The Eschatology of Death

By Rousas J. Rushdoony

The dying have no future, and they know it. They speak of, and limit their vision to, the present and its sufferings. The future of the dying is a very limited one, and, usually, they do not go beyond a few days, or more than a month, in their thinking. Theirs is the eschatology of death, and men without faith have no other eschatology. Death and the certainty of death blots out all other considerations or else governs them all.
The same is true of cultures. Death comes upon them rapidly when the faith of the culture collapses or wanes. The confidence which once enabled them as a small minority to dominate their world melts away, and they cannot set their own house in order nor control it. Dying cultures block out tomorrow, having no confidence in their ability to cope with growth and the problems of growth. Dying Greece and dying Rome both saw themselves as overpopulated and as overwhelmed with peoples and problems, and so too does our modern, dying statist humanism feel. It talks desperately about zero population growth and zero economic growth, because behind such thinking is a zero future, an intellectual and religious bankruptcy.
The father of modern humanistic economics, Lord Keynes, when asked about the consequences of his economic theories "in the long run," answered simply, "In the long run, we are all dead." The growing disaster of Keynesian economics, and a world practicing it, should not surprise us. It was born without a future, and it was a product of an age which, like the dying, lived for the moment and with no thought of the future.
The dying live for the moment, because they have no future. Converted into a formal philosophy, the name of such a state of anticipated death is existentialism. For the existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, man is a futile passion who wills to be a god but is faced only with the certainty of death.
In one area after another, the eschatology of death governs our world. Yesterday, a letter came from a young man in Alaska which read in part as follows:

I'm a surveyor, but I'm not registered by the state because I haven't passed a test, but I can't take the test because I haven't worked for a registered surveyor for eight years... At this time...there is no chance of employment for a registered land surveyor. I have to turn down work, because I can't sign for it. I have an education in land surveying and I feel that I could Pass the test...The registered land surveyors have legislated themselves a monopoly.

