Pete Garcia - Watching vs Not Watching

Watching For The Lord To Return Isn’t Optional For Christians

Pete Garcia

Recently, I sat thru a sermon based on the principles of hope. The pastor gave a somewhat stirring message centered on living as a hopeful people in a society gone off the rails. His conclusion, summarized, was that as the world gets crazier and darker, people will turn to Christ because we are finally getting serious about our faith. To be fair, I didn’t sit through the first three sermons in this series, however, I don’t think, given the tenor of this last message that they were any better. This last sermon had four points to it with which, at least the first three I had no major issues. However, it was on his final point that he came out of left field and really turned his previous three points on their heads.

That’s my beef with all of this prophecy jargon that’s on the Internet. Let’s look out here. Don’t worry about the things that God has right in front of you to deal with because you worrying about all of that and focusing on all that and getting all the timeline just right…it’s not gonna do anything other than get you distracted from what’s right in front of you. These are the things God has called us to. The reason that the church, if it doesn’t feel like the church isn’t advancing, it is not because God isn’t coming, it’s because we’re not dealing with the things that are important that He’s called us to. We are not dealing with the responsibilities that are right there in front of us that God has called us to.

If this sentiment sounds familiar, it should. It is the overwhelming present-day consensus for the majority of messages billowing out of evangelical, catholic, and protestant pulpits every week. It’s the proverbial either-or scenario. Pastors like this one, seem to think that mature Christians are incapable of both sharing the Gospel and also watching for the Lord’s return. That’s why I always like to emphasize (somewhat jokingly) that the reality is as mature/maturing believers, we can both walk and chew gum at the same time. It’s not an either-or scenario.

However, this pastor’s message seemed to indicate that the Church was somehow responsible for fixing all that ails the world. It’s a mixture of Amillennialism’s “we are the Kingdom” and Post-Millennialism’s “we gotta fix this ourselves” sentimentality. I wish this sermon was just a one-off from some fringe church in the middle of nowhere, but it’s not. It sounds like every other sermon coming out of a growing chorus of pulpits these days all across our fruited plain. It also sounds like this young pastor has pulled a lot of his talking points about getting ‘busy’ from books like The Purpose Driven Life. Who else embraces this dismissal of Bible prophecy? Quoting from Dr. David Reagan’s article titled “The Abuse of Bible Prophecy,” he lists the following:

1) Rick Warren In his book, The Purpose Driven Life, he mocks Bible prophecy when he states: “If you want Jesus to come back sooner, focus on fulfilling your mission, not figuring out prophecy.” He goes on to characterize prophecy as a “distraction” and says that anyone who lets himself get involved in distractions like studying prophecy “is not fit for the kingdom of God.”

2) Tony Campolo In his book, Speaking My Mind, he attacks believers in Bible prophecy with these words: “Rigid Christians who believe in the possibility of Jesus’ soon return are a real problem for the whole world.” He then proceeds to blame them for wars and a host of other evils.

3) Bill Moyers He is a PBS journalist who is also a Baptist seminary graduate. He gave a speech in 2005 in which he denounced Tim LaHaye as a “religious warrior who subscribes to a fantastical theology.” He then claimed that those who believe in Bible prophecy desire environmental disaster “as a sign of the coming apocalypse.”

4) The National Council of Churches In December of 2008, the National Council of Churches joined the chorus of scoffers by issuing a denunciation of all those “who consider the state of Israel to be divinely ordained and scripturally determined, with a central role in ushering in the end of history…”

5) Rob Bell He is one of the leaders of the Emergent Church Movement. Here is one of his many put-downs of Bible prophecy:

I would argue that in the last couple hundred years, disconnection has been the dominant way people have understood reality. And the Church has contributed to that disconnection by preaching horrible messages about being left behind and that this place is going to burn — absolutely toxic messages that are against the teachings of Scripture, which state that we are connected to God, we are connected to the earth, we are connected to each other.

 

6) Brian McLaren He is the leading spokesman of the Emergent Church Movement. Writing in Sojourners magazine in April of 2009 he stated that any theology that stresses a special end-time role for Israel is: “Terrible… deadly… distorted… biblically unfaithful… and morally and ethically harmful.”

He further stated that those who take the end-time prophecies about Israel seriously, “use a bogus end-of-the-world scenario to create a kind of death wish for World War III, which — unless it is confronted more robustly by the rest of us — could too easily create a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Conclusion

Clearly, the dismissal of Bible prophecy is a subject that has only grown in intensity in recent years thanks to the foolishness of infamous date setters such as the Millerites, Edgar Whisenant, Harold Camping, etc. However, I’d like to begin with several of my own rebuttals to this pastor’s sermon (and those like it).

