Is The World About To Come To A Catastrophic End?

AI Generated Transcript (I only fixed the mis-spelling of my name and added one extra paragraph break and deleted a weird paragraph break - I left the rest of the mess just the way AI delivered it haha):

Are you and I living in the last days? Are these the end times? Are the things that you're seeing on the news pointing to the end of the world and the soon return of our Lord? Welcome to Jon's Voice Notes, where I, Jon, share stream-of-consciousness style with no plan whatsoever to

based on an idea that I want to talk about right now, and then I say it, and we see where it goes. So I've had quite a journey on this topic. I grew up in the 80s. I grew up at a four-square church, which is very similar to Assembly of God or Pentecostal, if you don't know what that is.

And our end times view was pretty standard to what most of the view I've heard my whole life from others. That a time is coming soon where, because Israel was reborn as a nation and because of...

That means that within a certain amount of time, the tribulation is going to begin. And then usually most people believing at the beginning of the tribulation, but a variety of other beliefs somewhere, either the beginning, the middle or the end, Jesus will bodily return and set up a literal 1000 year reign on the earth.

And I read as a kid the book, The Late Great Planet Earth, by, gosh, is it Hal Lindsey? Is that his name? I read that growing up and pretty much believed it. I remember we used to say to one another, see you when we were saying goodbye, here, there, or in the air.

We were expecting to be raptured. I remember there was some wonderment about what should we do to prepare for our lives when Jesus is just coming back anyway. Why would we prepare for our lives? Well, then in fifth grade, my fifth grade Bible teacher, which I have no idea what his beliefs about the end times are, but he taught the inductive Bible study method to me.

And he said, you need to learn how to study the Bible for what it says for itself. What is it actually saying? What does it actually mean? Don't look into it to find what you want to find there. Try and discern what it's actually saying by studying it in the context. So I learned the rudiments, the fifth grade version of inductive Bible study. And I started to read my Bible that way, looking at the context all around whatever passage we were studying.

I was in church one Sunday and my pastor was talking, a man that I admire greatly, by the way, still to this day. And he was talking about how this coming of Jesus in 1 Thessalonians was different from the coming of Jesus in the 2 Thessalonians. One of them was the rapture and the other one was the final second coming at the end of the world.

or the end of the tribulation, or whatever. And I studied and studied, and I read the first book, and I read the second book, and I read the first book again, and I read the second book again. I read them over and over. I looked at the context the best that I could, and I came to the conclusion that there's only one real possibility here, is that these are talking about the same thing. They're not talking about two events.

I'll have to look at that again, see if I still agree with my assessment, because that was many years ago. I don't even know what grade I was in when I was applying.

But that was the first seed of doubt in my mind. Are these things I'm being told about the end times true? Are they accurate? Are they what the Bible really teaches? But the way I first applied it, based on seeing these as the same event, is that it must be a post-tribulation rapture.

If the rapture, and basically because that would mean the rapture and the second coming are the same thing. It is not two separate events. So I embrace the philosophy of a post-tribulation rapture. While I continue to study my word in my life and various times and places and read various things,

And I begin to have a second issue, a second concern about the end times. And I was probably getting closer to college age here, and I might have even been in my early days in youth with a mission. I actually don't remember when I first started pondering this, but...

And I couldn't help but notice how inconsistent this apparent, to me it was on the level of this is what God is like. This is what God is like. This is how he deals with people. And I began to see this flaw of the whole church basically rendering reformation or real change in the world to something that won't come until the physical return of Christ and the literal thousand year reign. Almost as if the kingdom of God wasn't here yet.

And this troubled me. I couldn't make it make sense. I could not make the way I was being taught the end times make sense. Eventually, I heard phrases such as premillennial, amillennial, and postmillennial views of eschatology. I'm pretty sure if you're listening to this, you know what eschatology is, where that just means the...