Alaska may call itself the last frontier, or a new frontier, but it was born dead, with an eschatology of death. Like dying New York City, it strangles itself with its own ungodly laws.
This situation is not unusual but commonplace. In some cities and states, no young man can qualify to be a plumber, or a carpenter, or in various other callings, unless his father is an important person in the union. The dying legislate against the future.
This eschatology of death is common to all ages and classes. The old are very prone to damning the younger generations, but one of the menaces of our time is the growing demands on public funds by the aging. With the decline in the birth rate, the United States may face a crisis in not too many years when each gainfully employed person will be supporting two persons on social security, and other forms of aid. Such a situation will not occur only because disaster will first overtake any society which works itself into such a predicament.
The younger generations are no better, of course. They seek statist solutions for all problems: totalitarianism in the economic sphere (and therefore in the political as well), and total permissiveness in the moral sphere. This is irresponsibility, and irresponsibility is an urgent invitation to disaster and death.
Not surprisingly, humanistic education is dominated by the eschatology of death. It creates a demand for instant results and instant gratification. It teaches children to play at being a state senate, or a congress, and to legislate feelings, as though "good" wishes can determine reality. The child matures physically but remains a child, demanding instant results and gratification, utopia now without either work or faith. Education for permanent childhood means a society of incompetents, of all ages, whose politics becomes a demand politics. Because a demand politics produces disasters, the politicians who feed or gratify this demand are readily and angrily made the scapegoats for a graceless and irresponsible citizenry.
In Speech and Reality (1970), Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy wrote of the social dangers and evils confronting modern civilization. These are, he said, first, anarchy. In anarchy, people and classes "do not care to come to an agreement." Instead of ties uniting men, there are now divisions only, with each pursuing his own interest. Second, decadence is a very great evil. Decadence is manifested at a critical point: parents do not have "the stamina of converting the next generation to their own aims and ends. Decadence is the disease of liberalism today." The consequence is the barbarization of the younger generation. Since they are not made heirs of the past and its faith, they become the barbarians of the present. (The modern family, like the modern school, is a school for barbarians.) "The only energy that can fight this evil is faith. Faith, properly speaking, never is a belief in things of the past, but of the future. Lack of faith is a synonym for decadence," Rosenstock-Huessy held.
Third, in his list of evils is revolution, which is a consequence of anarchy and decadence. The old and the past are liquidated or eliminated as meaningless and irrelevant, which indeed they have made themselves to be, by their lack of faith and their destructive education of the young. Fourth in the list of evils is war. War is a sign of impotence. A system or philosophy of life which has no power to convert becomes imperialistic. For the zeal and faith of peaceful missionary work it substitutes brutal terror. A failing faith resorts to war, because it lacks the contagion of faith and conviction and can only force men into its own system. War is the resort of those who lack true power and are declining.
In brief, Rosenstock-Huessy said, anarchy is a crisis created by a lack of unity and community. Decadence is the collapse of faith. Revolution means a lack of respect, indeed, a contempt, for the past and present. War is an indication of a loss of power and a resort to force to perpetuate or advance a system.
All of these things are aspects of the eschatology of death. But there is still another aspect. Because the modern taboo is death, people are prissy and hesitant about the plain facts of dying. It is often assumed, out of fear, that most deaths are costly, long, and lingering, which in most cases is not true. Death often comes quickly. It is also assumed that death comes to a bland man, again not true. It comes to Christians and to unbelievers, and with many shades of difference. Death among some of the ungodly who die a lingering death unleashes a radical hatred of the living. One man, a life-long reprobate and adulterer, abandoned his wife as "too old" and moved in with a younger widow, whom he enriched to a degree. When terminally ill, he was ordered out by his mistress, and only his wife would have him. Instead of gratitude, he daily showered her and their children with hatred, profanity, and abuse, hating them for their faith and health, "wasted" on them, he would shout, because they "didn't know how to live." This is an aspect of the eschatology of death, its hatred for life and the living, and its will to destroy them. At the heart of this is what Wisdom long ago declared: "But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul; all they that hate me love death" (Prov. 8:36).
We are surrounded today by dying men whose eschatology is death and whose politics, religion, economics, education and daily lives manifest what Samuel Warner has called "the urge to mass destruction." Of this world system, Revelation 18:4 declares, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." In spite of this, all too many professing Christians not only refuse to separate themselves but are insistent on the morality of sending their children to humanistic state schools, an act of anarchy.
We have described the nature of the dying. What about the dead? The dead cannot wage war nor revolution, nor manifest hatred. The dead have their place, and they remain within it. No corpse can outgrow its coffin, nor conquer an inch of ground beyond that which it occupies. The dead stay in their coffins.
All too often the church is like a coffin. Instead of being a training ground and an armory for the army of the Lord, it is a repository for the dead. The people within have not the life and power to occupy any other ground, to establish Christian Schools, to conquer in the realm of politics and economics to "occupy" in Christ's name even one area of life and thought and to bring it into "captivity" to Jesus Christ (Luke 19:13; II Cor. l0:5). Where Christianity is confined to the church, it is dead, and it is only a corpse claiming that name but having none of the life nor the power thereof (II Tim. 3:5).
Christianity cannot be caged into a church and confined there like a zoo animal. "It is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth" (Romans 1:16). Power commands; it exercises dominion, and it reaches out "to every creature" (Mark 16:15) with the good news of Christ's redemption and lordship. It works to bring all things under the dominion of Christ, who is "King of kings, and Lord of lords" (Rev. 19:16). Jesus began and ended His ministry "preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God" (Mark l:14f]. That Kingdom begins with our redemption through His atonement and continues with our exercise of dominion with knowledge, righteousness, and holiness over every area of life and thought.
Coffin churches have no such gospel. Instead, they summon the living dead to enter the safety of their particular casket, far removed from the problems and battles of life. They encourage their people to gush about the peace within the coffin, and to embellish the coffin with their time and effort. Coffin churches have no ministry to a dying world.
When our Lord declared, "ALL POWER is given unto me in heaven and in earth" (Matt. 28:18), He did not limit that total power which He as King of Creation exercises to the narrow confines of man's soul. Christ's "all power" is over all things in heaven and in earth in their every aspect, and over every atom, moment, and possibility in all of creation. He is the Lord, lord over all. To limit His lordship and power to the church is as absurd as limiting the sun to shining over Europe, or selected portions thereof. Even less than we can limit the sun to one continent or one country can we limit Christ the King to one sphere or institution. To do so is a denial of His deity and is practical atheism.
Because "all power" is His, the Lord of Creation sends His elect messengers out to "teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world" (Matt. 28:20). All nations are to be summoned to bow before their King, both as individuals and in every aspect of their lives, civil, ecclesiastical, educational, familial, vocational, and all things else. An eschatology of life and victory allows us to exempt nothing from Christ's dominion and lordship.
A sickly term in Reformed theological circles refers to God's "well-meant offer of the Gospel;" the image of God it invokes is a false one. God's word is never a "well-meant offer" but always the command word, the word of power which redeems and regenerates, or reprobates. To be "well-meant" smacks of impotence and failure, and it speaks of men whose powers are frail, fallible, sinful, and dying. It belongs to eschatologies of death. God's word is the command word, the word of power, the word of life and death because it is the omnipotent word. Only of Him can it be truly said, "The LORD killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up" (I Sam. 2:6). Apart from the Lord, man has no future. In every area of life and thought, "Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it" (Ps. 127:1).
Education in its essence is always the transmission of the basic faith and values of a culture to its young. Education is thus in essence always a religious concern.
In many cultures, the basic values have been non-verbal and non-literary, so that education then has not been concerned with literacy but with other skills. A few cultures only have been concerned with literacy, Biblical faith and culture in particular, because of the insistence on the knowledge of the Scriptures. Modern humanism (as against classical humanism) under-rates verbal and literary skills.
Thus, not only is education a totally religious subject, but the curriculum, its contents, and its methods are all religious, in that they reflect the faith and values of a culture. To allow our children to be in humanistic schools is to be unequally yoked and to serve two masters.