First of all, “prophecy jargon” doesn’t come from the Internet. It comes from the Bible. Nearly thirty percent of the Bible is prophetic in nature, and to dismiss it out of hand as a distraction is both dangerous and foolish (see Matt. 16:1-4, 24:24-25).

Secondly, watching for the Lord to return isn’t optional for Christians, Jesus didn’t leave us that option. It’s every bit as instrumental to our walk, faith, and responsibilities as is going out to make disciples of all nations.

Mark‬ ‭13:32-37‬ ‭KJV‬‬ – “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is. For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch. Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.”

Sure sounds like a command to me.

Thirdly, if he (and other pastors like him) are serious about getting their congregations on fire for the Lord and getting serious about their faith (as his sermon seemed to indicate) one of the best ways to do that, is to teach and study sound exegetical Bible Prophecy. 

Why is that? Because 

1) Bible prophecy (eschatology) ties every other biblical doctrine into it giving the believer a well-reasoned and complete understanding of God’s word beginning with Genesis 3:15 all the way to Revelation 22:20

2) It loosens our grip on the things of this world- as it was intended to do (Luke 21:34-36)

3) When understood properly, Bible prophecy motivates the believer to get busy doing all the work the Church should be doing (2 Peter 3:10-12)

Lastly, to study Bible prophecy is to study Jesus Christ (Rev. 19:10). If you want a church full of on-fire believers, teach them sound Bible prophecy. When it finally sinks in for people that we as a nation are not going to just continue on with the status quo into some unknowable, distant future, believing Christians will begin to focus on what’s important; which is saving souls because that is the only thing we can take with us into eternity. 

The age-old trade of pinning Matthew 24:36 to every prophetic discussion was only applicable up to 1948. However, after Israel was rebirthed as a nation again after nearly two millennia of diaspora, we really can’t use that excuse any longer. Say what you will, but the fact we have a Jewish Bible, written by Jewish men, about a Jewish Messiah, who foretold on numerous occasions that Israel would be revived as a nation in the last days, doesn’t leave us the option to feign ignorance any longer. 

Furthermore, Matthew 24:36 was not the final matter our Lord said about the subject (see Revelation 3:3). While it is true that no man (or angel) will know the exact time of His return, we are expected to know the general time of His return so as not to be caught off-guard or asleep (1 Thess 5:1-9, 2 Thess 2:1-8, Hebrews 10:24-25, Revelation 3:3).

The repercussions of dismissing Bible prophecy outright far outweigh any negative aspects of being “distracted.” It reminds me of an excellent article written by a Church of Christ professor some years ago in Pepperdine University’s Leaven magazine. In his Eschatology: Essential, Yet Essentially Ignored, professor Lynn Mitchell perfectly summarizes the ‘theological wasteland’ created by the Church of Christ denomination’s decades-long, systemic dismissal of all things prophetic. He writes;

All we have left is ah-millennialism. We are neither passionately radical nor invigoratingly hopeful.

You see, when you boil it all down, true, biblical Christianity really only has two options. Either it is all true (including Bible prophecy), and we must live as such, or none of it is true, and we are just random stardust floating in space. If the former, then the Church will exist/advance/be removed by the sheer willpower of God, and reality will bend according to His will. If the latter, then, well, what does any of it really matter? Because if the God of the Bible isn’t real, then our existence here is accidental and when we die, we will blink off into nothingness. The Apostle Paul addresses a similar argument to the church in Corinth.

Believers studied in sound eschatology will not live in fear or perplexity at the increased wickedness and lunacy that has currently taken hold of this world, because they will know that this is the way it is SUPPOSED to be at the end. It is this way at the end, NOT because we aren’t doing our jobs, but because God’s word already said it would (2 Tim 3, 2 Peter 3, Jude, James 5, Rev 3, etc.).

Things aren’t going to get better. The Church isn’t going to take over the world for Christ. If that were true, then Christ’s Second Coming would be unnecessary. While it is true the gates of hell won’t prevail against the Church (Matt. 16:18), that is not the same as saying Church is going to win the world over so Christ can return. There is a huge difference between a stalemate and a decisive victory. The victory isn’t going to be determined by how busy the Church gets in the here and now. The victory will be Christ’s alone because only He can bring the Kingdom. If the Church could win the world over for Christ, then why have we waited 2,000 years to do it? The truth is we can’t…nor where we supposed to. The Church isn’t the Kingdom, nor are we building the Kingdom here on Earth. The Kingdom is what Christ ushers in at His coming.

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