Originally published in "The Lord's Coming Herald & Wesleyan Bible Prophecy Advocate," Spring Edition 1998
Is The Terminal Generation Patiently Waiting For Christ?
I heard a man say one time: "If Jesus
doesn't hurry up and get here soon there won't be any Holiness church
left."
That classic statement reflects a mentality problem
rooted in the gestalt of Darbyism. I am talking about Hal Lindsey's "immediacy"
syndrome "terminal generation" mode of thinking. Such thinking St. Paul
condemned as doctrinal heresy at Thessalonica in A.D. 51.
The Thessalonian Christians were instructed to wait
PATIENTLY, not impatiently, for the second coming of Jesus Christ (II Thess.
3:5). Long ago St. Augustine penned it well: "He who loves our Lord's coming
is not he who asserts that it is near, or he who asserts that it is far off; but
rather he whom, whether it be near or distant, waits for Him with sincerity of
faith, steadfastness of hope, and fervor of charity."
If one thinks that the work of God is going to fall through
the cracks because Jesus does not get here today or tomorrow, then there is
something drastically wrong with one's understanding of New Testament
Christianity. Jesus is not so anxious to remove his Church from the world as Hal
Lindsey and his antinomian gang of Darbyite end-time Bible prophecy devotees suppose-if he was, he would have
done so a long time ago.
Instead of being anxious to remove His church from the world, God is working to save the whole world
in this present age by the power of the Cross, and he wants you and
me here to make it happen. It won't happen, however, until we get rid of the
terminal generation mentality syndrome-the dissonant dichotomies of Darbyism that are
destroying us---literally swallowing us up in cognitive dissonance over the
second coming of Jesus Christ--and rediscover the Wesleyan synthesis--a
synthesis between faith and reason, between law and gospel, between Jew and
Gentile, between the state and standing of the believer, between divine
knowledge and divine foreordination, and between the biblical doctrine of
imminence and the false teaching of immediacy, or any-momentness.
There are certain things that have to be
held in a dynamic tension or they will rip one apart. The any moment
("immediacy") rapture syndrome of Darbyism is an imbalance that both
attracts and repels. The devotionalism and emotionalism of the theory attracts. The
irrationalness and unscripturalness of it repels.
Why should one allow one's self to be psychologically torn
apart by a theory that the Bible does not really teach in the first place? Like
it or not, friends, Jesus is not
coming at any moment, He is coming at that set time in history that God
has ordained. Our imagining that the rapture could come "at any moment" does not
make it so, it only facilitates the creation in our own minds of structures that
are delusional.
What does the Bible itself really say? It says the rapture
will happen on the "last day" (Jn. 6:39-40, 44, 54) and at the "last trump"
sounding (I Cor. 15:51-52; Rev. 11:15-18).
Those expressions can never refer to an event 1,007 seven years before the end
of time.
That generation that thinks of itself as "terminal" may soon
get tired of patiently waiting for Christ's return, grow IMPATIENT, and take
matters into its own hands, as if to force its own imagined end-time game
plan upon the world by acts of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Historical factors are involved. Darbyites are blinded to what those
prophesied historical factors really are. Their FAULTY preconceptions propel them in
the wrong direction, where they will invariably self-destruct. The only valid
remedy is to give the entire system of false teaching up. Traditionalism, ignorance, pride, and
prejudice are the main issues that prevent most people from doing exactly that.
Related Article Links
On Avoiding Extremes Regarding The Second Coming Of Jesus Christ
When Is Jesus Coming Back Again?
Looking For That Blessed Hope