“The World Is Getting Better” Says Triangulation—Earthquakes and the End Revisited

 By Gary DeMar

If you like to form your eschatology from the newspaper and are persuaded that the world is getting worse, you may want to consider what technology expert Byron Reese had to say in this recent video interview on Triangulation about the breakthroughs on the verge of being made in medicine, energy, etc. Byron has spoken at our conferences and he is Chief Innovation Officer at Demand Media.
My December 27, 2003 article Earthquakes: Are They a Sign of the End? prompted a number of responses, which I thought would be worth re-visiting. There was one particular email that was especially meaningful and moving for me. It was critical of my position, so I wrote the following response to clear up some issues:
Thanks for writing. Please note what Jesus said in Matthew 24:33-34: “Even so YOU too, when YOU see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door. Truly I say to YOU, this generation will not pass away until ALL THESE THINGS take place.” The “you” refers to Jesus’ first-century audience (24:2, 4, 6, 9, 25, etc.) not an unspecified future “last-days” audience.
“This generation” (Matt. 11:16; 12:41–42; 23:36; Mark 8:12; Luke 7:31; 11:30–32, 50–51; 17:25; cf. Gen. 7:1; Ps. 12:7; Heb. 3:10) refers to the generation to whom Jesus was speaking. “This generation” never refers to a future generation.
The earthquakes that Jesus references were earthquakes that occurred throughout the Roman Empire in the first century. As I noted in my brief article, the biblical and secular historical record is clear on this point. The famines (Acts 11:28) and earthquakes were the beginning of birth pangs. As that generation came to an end, the temple was destroyed, Jerusalem was sacked, more than one million Jews were killed, and more than 50,000 were taken as slaves. This was the actual “birth” of judgment.
Jesus was not prophesying what would happen to the “world,” He was pointing out what would happen “in Judea” (Matt. 24:16). The people in Judea could escape the coming calamity by fleeing “to the mountains” (24:16). If Jesus were describing a global conflagration, there would be no place to escape.
If you are interested in this topic, I suggest that you get my book Last Days Madness. It offers a comprehensive study—verse by verse—of Matthew 24 and other NT/OT prophetic texts.

Last Days Madness: Obsession of the Modern Church
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By the way, there has not been an increase in hurricanes, storms, and earthquakes in the past 100 years. Earthquakes, for example, have resulted in millions of deaths over the past two millennia. There was one in China that resulted in the death of nearly a million people. This was in 1556. I suggest, in addition to my book Last Days Madness, which makes a biblical case for a first-century fulfillment, that you look at Francis X. Gumerlock’s book The Day and the Hour. It is a decade by decade accounting of 2000 years of date setting based on current events. For a statistical analysis of this material (earthquakes, wars, famines, and general date setting) I suggest that you read Richard Abanes’ End-Time Visions?: The Road to Armageddon?Keep in mind that an increase in earthquakes is often the result of better technology to measure them. Earthquakes are recorded every day because we have equipment planted around the world to detect them.
To be honest, I never expected her to respond, and if she did respond, I expected to read a lengthy rebuttal filled with more modern-day prophetic theories. Was I surprised when I received the following reply:

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, for responding. Most of what I added to my email I read on www.lamblion.com. I have been terribly upset since this Tsunami. I have recently gotten married to a man who has never even stepped foot in a church. . . . I was raised by a mother and father who ingrained in my head that the world was going to come to an end before I turned thirty. At one point in my life (just a couple of years ago), I went into a major depression. I stopped caring about my life. I figured what is the point if I am only going to die. I never had many goals, but about a year ago I stopped this way of thinking. I put my parents words out of my mind. I decided I wanted to go to college. I went and got my GED and have been in college for a year now. My husband is finishing his BA. I have never been more happy. I look at my son and dream about our future, about buying our first home and growing old. After this Tsunami hit, my world turned black again. I have been scouring the internet for signs. I read on Jack Van Impe’s site that the end will happen between 2001 and 2012. I am so distresses I can’t think straight. I’m losing focus on my goals and my husband doesn’t understand. Does your book talk about the mark? Do you think that will happen in our life time? How long do you think this world has left? I am truly thankful for your response. I have felt so alone.

What you believe about the future will determine how you live in the present. How many more people out there have put their lives on hold because some prophecy writer has assured them the end is near.

