted in Rome over control of the empire.

See full article: click

Note

[1] See Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., “The Sign of the Son Of Man (2),” https://postmillennialismtoday.com/2016/11/22/the-sign-of-the-son-of-man-2/.

POSTMILLENNIALISM AND APOLOGETICS (2)

[image error]Point 2:

Postmillennialism validates the resurrection and the truth of Jesus’ message.

Postmillennialism, with a preterist view of the Great Tribulation, points to empirical evidence still visible in our own day that a major prophecy by Jesus came true, which validates Jesus as a true prophet from God (Deut. 18:21-22), and that validates Jesus’ message, such as His statements about being God and about His resurrection.[1] (“Preterist” means “past” and means here that the Great Tribulation occurred in the past, namely the first century A.D.)

Today, any visitor can go to Jerusalem and see that the Temple that stood in Jesus’ day is no longer there. On its foundations is build the Dome of the Rock, an Islamic mosque. Jews still visit and pray at a remaining portion of the western retaining wall of the Temple. That wall is called the “wailing wall” because of the practice of Jews to stand next to it and mourn the destruction of the Temple. Also still visible to this day is the “Arch of Titus” in the city of Rome, erected in A.D. 82 by the Emperor Domitian shortly after the death of his older brother Titus to commemorate Titus’ military victories, including the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in A.D. 70. The arch is etched with images of the articles of the Temple being carried away, like the Candelabra and Table of Showbread. There is no reasonable historical basis for doubting the event of the destruction that ended in September of A.D. 70.[2][image error]

Perilous Times: A Study in Eschatological Evil (by Ken Gentry)

Technical studies on Daniel’s Seventy Weeks, the great tribulation, Paul’s Man of Sin, and John’s Revelation.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

Jesus promised a judgment that would destroy Jerusalem and specifically tear down the Temple that He was looking at (not some future temple as some Christians claim) within the lifetime of some of His apostles in these passages:

“Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, ‘You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.’ . . . Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. (Matthew 24:1-2, 34)”

“And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.’” (Luke 19:41-44)

“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it, for these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written. . . . Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place.” (Luke 21:20-22)

“Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.” (Matthew 23:34-36)

That last quote from Matthew 23 is made while Jesus is at the Temple and just prior to his specific prediction of the destruction of the Temple in Matthew 24:1-2.

Jesus says repeatedly that this judgment will come upon “this generation.” A generation is generally 40 years in the Bible, as when the Jews wandered in the wilderness after the Exodus until the death of the first generation, which was for 40 years (Numbers 32:13; Psalm 95:10. Jesus was crucified in A.D. 30, and 40 years later is A.D. 70, when the Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed. Forty years is consistent with another statement that Jesus makes that only “some” of His disciples would still be alive when the judgment comes:

“Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Matthew 16:28)

He also says that His disciples will not have preached to every town in Israel before His coming:

“When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” (Matthew 10:23)

Similarly, right before His crucifixion, Jesus tells some women who are there weeping over Him:

“Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’” (Luke 23:28-30)

The judgment was coming on “yourselves” and “your children” – within a generation of those living then.[image error]

Great Tribulation: Past or Future?

(Thomas Ice v. Ken Gentry)

Debate book on the nature and timing of the great tribulation. Both sides thoroughly cover the evidence they deem necessary, then interact with each other.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

In addition to getting the timing right, Jesus was right that Jerusalem would be surrounded by armies (Luke 21:20). The gentile armies surrounded Jerusalem multiple times during the conflict. The first time was in A.D. 66 when Cestius Gallus, the legate of Syria, marched on Jerusalem, and then retreated. Many Jews then prepared for further war with Rome, but it may have been taken by Christians to be the signal that it was time to “flee to the mountains” (Luke 21:21) before the complete destruction came. Another possibility is that Christ’s prediction was fulfilled when Israel’s long-time heathen enemies, the Edomites, surrounded Jerusalem in A.D. 68. Their 20,000-man army rushed into the city and slit the throats of 8,500 people at the Temple, including the High Priest.[3] Things only went downhill from there for the city, until its complete destruction in A.D. 70.[4]