Where it's all headed. Where is this all going? Where's life going? What's the end? The end of it all. But I... And I heard some other leaders. I actually remember... In this, I was pretty young here. I was probably in... This would have been like 1992, maybe. A few years after high school. I was listening to Loren Cunningham. And I heard him... The founder of Youth With A Mission. And I don't know what his eschatology was, actually. But I heard him say...

that the Antichrist can hold his international convention in a phone booth if we work hard enough. In other words, he was not convinced that there was all this predetermined stuff that had to happen in a certain way. So I'm not going to put ideas and misrepresent like I know what his beliefs were, because I don't. I just heard him say that. It affected me. I heard Floyd McClung say some similar things, and I was like, okay, there are other people out there that are thinking the church is supposed to win.

both in eternity and now. Even if we have to give our lives as martyrs, we are going to win. Our descendants will win. There's going to be a victory. At some point, I started asking myself questions like,

Why did the early Americans and the people that came out of the Protestant Reformation and these kinds of people build nations, whereas here in the end times, supposedly, we're waiting for Jesus to come back and just kind of sweep as many people into the kingdom as possible? I heard that said. I've had people kind of deny it, but I have heard it said before.

That it's the end of the times and there's a great harvest coming in. God wants as many people to be saved as possible. And everything is about sweeping millions and zillions of people into getting born again. And it was only later that people started to notice people were falling away. And maybe it's because they weren't getting discipled. And then the words like follow-up came about. Well, we need follow-up. We need churches to get a card from the revival meeting so they can follow up these people.

I've heard all sorts of different theories on what went wrong with that kind of evangelism crusade that seemed to produce a low percentage of genuine converts. But what if the whole idea is flawed? What if the whole idea that we need to just sweep in a harvest before the end is flawed? I'll get to that.

So I kept reading, I kept studying, and I began in the way I talked to say, I just do not buy the common view of the end times, that things are supposed to get worse and worse and worse and worse, and then the end will come. I don't buy it. I do not see it in the Bible. Now, I did not have an explanation for the end times. And I also began to see all of the people who think they know when Jesus is coming back do not know when Jesus is coming back. They don't know at all.

It's not that they're off by a little. They don't know at all. You remember 88 Reasons Why Jesus Will Return in 1988? And when that guy got it wrong, or it might have been raptured in 88, whatever the words of the title were. When he was wrong there, it became 89 Reasons Why It's 89. Well, we're way past that.

We're way past a generation. I was always told it would be a generation after... Because people tried to say that this generation will not pass away until Jesus comes back. And they said it must mean the generation after Israel was reestablished. And they have weird reasons that they get there, but...

They have to believe that, because otherwise the whole system doesn't work. Which, by the way, the whole system doesn't work. So, I kept studying, kept reading, I saw that something's wrong, something's off. And then I took a Bible school in 2002, which, no, they did not teach me that I better have a certain perspective. They didn't brainwash me. But we learned that there were three main perspectives on the millennium, specifically.

And we also learned that there were a number of perspectives at how to interpret eschatology in general. So the in general had to do with preterist or futurist or historicist. I don't remember what they all are other than futurist means most of the prophecies about the end are in the future.

A Preterist is most of the prophecies are in the past. They were fulfilled already in the past. Most or sometimes it gets close to all or almost all. And I think a Historicist was something like... They were the ones that believed that the Catholic Church was the Antichrist. Like apparently one of the great Reformed confessions, the Westminster Confession or something, literally said that the Pope...

is the Antichrist. The Catholic Church is the beast. That is literally their official doctrinal position. And I believe they rewrote that to take that out eventually. But I'm probably way off there, but historicist is something like that. And if there was a fourth one, I don't remember. The Millennium, there was the people that believed that...

Jesus would bodily return before the millennial reign of Christ in a literal 1,000-year reign here on the earth.

Then there were the amillennialists, which basically don't believe that there's a literal thousand years at all as a symbolic number that means something else. Maybe like there's variations of it, like it's just the whole age of the church between when Christ ascended back in whatever year that was in the first century to when he returns. And then there are the postmillennialists.

The post-millennialists, I had a hard time grasping the actual theory, but they were the ones that were always talking about victory. So I drifted towards these post-millennialists. They believe that Jesus...