THE LORD’S PRAYER, POSTMILLENNIALISM, AND WESTMINSTER

The Lord Jesus Christ teaches us how to pray postmillennially.
The Lord’s prayer: (Mat 6:9-13)
This, then, is how you should pray:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
{10} your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
{11} Give us today our daily bread.
{12} Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
{13} And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’
Along with carrying out the Great Commission in the power of the Spirit, we are to pray that His kingdom comes and that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In other words we are to pray the kingdom in on the earth.
Note the words of Jesus to His disciples:
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. {38} Ask (deomai) the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Mat 9:37-38 NIV)
The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (1647)
On the second petition of the Lord’s prayer it says:

In the second petition, (which is, Thy kingdom come,) acknowledging ourselves and all mankind to be by nature under the dominion of sin and Satan, we pray, that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, the fullness of the Gentiles brought in; the church furnished with all gospel-officers and ordinances, purged from corruption, countenanced and maintained by the civil magistrate: that the ordinances of Christ may be purely dispensed, and made effectual to the converting of those that are yet in their sins, and the confirming, comforting, and building up of those that are already converted: that Christ would rule in our hearts here, and hasten the time of his second coming, and our reigning with him forever: and that he would be pleased so to exercise the kingdom of his power in all the world, as may best conduce to those ends.

In an article on credal postmillennialism Andrew Sandlin says: “For while it is true that neither the creeds of early catholic orthodoxy nor the great confessions of the Reformation era contain a discussion of millennial terms (which, in any case, were not invented until last century), the eschatological notions of some of the latter documents cannot be understood equally well in any of the three main millennial frameworks (pre- , a- , and post-millennialism). A chief example is the Larger Catechism of the Westminster Confession of Faith, whose postmillennial eschatology seems implicit.”
For instance, Question 45 asks, How doth Christ execute the office of a king? The answer is

Christ executeth the office of a king, in calling out of the world a people to himself, and giving them officers, laws, and censures, by which he visibly governs them; in bestowing saving grace on his elect, rewarding them for their obedience, and correcting them for their sins; preserving and supporting them under all their temptations and sufferings, restraining and overcoming all their enemies, and powerfully ordering all things for his own glory, and their good; and also in taking vengeance on the rest, who know not God, and obey not the gospel.

There is no room in this answer for an increasingly evil world as posited by dispensationalism and much amillennialism. Lest the dispensationalist get the impression that the expressions “restraining and overcoming all their enemies” and “taking vengeance on the rest, who know not God, and obey not the gospel” refer exclusively to Christ’s exercise of kingly prerogatives after his second advent, he should note the answer to Question 42 declares that Christ “execute[s] the offices of prophet, priest, and, king of his church, in the estate both of his humiliation and [present] exaltation.” Moreover, lest the amillennialist deduce that these exercises of imperial rule pertain only to the increase of the church and not to the wider society, he should observe the texts the framers of the catechism offer as proof for their assertion: 1 Corinthians 15:25, Psalm 110:1, and, significantly, “the whole Psalm throughout.” Verses 5 and 6 of the Psalm state, “The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places of the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries.” Although the language employed here is largely figurative and symbolical, the extent of Christ’s rule clearly transcends the church to include the Gentile nations and political rulers.
Further, the answer to query 54, How is Christ exalted in his sitting at the right hand of God?, includes the statement, “[He] doth gather and defend his church, and subdue her enemies,” employing again Psalm 110:1 and “the whole Psalm throughout” as Biblical proof. Obviously implied as enemies that Christ will subdue in his regal authority are the Gentiles and kings of the earth. This subdual, contra dispensational premillennialism, occurs in Christ’s present session, and contra much amillennialism, extends beyond the church to include the entire Gentile world.

Paquistanês pega 33 anos de prisão por ajudar a encontrar Bin Laden Recrutado pela CIA, Shakeel Afridi foi condenado por traição. Ele criou falsa campanha de vacinação para ter DNA da família do terrorista.

Um médico paquistanês recrutado pela CIA para ajudar na busca por Osama Bin Laden, que foi executado em maio do ano passado por um comando especial americano no norte do Paquistão, foi condenado a 33 anos de prisão por traição.
O cirurgião Shakeel Afridi, que foi demitido como médico do governo há dois meses, foi considerado culpado pelo sistema de justiça tribal do distrito de Khyber, parte do cinturão tribal semiautônomo do Paquistão.
Afridi foi condenado por ter criado uma falsa campanha de vacinação em Abbottabad, a cidade onde Bin Laden estava escondido com as esposas e filhos, para conseguir uma amostra de DNA da família, informou a administração da região semiautônoma paquistanesa.
"Ele foi condenado a 33 anos de prisão por traição e levado para a prisão central de Peshawar", disse à AFP Mohamed Siddiq, porta-voz do governo do distrito de Khyber.
Os tribunais tribais são competentes nas zonas tribais semiautônomas do Paquistão, mas as apelações são analisadas por tribunais de direito comum.
Bin Laden morreu na madrugada de 2 de maio de 2011 quando um comando especial americano Navy SEALS invadiu a casa em que ele estava escondido, em Abbottabad. A unidade de elite chegou de helicóptero, que invadiu o espaço aéreo paquistanês, sem comunicar a operação às autoridades paquistanesas.