The flight of the Christians from Jerusalem to the mountains actually happened, as some early Christian writers have recounted, giving us the additional information that they ended up at the recently deserted mountain city of Pella, north of Jerusalem and on the other side of the Jordan River.[5] Eusebius (d. 340) writes:

“But the people of the church in Jerusalem had been commanded by a revelation, vouchsafed to approved men there before the war, to leave the city and to dwell in a certain town of Perea called Pella. And when those that believed in Christ had come thither from Jerusalem, then, as if the royal city of the Jews and the whole land of Judea were destitute of holy men, the judgement of God at length overtook those who had committed such outrages against Christ and his apostles, and totally destroyed that generation of impious men.”[6]

And Epiphanius of Salamis (d. 403) tells us:

“So Aquila, while he was in Jerusalem, also saw the disciples of the disciples of the apostles flourishing in the faith and working great signs, healings, and other miracles. For they were such as had come back from the city of Pella to Jerusalem and were living there and teaching. For when the city was about to be taken and destroyed by the Romans, it was revealed in advance to all the disciples by an angel of God that they should remove from the city, as it was going to be completely destroyed. They sojourned as emigrants in Pella, the city above mentioned in Transjordania. And this city is said to be of the Decapolis.”[7]

Jesus also said to flee to the mountains when “when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place” (Matt. 24:15). Exactly what the abomination would be is not stated. Since Jesus uses “the abomination that causes desolation” interchangeably with Jerusalem being surrounded by armies as the signal to flee, the two phrases probably refer to the same event.[8] For the “unclean” gentile (Roman) army to surround the holy city of Jerusalem to destroy it would have been an abomination because Daniel refers to Jerusalem as God’s “holy hill” and “holy city” (Daniel 9:16,20,24). The gentile attack on the holy city unsurprisingly led to further abominations, like the sacrifices being offered to Roman ensigns in the Temple,[9] and the complete desolation of the Temple itself, never to be rebuilt (at least to our current day). Whatever the abomination was, the Christians understood it when it happened, and they got out of town in time.

Jesus accurately predicted that the Temple would be completely destroyed, down to the last stone. While they were on a hill above the city, Jesus’ disciples point out to Him “the buildings of the temple” (Matt. 24:1), and Jesus responds, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Matt. 24:1-2). Josephus was a Jewish historian who sided with the Romans and recorded the gory details:

“While the holy house was on fire, everything was plundered that came to hand, and ten thousand of those that were caught were slain. Nor was there commiseration of any age, or any reverence of gravity; but children, old men, profane persons, and priests were all slain in the same manner. . . . Moreover, many, when they saw the fire, exerted their utmost strength, and did break out into groans and outcries. Perea also did return the echo, as well as the mountains round about Jerusalem, and augmented the force of the noise. Yet was the misery itself more terrible than this disorder. For one would have thought that the hill itself, on which the temple stood, was seething hot, as if full of fire on every part, that the blood was more in quantity than the fire, and that the slain were more in numbers than they who slew them. For the ground did nowhere appear visible because of the dead bodies that lay upon it.”[10]

The retaining wall that partially remains was part of the platform on which the Temple was built, but all the stones of the buildings of the Temple were cleared off, just as Jesus predicted.

Other fulfillments of events during the time leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem could be mentioned, such as the rise of numerous false prophets,[11] famines,[12] widespread lawlessness,[13] and the spread of the gospel throughout the Roman world.[14]

The accuracy of Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem strengthens the case for His resurrection beyond the other evidence often cited ( see here). We have clear, visible proof that the Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed. That is proof that He spoke a message from God; therefore when He made the prediction about Himself that He would die and be resurrected, we can be confident that He was accurate about that too. Given the evidence for the resurrection itself, and the accuracy of Jesus’ prediction that Jerusalem and the Temple would be destroyed within a generation, every reasonable person should conclude that Jesus Christ is Savior and Ruler of the world.

See full article: http://christianciv.com/blog/index.php/2017/04/23/5-points-of-intersection_p2/

Notes

[1] On Jesus’ claims to deity, see Bird, Evans, Gathercole, et al, How God Became Jesus; and Charles L. Quarles, A Theology of Matthew: Jesus Revealed as Deliverer, King, and Incarnate Creator (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013).

