On his Monday (7/27/20) show, Rush Limbaugh said that Republicans “may never win another election” if they don’t take a serious stand against rioting in America and what he calls a “reality-denying, corrupt string of lies” from the Democratic Party. “Everything the Democrat Party is saying is a demonstrable, provable, misleading lie—and yet crickets from the Republican Party on this.” (WND)
It’s not only most Republicans who are missing in action. There are many Christians who are hoping to be missing in action and believe a vote for Joe Biden will help them be missing entirely from the onslaught of evil to come. What do I mean? The following was sent to me by a long-time friend:
I had a woman tell me today that it may work out better for Christians to vote for Biden because it would hasten Jesus’ return and His second coming. The Christians would be taken out of this mess. You are correct about the dangers of premillennialism.
After posting this article a friend sent me the following:
Gary DeMar just posted an article about Christians voting for Biden because they believe Trump is working against God’s Plans. Things are supposed to get worse in the last days, not better—they say.
This is no exaggeration. I have friends, many of them, who believe this way. Now, these guys aren’t going to actually vote for Biden since he is pro-choice. They are just not going to vote period! My one friend actually used the words: “Trump’s intentions are good, but he’s postponing the rapture!”
Ideas have consequences.
For 40 years I have been warning Christians about prophetic beliefs that immobilize Christians. No one knows how many Christians have dropped out of the culture war because they are convinced that we are living in the last days.
This discredited belief system goes back a long time, but it’s been ramped up in the past 50 years. Consider the following:
- “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.” ((Hal Lindsey, The Late Great Planet Earth (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1970), 145.))
- “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.” ((An Interview with Hal Lindsey, “The Great Cosmic Countdown: Hal Lindsey on the Future,” Eternity (January 1977), 21.))
- “The church is not in the business of taking anything away from Satan but the souls of men. The world is a sinking Titanic ripe for judgment, not Garden of Eden perfection.”
- “This world is not going to get any easier to live in. Almost unbelievably hard times lie ahead. Indeed, Jesus said that these coming days will be uniquely terrible. Nothing in all the previous history of the world can compare with what lies in store for mankind.” ((Charles C. Ryrie, The Living End (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1976), 21.))
- “‘Reclaiming’ the culture is a pointless, futile exercise. I am convinced we are living in a post-Christian society—a civilization that exists under God’s judgment.” ((John F. MacArthur, The Vanishing Conscience: Drawing the Line in a No-Fault, Guilt-Free World (Dallas: Word, 1994), 12.))
- “The [dispensational] premillennial position sees no obligation to make distinctly Christian laws.” ((Norman L. Geisler, “A Premillennial View of Law and Government,” Moody Monthly (October 1985), 129.))
Tom Sine offers a startling example of the effect “prophetic inevitability” can have on some people:
“Do you realize if we start feeding hungry people things won’t get worse, and if things don’t get worse, Jesus won’t come?” interrupted a coed during a Futures Inter-term I recently conducted at a northwest Christian college. Her tone of voice and her serious expression revealed she was utterly sincere. And unfortunately I have discovered the coed’s question doesn’t reflect an isolated viewpoint. Rather, it betrays a widespread misunderstanding of biblical eschatology … that seems to permeate much contemporary Christian consciousness. I believe this misunderstanding of God’s intentions for the human future is seriously undermining the effectiveness of the people of God in carrying out his mission in a world of need…. The response of the (student) … reflects what I call the Great Escape View of the future. So much of the popular prophetic literature has focused our attention morbidly on the dire, the dreadful, and the destruction of all that is.” ((Tom Sine, The Mustard Seed Conspiracy: You Can Make a Difference in Tomorrow’s Troubled World (Waco, TX: Word, 1981), 69.))
Can you imagine what would have happened to the early church if this type of thinking had been promoted after the murders of Stephen at the hand of the soon-to-be apostle Paul (Acts 7:54–60), James the brother of John at the hand of Herod (Acts 12:1–3), the martyred saints in Revelation prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 just as Jesus had predicted (Matt. 24:1-34):
“Then one of the elders answered, saying to me [John], ‘These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and where have they come from?’ I said to him, ‘My lord, you know.’ And he said to me, ‘These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 6:9–11; see 1:9; 2:10; 7:13–14).
Saul was converted on the Damascus Road and Herod was “struck by an angel,” “eaten by worms and breathed his last breath” (12:20–24), Nero committed suicide in AD 68, and the remnants of the Roman Empire are a tourist attraction today.