Fonte: http://g1.globo.com/mundo/noticia/2012/05/paquistanes-condenado-a-33-anos-de-prisao-por-ajudar-a-encontrar-bin-laden-2.html

The Economics of Death

By Rev. R.J. Rushdoony

The Bible is full of economic wisdom which often goes neglected in our day because the Bible, the book for all of life, is too commonly reduced to a devotional manual and all "non-spiritual" truth is discarded. Solomon, for example, tells us, "cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt find it after many days" (Eccles. 11:1). The reference here is to rice planting. The rice is broadcast into water paddies, as it were; the family's "bread" or food is thrown away, in a sense, but only thereby is a harvest possible in the days to come. In Psalm 126:5,6, the same fact is stated even more vividly: "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." Here we have a famine in view; the precious grain is sown with tears, because life depends upon its harvest. In both texts, the first emphasis is that present advantages must be sacrificed for future benefits; there is no harvest tomorrow without a sowing today. Sowing seed constitutes an investment in the future.
Second, very obviously, the man who sows seed has, on the most basic and elementary level, some hope for the future. A society without hope is present-oriented. It is a consumer society; it eats up its seed grain rather than planning for a future harvest. It becomes therefore something that God condemns, a debt-oriented society rather than a saving and sowing one. It pays no heed to the six-year limitation on debt, nor to the principal that the godly goal is to owe no man anything save to love one another (Rom. 13:8). A debt society is death oriented; it makes saving, thrift, and future-oriented planning difficult or unprofitable, because it encourages consumption but not production. A "tax-break" is offered to debtors on their interest payments; savings are taxed (for accrued interest) as well as production and profit (or harvest). The tax structures of our time are anti-Scriptural with a vengeance. Moreover, the moral order is reversed; debt becomes an asset to these statist humanists, and wealth a liability and an evil. Money today does not have gold or silver behind it, but debt. The Monetary Control Act of 1980, which went into effect on June 1, 1981, allows the U.S. to monetize debts other than those of the Federal Government, debts both domestic and foreign. This is eating our bread or grain, not casting it upon the waters!
The power of a popular existentialism on the 20th century mind is apparent in its present-oriented economics. For existentialism, the moment, stripped of all morality and religion, and all considerations from the past or about the future, is everything. This too is the essence o fall the varieties of Keynsian economics. Keynes despised the future; his premise was, "In the long run, we are all dead." This death orientation marks modern economics, and it marks the reprobate. As Proverbs 8:36 declares, "But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death."
The Bible requires a future orientation of us, but, not in terms of ourselves, but in terms of Christ, the gospel, and the Kingdom of God. Our Lord says, "For whosoever will save his life shall lose iU but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it" (Mark 8:35; cf. Matt. 10:39, 16:25; Luke 9:24; Matt. 6:33). Our Lord here, in speaking of "losing" out lives, is not talking about martyrdom, but about "sowing," casting our lives by faith on the waters of the future, to yield a harvest to Him, and ourselves in Him.
Third,we are told that our godly investment in the future, God's future, shall certainly bear fruit: "Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt find it after many days." Again, "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." Humanly speaking, while there is no harvest without sowing, there is still then no certainty of a harvest. Drought, blights, floods, insects, war, and other disasters can wipe out a potential harvest. We are, however, promised a certain and inescapable harvest if we, in all our ways, seek to serve and glorify God: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose", (Rom. 8:28). This same fact is set forth powerfully and in detail in Deuteronomy 28.
Deuteronomy 28 emphasizes beyond any possibility of misunderstanding the moral and economic consequences of faithlessness to God. Inescapable curses and blessings are set forth: the religious, political, economic, personal, and agricultural consequences of denying God's law (and becoming present and man-oriented) are clearly spelled out.
The economic world of humanism is a world of present possibilities and no future certainties. Hence, existential economic experimentation is held to be both possible and necessary. We have then fiat money and economics, with man playing God and seeking to determine all possibilities by his fiat will. The world of causality is replaced by a world of non-consequential possibilities. Such a perspective leads to the economics of death: a thousand and one ways of economic death are experimented with rather than to pursue an economics of life, because only the economics of death reserves determination to man. The world of law is replaced by the fiat word of man.
As a result, by March 31, 1980, what Martin D. Weiss, in The Great Money Panic (1981: Arlington House) calls "The Debt Monster," meant a $1.5 trillion debt for the nation's corporations; a $949 billion Federal debt; and, for homes, office buildings, and shopping centers, a$1,362 billion mortgage debt. At the same time, cash liquidity is at an all-time low; unemployment in the United States and aboard is increasing, and the "solution" more and more in view is increased inflation. This is like prescribing more liquor to an alcoholic!