[2] For more on this issue, see David Chilton, Paradise Restored: An Eschatology of Dominion (Tyler, TX: Reconstruction Press, 1985), Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of The Book of Revelation (Fort Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1987), and The Great Tribulation (Fort Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1987); Gary DeMar, Last Days Madness: The Folly of Trying to Predict When Christ Will Return (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1991); J. Marcellus Kik, An Eschatology of Victory (Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1971); Greg L. Bahnsen and Kenneth Gentry, House Divided: The Breakup of Dispensational Theology (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics [ICE], 1989); Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., He Shall Have Dominion (Tyler, TX: ICE, 1992), The Greatness of the Great Commission (Tyler, TX: ICE, 1990); Joseph R. Balyeat, Babylon: The Great City of Revelation (Sevierville, TN: 1991); Michael H. Warren, The Coming of Christ’s Kingdom: The End Times and the Triumph of the Gospel. Several of these books are available for free download at http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/.

[3] Josephus, Wars, IV.5.

[4] General Titus surrounded Jerusalem in the spring of A.D. 70, but he didn’t let anyone out, and all the inhabitants were killed or enslaved when Jerusalem finally fell in September of that year; so in order to escape, Christians must have fled when Jerusalem was surrounded on a previous occasion.

[5] N.T. Wright defends the view that I am presenting here in his book The Victory of Jesus. However, he makes the comment that “nobody would think that the flight to Pella was fleeing to the mountains.” But just because they ended up staying at Pella does not mean that they took the most direct route there, up the valley of the Jordan River. They could have fled to the mountains first, then made their way over to Pella after that. And Pella is in a mountainous area on the eastern side of the Jordan, so even if they went directly up the Jordan Valley to Pella, they would have been fleeing to the mountains.

[6] Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History (3:5:3); also see Josephus, Wars, 4:9:2.

[7] Epiphanius of Salamis (d. 403), On Weights and Measures 15. On the historicity of the flight to Pella, see P.H.R. van Houwelingen, “Fleeing Forward: The Departure of Christians from Jerusalem to Pella,” Westminster Theological Journal 65 (2003): 181-200, at https://www.academia.edu/2057245/Fleeing_Forward_the_Departure_of_Christians_from_Jerusalem_to_Pella.

[8] Chilton, Paradise Restored, p. 92.

[9] Josephus, Wars, 6:6:1.

[10] Josephus, Wars, 6:5:1.

[11] Matt 24:5,11; Mark 13:20,21; Luke 21:8; Rev. 13-14: Josephus, Wars, 4:5:3.

[12] Matt. 24:7; Mark 13:8; Luke 21:11; Rev. 6:5-6: Josephus, Wars. 5:10:5.

[13] Matt. 24:12 ; Rev. 9:20-21 ,11:8-10 , 18:4-5 : Josephus, Wars, 5:13:6.

[14] Matt. 24:14: Acts 2:5; Rom. 1:8; Col. 1:16, 20. That “world” means the Roman world, see Luke 2:1: “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.”

POSTMILLENNIALISM AND APOLOGETICS (1)

[image error]PMT 2017-045 by Mike Warren (Christian Civilization Blog)

I propose five points where postmillennial eschatology shapes and supports Christian apologetics:

1. Postmillennialism means that we eventually persuade the world with our arguments.

2. Postmillennialism validates the resurrection and the truth of Jesus’ message.

3. Postmillennialism refutes the skeptics’ claim that Jesus broke His promise to return.

4. Postmillennialism is the biblical anecdote to failed predictions of Christ’s Second Coming.

5. Postmillennialism was an important influence in the Scientific Revolution.

Point 1:

Postmillennialism means that we eventually persuade the world with our arguments.