I'm sorry. Basically, Jesus comes back after the millennial reign. He bodily returns at the end of the physical bodily reign. I'm sorry. I'm mixing him up there. He physically bodily returns at the end of the reign of the church.

where the gospel is preached to all nations, and the earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, and the nations are discipled, and the world is made into the beauty that God wants it to be. So there's an expectation of victory this side of eternity. That one has always rung, at least the implications, what they believe are the most consistent with what I believe, based not even on studying the millennium at all.

just studying the way the Bible talks about what God wants to do in the world. I believe the premillennialists have the biggest problem, and most likely, if you're listening to this, that's you. Most, well, at least the people I know, are almost all premillennialists, and there's a specific kind of branch of it that some people have labeled dispensational premillennialists.

So if you're trying to think who's the Antichrist, when is he coming, when is the Tribulation, do I get to fly out of here first? If this is what you're thinking about, you're a premillennialist.

Well, here, what about this? I'm just going to put this seed in there and hope that it sows something that wrecks all that for you because I believe that thinking has destroyed the effectiveness of the church. I really do. What if the whole thing is bunk? What if that whole system is off? I have people try and tell me that they read their Bible and they just read it for what it says and this is what it says. And I'm like, I do not believe you. Even if you are not a Christian at all,

You have already been brainwashed into that whole epic destruction at the end of you of the end of the world, of the return of Christ. It's already in you. So you probably picked up the book of Revelation and said, oh, now I'm reading the book about the end of the world. And I wonder who is this Antichrist that I saw in the movies and what's it like? And then you interpret the whole book with a huge bias.

You can be honest with yourself. You can not be honest with yourself. Do whatever you want. But I'm telling you, you came in with a bias, even if you weren't a Christian before you read it. You came in with a bias because the church has successfully discipled the nations to see the whole world in this awful end-of-the-world, pessimistic kind of way. In fact, even the name of the book of Revelation...

The Greek word apocalypse means revelation. So a book that is supposed to be about the revealing of Jesus Christ to the world, the book of Revelation, the Greek word apocalypse has come to mean destructive, horrible end of the world.

I don't believe that is the intent of the book at all. I do not believe Revelation is even a little bit about a horrific and destructive end of the world. I believe this is a misunderstanding of the book. Submit that to you to think about it. But all this became more clear as I read post-millennial view books.

I kind of embraced it, sort of, just because I was told I had to fit in one of these three views. Then I heard one of my favorite authors, Vishal Mangalwadi, talk about what he calls the parallel millennial view. I'm not 100% sure yet what that is, but it seems to have to do with the fact that the kingdom of Satan is still present and the kingdom of God is still present, and we can choose which one to ally with and which one to build.

This is my summary. You can look him up on YouTube. He talks about it a lot. I just haven't heard him define it relative to the other views. But he says he doesn't believe any of them. Pre-millennial. Don't get mixed up with pre-trib. They're different. Pre-trib is a subcategory of pre-millennial.

Premillennial, amillennial, postmillennial, he says Westerners are looking at it from their timeline-oriented worldview and making an interpretation error as a result. Which, just a side note, pre-trib, mid-trib, pre-rath-trib, and post-trib raptures, those are all subcategories of premillennial.

So if you're studying those thinking, which one is it? You have not studied all of the ideas that are out there from legitimate Christians. There are legitimate Christians that believe all of these. You haven't even begun to study yet. You're all studying everything under one category.

If you look into the others, amillennialism or postmillennialism, and you just look into it to quickly dismiss it, and you find some easy dismissal so you can go back to your system of trying to figure out if it's pre-trib, mid-trib, pre-wrath, or post-trib, I'm sorry for you. You have not actually really considered, but...

Where am I at? Where am I at? I have decided that I actually don't need to completely understand what the millennium is referring to at all. Because it's only in Revelation in one spot. It's the only place it appears.

I had someone try and tell me, no, it's all over the Bible. It's like, well, the word millennium, that concept is only there once. You can try and attribute all sorts of other things you read in the Bible to that one passage, but there's no real good reason to connect them. You have to connect them based on your pre-existing view about the end of the world, about the end times. That's the only way you can connect them. So...

Basically, the millennial is not that important to me. I'm open to the Lord to learn, and I'm assuming I will continue to learn as I continue to read the Bible over and over and study through it over and over. I may come to a conclusion when you ask me in the future, but right now, I don't care pre-, post-, or amillennial. That's not important to me. What is important to me is we have been commanded...