With all this, we have seen a reversal in moral order. As even one "Reverend Doctor" wrote me recently, "gay" is good, and heterosexual is evil (and all "straights" should be put into concentration camps, he held!) Abortion is good, and pro-life is fascistic, it is also held. Such moral disorder is to be expected in an era which sees debt as an investment in the future and an economic asset.
One of the great evils of modern economics is its purported scientific basis. Mathematics of a sort, and science of a sort, are substituted for morality. It will not do to tell our statists that their economics is a form of theft by law; their graphs and statistics are designed to replace economic morality with economic "science."
Economics was once taught as a branch of "moral philosophy." Adam Smith himself was a Professor of Moral Philosophy (although his ethics followed Hume, unhappily, but his economics presupposed an "Invisible Hand"). Today, moral considerations are banished from economics in favor of pseudo-science.
As a result, economic issues are seen, not in terms of moral considerations, which require character, work, and a future orientation, but in terms of "needs" and "lacks." Because of this, we speak of "underdeveloped" nations, which Peter F. Drucker, in Toward The Next Economics, and Other Essays (1981; Harper and Row; p. 64) calls an error: no country, he holds, is underdeveloped because it lacks resources; rather, it does not utilize its resources; its capital in such forms is not productively employed. Neither its human resources nor its physical resources are put to productive use.
We must add that productive use requires a faith and character geared to the future, and to a vision of a growing and dominion-oriented society. Unless such a faith revives, all nations will soon be "underdeveloped." As Proverbs 29:18 summarizes it, "Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he."
To abandon moral and theological considerations in any area, including economics, is to abandon reality and meaning. It is to deny knowledge. Drucker cites the shift to a new definition of knowledge as "whatever has no utility and is unlikely to be applied." p. 49). We can add that such "knowledge" cannot successfully be applied. This certainly would cover the contemporary economics of death and suicide.
When a civil government rules by fiat, and when its economics is a violation of moral order, the result is either anarchy, or a return to or a revival of, the most conservative forms of moral order, or, usually, both of these at the same time. The U.S.S.R. has no lack of anarchy; it is a way of life for many. For many others, very ancient forms of family life and order are providing a close world of meaning. As a result, even the levirate continues within the U.S.S.R. (Helene Carrere d'Encausse: Decline of an Empire, The Soviet Socialist Republics in Revolt; Newsweek Books, 1979, p. 256).
The pre-occupation of contemporary national economic policies is with "the problems of unemployment and inflation," as Lewis E. Lehrman has pointed out ("The Creation of International Monetary Order," in David P. Calleo, editor: Money and the Coming World Order, P. 71; N.Y.U. Press, 1976.) Economic order having been violated, the consequences of national economic policies are disorders and increasing problems.
In the face of all this, the silence of the church on economic evils is amazing. Not only so, too often it manifests hostility to any mention of the critical issue of debt. In the past decade, my own comments and those of Gary North on unbiblical debt policies have brought forth some outraged responses. Just recently, because of references to the question of debt in some Chalcedon Position Papers, some highly emotional and angry letters have.come in from people who have been handed copies of these papers. This is not surprising. we have in such cases a very obvious fact. The person of the church is heavily in debt, and in debt for many, many years to come. They are also in a serious economic "bind." Instead of confessing to the Lord that their debts are violations of His law, and seeking His help to re-order their lives, they pray for "blessings," i.e., to be relieved of their debt situation by some miracle, and without penalties. To be told that they are in sin, and that the wages of sin are always death (Romans 6:23), triggers in them an angry hysteria. They want a god who will let them eat their cake and have it too.
There is a fourth aspect to the religious, moral, and economic implications of Psalm 126:5,6: He who is future oriented and sows with hope in the Lord, "shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bearing his sheaves with him." The result is not only productivity, but joy. David, in Psalm 144:12-15 prays for an obedient people, a faithful people, faithful to their covenant God and His law, "That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace; That our garners may be full, affording all manner of store that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets; That our oxen may be strong to labour; that there be no breaking in, nor going out; that there be no complaining in our streets. Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD."
Such a society begins with your faithfulness and mine. It is time to say, "as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD" (Joshua 24:15).
(Taken from Roots of Reconstruction, p. 1060; Chalcedon Report No. 192, August, 1981)

WAS REVELATION TOO NEAR?