The Old Testament predictions about the Messianic Age include the prediction that all nations will eventually worship God and obey His Law. This is taught over and over again: Gen. 17:5-6; 22:18; 49:10; Num. 14:21; 1 Sam. 2:10; 1 Chron. 16:28-31; Ps. 2:8; 22:27; 37:9-11, 22, 34; 47:2-3; 47:8-9; 65:2; 117:1; 66:4; 68:31-32; 72:8,11; 72:17,19; 82:8; 86:9; 96:1-3; 98:1-3; 102:15; 102:22; 138:4; Isa. 2:1-4; 9:6-7; 11:9; 19:22-24; 26:9; 42:10-13; 49:6; 49:22-23; 66:23; Jer. 3:16-17; 16:19; 31:31-34; Dan. 2:31-35; 7:13-14; Amos 9:11-15; Mic. 4:1-3; 5:2-4; 7:16-17; Hab. 2:14-20; Hag. 2:7-9; Zech. 9:9-10; Zech. 14:9; Mal. 1:11.

[image error]

He Shall Have Dominion

(paperback by Kenneth Gentry)

A classic, thorough explanation and defense of postmillennialism (600+ pages). Complete with several chapters answering specific objections.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

The Old Testament promise of world-wide dominion of the Messianic Kingdom is, in fact, the New Testament gospel: “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, `In you shall all the nations be blessed'” (Gal. 3:8; cf. Rom. 4:13). The Old Testament promise is carried out by the Spirit-empowered church obeying the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:18-20).[1] Following the example of the Apostle Paul, this involves Christians presenting arguments to those who question our message (Acts 17:1-3; 18:26-28; cf. 2 Tim. 2:24-26; 1 Peter 3:15; Titus 1:9).

It should be encouraging to apologists that, not only are they right, but that eventually their arguments (the good ones at least) will prevail in history to convert the world. Of course, the conversion of the world doesn’t result merely from arguing with people; it also involves prayer, worship, helping the poor, pursuing justice, and all other things commanded by God’s word.

Postmillennialism was the dominant belief of the Christians who settled America. It is what gave them confidence to leave their homeland and establish settlements in a wilderness on the other side of the ocean. Puritans initiated the Protestant international missions movement that continues to this day; and, in particular, Puritans brought the postmillennial vision of comprehensive transformation of all of life to the Glory of God with them when they settled America.[2] These Christians laid a foundation that served to erect one of the freest, most prosperous countries on earth (with flaws too, of course). One writer on the history of missions says of the New England Puritans’ victorious postmillennial faith:

“Men living in a relatively small community on the edge of an unexplored continent, remote from the great population centers, having some contacts with remote lands by sea trade but closely related only to the British homeland, having converted only a few hundred of the Indians, with one voice proclaim their certainty that the whole wide world belongs to Christ and is being brought to him! It is the universalism of the prophets which sustains this view, and due to their conviction about the inerrancy of the Scriptures and the faithfulness of God’s promises, the New England Puritans were convinced of the soundness of their expectation.”[3]

[image error]

Postmillennialism Made Easy (by Ken Gentry)

Basic introduction to postmillennialism. Presents the essence of the postmillennial argument and answers the leading objections. And all in a succinct, introductory fashion.

See more study materials at: www.KennethGentry.com

The postmillennial vision gradually became co-opted by the enemies of God, so that a secularized perversion of postmillennialism gave Marxists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the confidence of worldwide dominion that was once possessed by Christians. Karl Marx said, “The worker must one day seize power, in order to erect the new organization of labor; . . . if he does not want to suffer the loss of heaven on earth, as did the old Christians who neglected and despised it.”[4] God may allow our unfaithful generation to die in the wilderness, but eventually He will raise up generations who once again are captivated by the postmillennial vision, which includes passion for apologetics training to refute the skeptics of Christianity, and that will gradually turn every nation on earth into a shining city on a hill giving glory to God.

See article at: click

Notes

[1] See Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., The Greatness of the Great Commission (Tyler, TX: ICE, 1990).

[2] Iain H. Murray, The Puritan Hope: A Study in Revival and the Interpretation of Prophecy (Banner of Truth, 1975).

[3] R. Pierce Beaver, Pioneers in Mission: The Early Missionary Ordination Sermons, Charges and Instructions (1966), p. 26, quoted in Murray, The Puritan Hope, p. 95.

[4] Karl Marx, “Address at the Hague Congress,” (1872) see a version here; Quoted in Dennis Peacocke, Winning the Battle for the Minds of Men (Santa Rosa, CA: Alive and Free, 1987), p. xi.