To go and make disciples. Jesus said, okay, here's my eschatology. Jesus said all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him. Past tense. It was in the past tense 2,000 years ago. Jesus was a preterist in this sense. All authority in heaven and on earth. And on earth. And on earth. And on earth.

has been given to Jesus. Therefore, because Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth, therefore go, disciple all nations. Disciple nations. A lot of times it's translated, make disciples of nations. As far as I can tell, someone's trying to get away from the fact that it literally says disciple nations, and they're trying to make it about reaching individuals.

But it looks pretty clear to me that it's talking about discipling whole nations. So individuals and nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. What did Jesus command us? The whole Bible is his. We need to study the Old Covenant in light of the New Covenant. We need to study the New Covenant in light of the Old Covenant. But the whole thing is the teachings and the commands of Jesus.

So Jesus has all authority in heaven and in earth, on heaven and on earth, right now. At this very moment. And he has for 2,000 years. Therefore, our job is to go out and disciple nations and teach them to obey the whole counsel of God, Genesis to Revelation. All of it. And that's a whole other conversation as to what exactly that means.

But this is not my eschatology. The Bible says the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. That's what we're to be about. There is no place for us to be wondering when Jesus is coming back. Unless you find it in the Bible, but I submit to you, you have to kind of make it up or you have to read into it what you already hope or believe in order to find it there. There's not a lot revealed about it in the Bible.

But what is revealed very clearly is that our job is to disciple nations. Our job is to teach the world to obey everything he commanded. Our job is to command all men everywhere to repent. You know who we are? We are the rightful inheritors of this place.

So are we just passing through? Are we just sojourners passing through like Abraham? There are some aspects of that. We're all going to go off into eternity upon our death. And at least one of the theories is we're all coming back here. Well, actually, most of the theories include we're all coming back here with Jesus someday.

Whether that's exactly what happens or whether we have another adventure for eternity, I don't know. I'm still studying, still learning about that. But right now, this is our planet. It belongs to us. It is occupied by rebels. And our job is to tell the rebels, with love and humility, and sometimes even being martyred, you are in rebellion against the king of this planet.

You are in rebellion against the king of all mankind. You are in rebellion. But there's good news. The good news is not just you don't have to go to hell. The good news is the kingdom has come 2,000 years ago. Jesus showed up and said, the time is fulfilled in the book of Mark, early in Mark. The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. It's now. The kingdom of God has begun. Jesus did it.

He established the kingdom, and he is now reigning from heaven through the Holy Spirit and through us. So someone might say, but I still see suffering in the world. Well, you know who that's on. Our job is to disciple the nations.

trusting in his sovereignty, trusting in his plan. I have a lot more to say, but this has already been one of the longer episodes. Send me a message, gospelofeverything.com slash contact. Let's talk about it. I'm probably not going to split hairs with you if you're stuck in the premillennial, especially the dispensational. I've never had a fruitful conversation there, as far as I can tell. But, I mean, if you really want to talk about it, like if you don't just want to

dogmatically push something that basically isn't even there.

You have genuine questions and honest. I mean, I'm open for open, honest conversation, but I'm not really going to pick apart the details there. You don't know when the Antichrist is coming. The Antichrist is actually not even what you think he is or it is. It was the Antichrist were already present. Plural. It says it right in the books of John. It's right in there. They've already come plurally. There's been more than one.

So that was a bit of a rant. I hope you find it useful. If you are like blown away or don't understand something I'm saying, send me a message. I can explain or I can send you to resources, but I mostly just want to let you know. Oh, I did want to say the book of Revelation. I am pretty convinced that it is not about the end of the world. It is primarily about the end of the old covenant and

Mosaic covenant, the end of the, or maybe you could say the beginning of the end of the Adamic curse, and the beginning, or the fulfillment of the reign of Christ, and the beginning of the reign of Christ ending.

all the works of the devil, all the curse of Adam. It's a process that's happening since then. So it's more about the end of the old and the inauguration, the beginning, the installation of the kingdom of God. And it's now working itself out in the world. It's actually not about the end of the world at all. There's my current theory. All right. Thank you for listening to my voice notes today. 

This is Jon and Jon's voice notes signing off.