Dr. Gentry:
If Revelation was written in AD 65-66 about events in AD 70, how could John have expected it to be widely circulated in so short a period of time? It seems the book’s grandiose vision would be largely wasted because of the time frame involved. It couldn’t do much good, especially since the bulk of its actions (on your view) occur in Palestine. S. F., Los Angeles, CA
Gentry’s response:
This is a good question that many folks have. However, this concern tends to evaporate on closer consideration.
First, we do not believe John knew the exact date the events would play out. It is not like he thought: “Well, it is now AD 66. I had better get to work on this book because these events are going to start up in earnest in AD 68 and will be over in AD 70.” Remember, he said the dates were “at hand” and “soon.” He did not say: “They will begin on March 15, A.D. 68.”
Second, nevertheless, Revelation is directed specifically to seven particular churches who could have easily gotten it quickly enough. These were the ones John was directly addressing and specifically concerned with. In fact, according to the majority of commentators, including dispensationalists Robert L. Thomas and John F. Walvoord (at Rev 1:11 in their commentaries), the order of appearance of those churches shows that they were arranged according to a Roman postal road. They would fairly quickly receive Revelation since they were on this know postal road.
Third, Revelation’s usefulness does not evaporate with the occurrence of the events of the Jewish War. Consider Isaiah 7 or Micah 5: they do not cease to be useful when Christ is finally born of a virgin in Bethlehem. Does Paul’s letter to the Corinthians about their particular problems (divisions among followers of Paul, Cephas, and Apollos; a man marrying his father’s wife; and so forth) have no meaning for us today? Most of the NT epistles are “occasional letters.” That is, they were written to address specific issues on certain occasions. Yet their authority and applicability still remain for us today as we apply the principles embodied therein.
Regarding Revelation, even after Jerusalem and the temple are destroyed, Christians would need to know what happened and why — since God had worked for so many centuries through Israel, Jerusalem, and the temple. Revelation presents these events in dramatic fashion to underscore the vitally important redemptive historical truths involved of the transition from the old covenant to the new covenant. The destruction of Jerusalem was no accident of history; it plays into the plan of the Lamb who had been slain as he avenges himself and his people against his assailants.
Fourth, we can (and should! and must!) draw lessons from Revelation for all times. For example:
Like Paul warns in Rom 11, God judges his people and we should not boast against the branches because we might be broken off. Wasn’t Israel God’s special people for so long? But look at what he did to them when they became unfaithful and rejected and slew their own Messiah!
Revelation shows that Jerusalem’s destruction was no accident of history. It shows that behind the historical scenes, spiritual forces are at work as God works his plan in history.
Revelation shows very clearly that God in the NT era also exercises wrath. He is not the liberal God-of-love that we hear so much about. Liberals often try to distinguish the OT conception of God from the NT conception. Revelation clearly undercuts that attempt.
Revelation shows that God upholds his people in their trials. He answers their prayers — in his time and according to his plan. Though the Jews and Rome were persecuting our first century fathers, God upheld them. He will uphold you as well. After all, in each of the seven letters he urges upon the broader church: “He that has ears to hear, hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
Revelation shows that despite the might of Nero and Rome, when God opposes them, they are doomed. His people should not fear earthly forces arrayed against them.
Revelation shows that God’s redemptive forces have been established (the redemptive new creation, cp. Rev 21:1-2 with 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15-16) in time and on earth, and that they will gloriously impact the outcome of history. This occurs as the new creation forces gradually (like a mustard seed!) flow out into the world. God is at work in history and moving it toward its goal, which is already unfolding around us.

DISPENSATIONAL GAPS FOR FUN AND PROFIT

 By Kenneth L. Gentry Jr

One thing that I appreciate about dispensationalists is that they refreshingly admit when they are having trouble making their system work. Rather than bore their readers with exacting exegesis, dispensationalists admit that their system has gaps in it and just throw it out there for their audience. In fact, one of the more distinctive aspects of dispensationalism is its admission that it is full of holes: When the system cannot explain an important eschatological text, they declare: “There is a gap here! There must be!”

Daniel’s Famous Gap

Perhaps dispensationalism’s most famous — and most important — gap is the one they impose upon Daniel’s prophecies of the Seventy Weeks in Daniel 9:24–27. This prophecy is deemed by dispensationalists such as John F. Walvoord to be a linchpin in the dispensational system. In this prophecy Daniel uses the image of Seventy Weeks to represent a period of 490 years, with each “week” representing seven years.
Daniel breaks those 490 years into three sections: The first period is seven weeks (Dan 9:25; i.e., forty-nine years), then follows the second period of sixty-two weeks (Dan 9:25; you will have to compute the actual number of years by multiplying 7 x 62. I am no mathematician; I don’t do such high-level mathematical computation). Then finally the last week (Dan 9:27; I can handle this since there is none of this “carrying” business: it represents seven years).
But a problem arises for dispensationalists: Their best book sales deal with the great tribulation by which they frighten people to buy their novels so that they can become millionaires in order to invest their retirement into long-term real estate ventures. Consequently, they cannot allow that the last “week” follows immediately upon the preceding sixty-nine weeks — despite it appearing to do so when reading Daniel’s prophecy.
If they allowed this consecutive computation of the weeks-of-years, it would mean that the tribulation occurred in the first century when the Jewish temple was forever destroyed in A.D. 70 — just as Christ prophesied it would be. For the dispensationalist this would not make sense: Why is that such an important event? Big deal! So Israel worshiped by sacrifices for 1500 years from the time of Moses and the tabernacle. Big deal! So Israel worshiped in a temple for a 1000 years since the time of Solomon (except for a brief interruption during the Babylonian captivity). Big deal! Why would the final cessation of the sacrificial system, the rendering null and void the entire levitical system, and the absolute destruction of their central, unifying temple mean anything of significance to redemptive-history?
How then do they escape the obvious consecutive flow of weeks? By their own version of deus ex machina. They impose a gap between the sixty-ninth week and the seventieth. A gap arises on the scene to save the day. That is, the sixty-ninth week reaches until Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem, but then the next week leaps into the distant future over 2000 years distant! Consequently, they impose a gap in the record. Though the whole period of prophetic interest is 490 years, dispensationalism say that this measuring device must have a gap of over 2000 years before the last seven years starts. Voila! Prophecy doesn’t fit? No problem! Look for the gap.

The Old Testament’s Many Gaps

We also find the system’s tendency to impose gaps in various Old Testament prophecies that speak of the coming of Christ’s kingdom. Many prophecies read as if Christ comes to earth in the incarnation to establish his kingdom. For instance, consider Isaiah 9:6–7:
For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;
And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace,
On the throne of David and over his kingdom,
To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness
From then on and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.
This (and many similar verses) appears to teach that Christ is born into history in the first century and that he establishes his kingdom then. But this will not do for dispensationalists. You can’t sell books by telling people that Christ established a spiritual-redemptive kingdom in the first century. Readers of the National Inquirer and others need something a little more exciting than that.
Thus, once again the necessity of a gap. Those prophecies that speak of Christ’s coming to establish his kingdom are not to be read consecutively. According to dispensationalists we must read these prophecies as teaching that Christ comes in the first century, then he returns to heaven for 2000 years or so, then he returns once again to establish his kingdom.
Looking at these Old Testament prophecies, they say, is like looking at mountain ranges: the farther mountain ranges in one’s view appear to be right behind the closer ones. But we know there is a great distance separating them. Likewise, must we read all those Old Testament prophecies that speak of Christ coming and establishing his kingdom

Matthew’s Gap

In Matthew 23–24 Jesus weeps over Jerusalem (Matt 23:37), declares her temple desolate (Matt 23:38), then leaves the temple only to have the disciples come and remind him of its magnificence (Matt 24:1). To this Jesus responds: “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here shall be left upon another, which will not be torn down” (Matt 24:2). In surprise the disciples ask him: “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” (Matt 24:3).
Then beginning in Matthew 24:4 the Lord launches into his great eschatological discourse, known as the Olivet Discourse: “And Jesus answered and said unto them. . .”
You would think Matthew might record Jesus’s answer to their surprised question about the destruction of the temple that sparks the discourse. But in the dispensational view he does not. All classic dispensationalists say that Matthew’s record of Jesus’ response does not record the answer to their specific question — which involves issues that would dramatically affect them. Rather, Matthew only records the part of Jesus’ answer that refers to events 2000 or more years into the future. Hence, another infamous dispensationalist gap.
This time, though, it is not necessarily a gap in prophetic time, but a gap in the revelational record of Matthew. Jesus’ reply to his disciples’ questions — as recorded by Matthew (and Mark!) — totally skips over any answer to it and begins deliberating upon events that will not occur for thousands of years. But you must admit: this makes the dispensational system work admirably!

Conclusion

Dispensationalism is an unworkable system that is literally full of holes (i.e., gaps). To make their system function dispensationalists must lay the Scriptures on a Procrustean bed. Much like  Damastes (called Procrustes) of old, dispensationalists must either stretch or chop up things to make them fit their predetermined system. A Procrustean bed is an arbitrary standard to which exact conformity is forced; dispensationalism is a Procrustean bed, an arbitrary standard.
But now, my readers, what are some of your favorite dispensational gaps? Everyone knows Daniel 9; most are familiar with the mountain-valley theory of prophetic interpretation; some even know of Matthew’s gap. Dispensationalism, though, does not just apply to Daniel, or to Matthew, or even to the Old Testament in general. Dispensationalism’s gap theory applies throughout the biblical record. You must have a favorite make-it-work gap. Please let me know by replying to this blog
Perhaps we could start a collection of gaps and publish a multi-million selling book. I will split the profits with you — 2000 years after I receive them.